Organisational Behaviour (MNG82210)

Answer

Literature Review

Introduction

The quality of employee service and output across many sectors in the workforce is strongly based on their performance. Notably, it is extremely difficult even in an effective management system to achieve a high standard of organizational effectiveness with staffs performing only their routine duties. As such, most management systems seek some extra behavior commonly referred to as OCB in a bid to enhance organizational effectiveness. This implies that OCB is the extra effort by the workforce to meet the needs of the organization and in so doing achieve effectiveness and better performance. There more than consensus that organizations whose employees engage in extra effort perform better compared with those whose employees do not (Kazemipour & Mohd Amin 2012: 1040). Wang (2013: 116) holds that OCB is behavior that is not requested formally and can be functional to the firm’s operations. Wang (2013: 116) reinforces the premise that OCB have a positive effect on the success of the organization in terms of enhanced productivity, group coordination, resource utilization, selection and retention, and employee recruitment.

The Dimensions of Organizational Citizenship Behavior

The concept of citizenship behavior has been adopted to define supra-role behaviors with their associations being analyzed with job satisfaction. Such forms of behavior cannot be prescribed in advance to a certain job. Kazemipour and Mohd Amin (2012: 1040) postulate that, supra-role traits reinforce the firm’s social structure but have no direct effect on the task performance. According to     , OCB comprises of five dimensions namely conscientiousness, civic virtue, sportsmanship, courtesy, and altruism. Conscientiousness comprises of arbitrary traits that surpasses the minimum requirement while civic virtue represents an internal degree of appeal in the organization as a whole. Sportsmanship implies ant traits that exhibit tolerance of below standard situations without complaining while courtesy entails imitative to avoid work-related conflicts with others. Altruism comprises of traits that assist a specific other individual (Wang, 2013: 116).

The five dimensions of OCB identified above cover a variety of organizational behavior such as actively engaging in organizational affairs, not complaining, and following company rules. Recent studies on organizational behavior have revealed that different OCB dimensions have diverse antecedents. For instance, Kazemipour and Mohd Amin (2012: 1040) established that conscientiousness projected generalized compliance, civic virtue, and altruism as opposed to sportsmanship and courtesy. Consequently, Wang (2013: 116) discovered that moral reasoning projected sportsmanship and helping behaviors as opposed to civic virtue. Likewise, role conflict and role ambiguity possess negative correlation with courtesy, sportsmanship, and altruism as opposed to civic virtue and conscientiousness (Wang, 2013: 116). These findings suggest the need to perceive the five OCN dimensions as distinctive concepts although they are generally categorized under one category of OCB.

A study by Torlak (2007) involving 422 staffs and their supervisors across 58 departments of two banks aimed at delineating the nature of OCB. The findings of this study demonstrate that citizenship behavior comprises of at least two distinct dimensions generalized compliance and altruism. Altruism has to do with helping others while generalized compliance is a more impersonal type of conscientious citizenship. A measure of chronic mood state, job satisfaction, indicated a direct correlation with altruism and not generalized compliance (Smith et al., 1983: 653).

According to smith, Organ, and Near (1983: 659), OCB consist a dimension of individual and team functioning that is closely related to the concept of cooperation. OCB in this implies a function of the formal firm and the logic of facts while cooperation refers to traits that acted more of a maintenance purpose in order to sustain internal equilibrium (Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983: 658). As such, cooperation entails the daily spontaneous prosocial gestures for individual accommodation to the needs of other at work (Smith, Organ, and Near, 1983: 659). By and large, OCB are critical because they facilitate the smooth running of the firm’s social functioning. In other words, they offer the flexibility that is required to maneuver through many unpredictable contingencies. Consequently, as Torlak (2007) notes, they help employees to put up with outstanding context of interdependence on each other. Apparently, OCB are of special interest because it is not possible to account for them in the same motivation bases as those that intrigue people into joining, staying, and perform under contractual, enforceable role requirements.

