STUDY OF DIMENSIONS AND CONSEQUENCES OF ORGANISATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOUR
Dr. Priyanka Agarwal
Assistant Professor, Amity University Noida, (India)
ABSTRACT
Organisational citizenship Behaviour refers to the voluntary behaviour/s exhibited by the employees while in the organization, as good citizens of the organization. It is a term that encompasses anything positive and constructive that employees do, of their own volition, which supports co-workers and benefits the company.
Organizations benefit from encouraging employees to engage in OCB, because it has been shown to increase productivity, efficiency and customer satisfaction, and reduce costs and rates of turnover and absenteeism (Podsakoff, Whiting, Podsakoff & Blume, 2009). This paper is an attempt to understand the meaning, dimensions and consequences of OCB. There is a detailed discussion on the five dimensions of OCB given by Organ (1988).
Keywords : Organizational Citizenship Behaviour, Extra Role Behaviour, Altruism, Conscientiousness, Sportsmanship, Courtesy, Civic Virtue
I. INTRODUCTION
The meaning of organizational citizenship behaviours Sangmook defined organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) are viewed widely as contributing to an organization‟s overall effectiveness (Chermack, Lynham, van der, 2006. During the stay of an employee in the organization, there are certain behaviours which are expected from him and are abiding on him by the rules and regulations of the organization. However employees at times exhibit certain behaviours that go beyond the call of the duty. Such behaviour is called Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB). OCB is also known as extra role behaviour. It is the behaviour over and above the normal course of duty and beyond the arena of legislations/ rules/ regulations. The concept of OCB was initially proposed and studied in the US (Organ, 1988; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, & Fetter,1990; Smith et al., 1983). Organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) refers to behavior that is not formally requested or directly rewarded but can be functional to the operations of an organization (Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983).
Examples of employee OCB include: accepting extra responsibilities and duties at work, working overtime when needed, and helping subordinates with their work (Masterson, Lewis, Goldman and Taylor, 1996; Organ, 1988). Subordinates with high level of OCB are more likely to be committed to the organization (William and Anderson, 1991; Smith, Organ and Near, 1983).
Organisational citizenship behavior (OCB) has garnered much academic attention since its conception. It is perceived to be something intangible; OCB is not always formally recognized or rewarded, and concepts like
„helpfulness‟ or „friendliness‟ are also difficult to quantify. Yet OCB has been shown to have a considerable
positive impact at the organizational level, enhancing organisational effectiveness from 18 to 38% across different dimensions of measurement (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine & Bachrach, 2000; Ehrhart, 2004).
II. OBJECTIVE
1. To study the dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior.
2. To study the positive consequences of organizational citizenship behavior.
III. METHODOLOGY
Design / Methodology: The paper adopts the method of in-depth literature survey to examine the literature and rationalizes the dimensions and consequences of organizational citizenship behavior.
IV. DİMENSİONS OF OCB
Organ(1988): Altruism ,Conscientiousness ,Sportsmanship, Courtesy, Civic Virtue
Lin(1991) Identification with the organization, Assistance to colleagues, Harmony, Righteous Discipline ,Self –improvement
Williams & Anderson(1991) Individual –directed OCB (OCBI) ,Organization –directed OCB (OCBO)
Van Dyne, Graham & Dienesh (1994) Obedience ,Loyalty, Participation
Farth,Earley & Lin (1997) Identification with the company, Altruism toward colleagues ,Conscientiousness, Interpersonal Harmony ,Protecting Company resources
Podsakoff et al. (2000) Helping behavior, Sportsmanship ,Organizational loyalty, Organizational compliance, Individual initiative ,Civic virtue, Self-development
Williams and Anderson classified OCB into two groups as OCB-Organizational and OCB-Individual (Williams and Anderson, 1991: 601-617): OCB-Organizational benefits the organization in general such as adhering to informal rules devised to maintain order. OCB-Individual benefits specific individuals and indirectly contributes the organization such as taking a personnel interest in other employees.
Podsakoff et al. identified almost 30 different forms of behaviors in examination of the literature and classified them into seven common dimensions (Podsakoff et al, 2000: 513-563): Helping behavior, sportsmanship, organizational loyalty, organizational compliance, individual initiative, civic virtue and self development.
