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Justice, citizenship, and role definition effects.
B J Tepper1, D Lockhart, J Hoobler
1School of Management, Gatton College of Business and Economics, University of Kentucky, USA. bjtepper@email.uncc.edu
The Journal of Applied Psychology
|August 25, 2001
Summary
Some employees consider organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) part of their job. This study shows how employees’ role definitions moderate the link between procedural justice and OCB, impacting workplace citizenship.
Area of Science:
- Organizational Behavior
- Industrial-Organizational Psychology
Background:
- Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) literature faces a limitation where some employees perceive OCBs as integral to their job roles, rather than discretionary.
- Existing theories suggest employee attitudes influence OCB, but the role of how employees define these behaviors (in-role vs. extra-role) needs further exploration.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test a theoretical framework addressing how employees’ definitions of OCBs influence the relationship between attitudes and citizenship behaviors.
- To investigate the proposed role enlargement and role discretion effects on organizational citizenship behavior.
Main Methods:
- The study utilized two independent samples of supervisor-subordinate dyads to test the theoretical framework.
- Statistical analyses were employed to examine the moderating effects of role definitions on the relationships between procedural justice and OCB.
Main Results:
- Role definitions were found to significantly moderate several relationships between procedural justice and organizational citizenship behavior.
- Evidence supported the role discretion effect, indicating that the attitude-citizenship relationship is stronger when employees define OCBs as extra-role behaviors.
Conclusions:
- Employee perceptions of OCBs as either in-role or extra-role behaviors play a crucial role in shaping their citizenship.
- Findings offer valuable insights for organizational citizenship behavior theory and research, emphasizing the importance of considering employees' subjective role definitions.