                        Antecedents of Organizational Citizenship Behavior

There has been an increasingly high interest across the academic world on OCB over the recent past. One basic premise is that there is a positive correlation between OCB and organizational and individual performance. Paine and Organ (2000: 49) provide a detailed review of the empirical and theoretical literature for the antecedents of OCB. The analysis consists of over 200 studies undertaken between 1983 and 1999 to focus on four key categories of antecedents namely leadership behaviors, organizational characteristics, task characteristics, and employee characteristics (Torlak, 2007). Some of the dimensions of employee characteristics include employee role perceptions, employee abilities, individual differences, dispositional variables, demographic variables, and employee attitudes (smith, Organ, and Near, 1983: 659). Task characteristics comprise of elements like task routinization and task feedback while organizational characterization comprise of features such as staff support, organizational inflexibility, and organizational formalization. Leadership behaviors imply elements such as reward-punishment traits, supportive leadership traits, transformational leadership, and leader-member exchange (Wang, 2013: 116).

Much of what is considered OCB has been found to comprise an altruistic aspect. Mood state affects the possibility of prosocial signs. For instance, in case a positive mood is induced to an individual, they are likely to behave altruistically. On the other hand, if individuals are induced with a negative mood, then they are likely to exhibit a prosocial behavior (Lopez-Dominguez, 2013). Therefore, it would be right to argue that job satisfaction in the sense that it creates a positive mood is likely to account for some aspect of OCB. A study by Daly (2014), revealed that job satisfaction has an association with the level of OCB when independently rated by supervisors. However, the researchers also found that other environmental factors or individual characteristics such as neuroticism can influence satisfaction and citizenship behavior.

As smith, Organ, and Near (1983: 659) note, one environmental dimension that is likely to influence citizenship behaviors directly is leader supportiveness. This is because a great extent of supervisor consideration is citizen behavior in the sense that it qualifies as discretionary acts directed at helping others. As such, the supervisor acts to like a model. Psychological studies suggest that much of prosocial behavior is influenced by models because they provide cues for what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior (Lopez-Dominguez, 2013). Another argument is that leader supportiveness at some point intrigues a type of exchange that is noncontractual and social in nature (Ersoy et al., 2011). As such, the exchange is open to broader norms of reciprocity where followers may choose citizenship behavior as an avenue of repaying to supervisors.

Task interdependence is another environmental element that is likely to directly influence citizenship behavior. Notably, it has been identified that task groups that are marked by reciprocal interdependence are likely to exhibit more OCB than groups whereby interdependence is the rule. According to Lopez-Dominguez (2013), reciprocal interdependence in order to influence coordination calls for frequent circumstances of spontaneous mutual adjustment. This form of requirement to a great extent promotes social norms of helping, sensitivity, and coordination with others’ needs and in so doing brings to life a sense of social responsibility (Paine & Organ, 2000: 45). It also enhances higher levels of group cohesion. Owing to the assumption that cohesion enhances satisfaction, task interdependence can be considered a possible source of common variance in mood and citizenship behavior (Wang, 2013: 116).

A study by Ersoy et al. (2011) evaluated the association between the beliefs of employees concerning their social realm and their relational identification with their OCB and their supervisors. The study findings revealed a positive correlation between the relational identification with supervisors and the dimensions of OCB. The study reinforced the premise that relational identification with supervisors as a critical precursor of OCB. Among collectivist societies, helping behavior and other forms of social relationships are a valued aspect. A study by Lopez-Dominguez (2013), proposes a model that investigates the precursors of change-oriented OCB. The study emphasizes the need to establish each underlying components of the OCB construct. There are specific types of leadership that allows for initiating change-oriented OCB. The developmental leadership is suggested as the more effective in promoting change-oriented OCB (smith, Organ, and Near, 1983: 659). These results are very consistent with previously analyzed findings that established that mediating associations between affiliative and leadership.

Conclusion

Employees are a vital asset o the organization because they provide a unique capability that can create a strong competitive advantage. One type of competitive advantage offered by employees is OCB. OCB has been the centre of academic interest over the past years with much focus directed towards establishing its precursors, dimensions, and consequences. More importantly, OCB is known to affect the overall performance of the organization in several ways. As such, it is imperative to understand OCB as one type of behavior that can contribute to their competitive advantage.

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