Organ (1988) identified five major types (dimensions) of OCB; Altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy, civic virtue (Podsakoff et al, 1990: 107-142):
-Altruism can be called simply helping or helpfulness (Organ, 1997: 85-97). Altruism consists of voluntarily actions that help others with an organizationally relevant task such as voluntarily helping orientation of a new employee, sharing sales strategies, teaching employees useful knowledge or skills, showing employees how to
(MacKenzie et al, 1993, 57: 107-142). More conscientiousness for an employee means more responsibility and less supervision (Podsakoff and MacKenzie, 1997: 133-151).
-Sportsmanship is demonstrations of willingness to tolerate minor and temporary personnel inconveniences and impositions of work without grievances, complaints, appeals, accusations, or protest, thus conserving organizational energies for task accomplishment and lightening the loads of managers (Organ and Ryan, 1995:
775-802; Organ, 1990: 43-72).
-Courtesy or gestures are demonstrated in the interest of preventing creations of problems for co-workers (Organ, 1997: 85-97). A courteous employee avoiding creating problems for co-workers reduces intergroup conflict so managers do not fall into a pattern of crisis management (Podsakoff and MacKenzie, 1997: 133-151).
-Civic virtue is a behavior on the part of an individual that indicates that employee responsibly participate in, is involved in, or concerned about the life of the company (Podsakoff et al, 1990, 1(2): 107-142). This behavior shows willingness to participate actively in managerial events, to monitor organization‟s environment for threats and opportunities, to look out for organization‟s best interest. These behaviors reflect an employee‟s recognition of being a part organization (Podsakoff et al, 2000: 513-563).
V. CONSEQUENCES OF OCB
Employee Retention : Employee retention has the attention of top-level managers in today‟s organizations because the personal and organizational costs of leaving a job are very high (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski,
& Erez, 2001). Employees with altruism behavior help each other in the organization which leads to healthy interpersonal relationship which results in a healthy work environment and positive work climate.
Sportsmanship and courtesy also creates a positive working environment where employees rarely complain and reduce work related conflicts of other employees.
Job Satisfaction : Job satisfaction measures how happy employees are with their job and working environment.
Dimensions of OCB like altruism and conscientiousness may improve satisfaction of employees working in the organization. When experienced employees exhibit altruism in their behavior to help the less experienced employees, it will enhance the performance of less experienced employees whereas employees with conscientious behavior require less supervision and allow the manager to delegate more responsibility to them (Meyer et al., 1997; Podsakoff & Mackenzie, 1997). Due to altruism and courtesy positive interpersonal relationship will be developed among employees and they will remain satisfied in the organization.
Absenteeism: Various studies carried out by Chughtai and Zafar (2006), Khalid and Ali (2005), Meyer and colleagues (1997), and Podsakoff and Mackenzie (1997) supported that increased level of OCB leads to reduced absenteeism. Van Scooter and colleagues (1994,1996) stated OCB shows an employee‟s eagerness to be actively involved in the organization and to interact with other members. Employees having high propensity in OCB dimensions like conscientiousness and civic virtue are quite interested for the development and existence of the organization and avoid unnecessary absence.
VI. SCOPE FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
As this is a review paper, empirical study on this topic can be conducted in future. Future researchers can also incorporate some other variables such as consequences of OCB like increased employee commitment, job satisfaction, performance, organizational effectiveness. Variables like age, experience or GENDER variables can be taken to study relationship between OCB and its consequences.
VII. CONCLUSION
OCB has been an area of interest of researchers for many years. Managers should give adequate importance to OCB because it is accepted as an indispensible condition for increased organizational performance and effectiveness (Barnard, 1938; Katz and Kahn, 1978; Organ, 1990). OCB has got many positive influences on the organization like increasing satisfaction of employees, increasing retention etc. In this paper some positive aspects of OCB have been highlighted which gives knowledge to practitioners about the application of OCB in the organization. The paper will also help researcher to carry out empirical studies on OCB and its related outcome variables. This will further facilitate the understanding of employees extra role behaviour in organizational analysis.
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