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Voice is a risky and more challenging type of organizational citizenship behavior in that it is designed to bring about change. Using conservation of resources and social exchange theories, we investigate relationships between voice, perceptions of organizational politics, and perceived organizational support (POS). We also investigate the mediating role of POS in the politics–voice relationship to determine the extent to which POS can explain this relationship. Lagged survey data from supervisor–employee dyads ( N = 257) were collected 6 weeks apart. Results show that perceptions of organizational politics were negatively related to voice, while POS was positively related to voice. POS had a mediating effect on the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and voice. Our results underscore the importance of contextual factors in encouraging or prohibiting voice and may help managers and organizations understand how best to encourage this important change-oriented workplace behavior.

Previous research indicates that perceived organizational support (POS) elicits felt obligation on the part of employees who, in turn, reciprocate by helping the organization through the performance of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). However, because gender roles dictate that women should be more helpful than men, women may feel more obligated to engage in OCB even when they experience relatively low levels of POS, whereas men may perform OCB only when they experience relatively high levels of POS. In this article, we use social role theory to predict that the relationship between POS and 3 types of OCB will be stronger for men than for women. Our results, using 4 samples of employee-supervisor dyads, support this prediction. Further, in 2 of those samples, we also investigate the possibility that gender moderates the positive POS-felt obligation relationship and the indirect effect of POS on OCB via felt obligation. Taken together, we find evidence of first-stage moderated-mediation. Specifically, the relationship between POS and felt obligation is moderated by gender, such that this relationship is stronger for men than for women (who feel more obligation, even at relatively low levels of POS). Felt obligation mediated the POS-OCB relationship, but only for men. Our findings suggest that men are more likely than women to need POS to feel obligated to make reciprocal organizational exchanges. Implications and future research directions are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been shown to be important for organizational effectiveness, yet less is known about the relationship between OCB and objective outcomes for individuals. We investigate the relationship between OCB and both short-term and longer term outcomes within the context of an outcome-based reward system. We also investigate a type of OCB specific to professional occupations, namely, professional service OCB. Using resource allocation and social exchange theories, we hypothesize that OCB directed internally to the employing organization may have a negative impact on individuals’ productivity and career outcomes while engaging in professional service OCB would be positively related to these outcomes. Results from a survey of 622 faculty members in research universities provide support for these hypotheses. Future research directions are discussed. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

It is now widely acknowledged that society is in the midst of a loneliness epidemic. At the same time, our social landscape is increasingly complex, uncertain, and difficult to navigate. In this pa...

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a model relating proactive personality to job behaviors (task and citizenship behaviors) through the intervening mediator of perceived role breadth. Survey data were obtained from 530 faculty members in 69 U. S. research universities. Proactive personality was positively related to task behavior and OCB. Perceived role breadth mediated the relationship between proactive personality and OCB, but did not mediate the relationship between proactive personality and task behavior. Despite not viewing their role more broadly, individuals higher in proactive personality engaged more frequently in both task behavior and OCB; and also worked more hours per week. Having a better understanding of proactive individuals is important in terms of managing them. Because these individuals tend to do more in their jobs and subsequently work more hours, they may be more susceptible to burnout and may require additional help in determining priorities and balancing their work and lives. This is the first study to show that proactive personality is positively related to the frequency with which these individuals engage in task and citizenship behavior. Although role breadth is generally an antecedent of such job behaviors, individuals higher in proactive personality engage more frequently in task behaviors regardless of whether or not they perceive them as part of their role. This is one of the first studies to show that working more hours each week is a potential cost of having a proactive personality.

A small but growing body of research on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and objective career outcomes highlights the need for more consistency across studies. This chapter critically examines extant literature and highlights key issues in current research. More specifically, we identify three main issues in the current literature. First, many OCB studies do not include a corollary measure of task behavior. Second, there seems to be an assumption that performance evaluations are positively related to objective career outcomes. Third, it is important to acknowledge that studying reward recommendations is not the same as studying actual rewards. Following discussion of these three issues, we then review the studies on OCB and various objective career outcomes (i.e., productivity, salary and financial rewards, other rewards, promotion and career advancement); point out patterns and trends across the studies; and make recommendations for how the field can move forward in terms of future research directions.

Existing research suggests that relationships among organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), task performance, and individual career outcomes are necessarily positive. The authors question this assumption and hypothesize that in organizations with outcome-based control systems, time spent on OCB comes at a cost to task performance. Building on this idea, the authors propose not only that time spent on task performance is more important than time spent on OCB in determining career outcomes (i.e., performance evaluation, salary increase, advancement speed, promotion) in an outcome-based control system but also that time spent on OCB may negatively impact career outcomes. Results based on archival data from 3,680 employees in a professional services firm lend some support for these ideas. Specifically, time spent on task performance was more important than OCB in determining all four career outcomes. Further, controlling for time spent on task performance, employees who spent more time on OCB had lower salary increases and advanced more slowly than employees who spent less time on OCB. These findings suggest that relationships between OCB and outcomes are more complex than originally thought and that boundary conditions may apply to conclusions drawn about the outcomes of OCB.

Using a resource allocation framework, I propose that the time individuals allocate to organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) may come at the expense of task performance. Because most reward systems favor task performance, individuals may unintentionally hurt their careers by helping the organization. The question then becomes how individuals can engage in OCB and still have positive career outcomes. I explore a number of organizational, situational, and individual variables that may moderate this relationship and suggest implications and future research directions.

We propose a model of faculty success in research universities. We explain how key processes (i.e., access to networks, resources and research time) determine career outcomes. Further, we explicate...

Individual job performance is composed of task behavior and organizational citizenship behavior. Past research on organizational citizenship behavior takes the perspective that citizenship behavior...

Perhaps the most commonly used tenet of social exchange theory is the norm of reciprocity, the universal norm that favors should be returned. In the context of feeling supported by the organization...

From workplace violence to lay-offs, people experience a variety of traumatic experiences at work. While there is clear evidence that employees suffer from these events, there is reason to believe that employees may also benefit from these travails. Borrowing from theoretical and empirical work in psychology, we use organismic valuing theory as a framework in which to understand employee growth after workplace traumas. Using the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory as a starting point, we undertook both qualitative and quantitative methods to develop a workplace-based measure of posttraumatic growth. This measure, the Workplace Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, consists of 17 dimensions of growth at work (8 confirming similar dimensions as the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory and 9 newly-identified dimensions of workplace posttraumatic growth). We discuss next steps in terms of refining the measure and its use in answering substantive future research questions.

The relationship between gender and job performance is a sensitive but important topic. Academia is an excellent context to investigate this relationship, as a) it provides objective performance da...

Viewed from the perspective of social exchange theory, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is a form of workplace exchange which can result in many career benefits. An underlying assumption of social exchange theory is that exchanges are balanced in the form of an equivalent quid pro quo exchange, which implies that parties benefit equally from the exchanges. Therefore, it seems that individuals who invest in OCB should receive the same returns on their OCB investment. From a social role perspective, however, women may get lower returns on their investment than men because more OCB is expected of them and because they are punished for not meeting OCB expectations. As such, women face more risk than men in entering into these social exchanges which can make OCB more costly for women in terms of time and opportunity costs, which may result in lower objective career outcomes. However, due to women’s relational orientation, they may actually receive higher returns on OCB in terms of subjective career ou...

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been shown to be important for organizational effectiveness, yet little is known about its stability over time. Most OCB research is cross-sectional wi...