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The Collective Trust Game: An Online Group Adaptation of the Trust Game Based on the HoneyComb Paradigm
Published on: October 20, 2022
Individualism/collectivism and organizational citizenship behavior
María Celeste Dávila de León1, Marcia A Finkelstein
1Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. mcdavila@cps.ucm.es
Collectivism positively influences organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) by fostering prosocial motives and a strong organizational identity. Individualism, however, can predict impression management motives and weaken helping role identity in employees.
Area of Science:
- Organizational Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Human Resource Management
Background:
- Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) are crucial for organizational effectiveness, extending beyond formal job duties.
- Understanding the dispositional factors influencing OCB is essential for talent management.
- Individualism and collectivism are key cultural dimensions that may shape employee behavior.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the predictive roles of individualism and collectivism on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB).
- To examine how these traits influence OCB through motives and organizational citizen role identity.
Main Methods:
- Survey data collected from 367 employees across 24 organizations.
- Measures included individualism/collectivism, OCB motives, organizational citizen role identity, and OCB levels.
Main Results:
- Collectivism significantly predicted organizational concern and prosocial values motives, strengthening organizational role identity and OCB.
- Individualism predicted impression management motives and negatively predicted a helping role identity.
Conclusions:
- Dispositional collectivism is a key driver of OCB, mediated by prosocial values and identity.
- Individualism's impact on OCB is more complex, potentially linked to self-presentation rather than genuine contribution.
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