by Dr Deirdre O’Donovan, Lecturer in HRM and MA HRM Course Coordinator, Cork Institute of Technology.
This the third in a series of posts follows on from an explanation of Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB), and explores what instances of OCBs may look like in modern organisations.
First, as discussed in earlier posts, OCBs are voluntary, supra-role behaviours, meaning they are activities that employees engage in in the workplace that they do not have to. These behaviours are not part of an employee’s job description, but, as will be discussed in a later post, may become expected by the organisation. As OCB refers to behaviours that extend beyond an employee’s actual job, the term OCB can be considered an umbrella term that covers a wide variety of behaviour. Ultimately, it is a multi-dimensional construct.
A number of these multi-dimensional constructs, as they relate to organisations, have been proposed in the past. Philip Podsakoff and colleagues ¹ , however, in 2000, published a paper in which, having researched 30 potential types of OCBs, they identified seven common dimensions, specifically:
1. Helping Behaviour
2. Sportsmanship
3. Organizational Loyalty
4. Organizational Compliance
5. Individual Initiative
6. Civic Virtue
7. Self-Development
¹For more, see Podsakoff, P.M, MacKenzie, S.B, Paine, J.B, Bachrach, D.G. (2000), “Organizational Citizenship Behaviours: A Critical Review of the theoretical and Empirical Literature and Suggestions for Future Research”, Journal of Management, 26(3), 513-563.
Each of these dimensions are umbrella terms themselves, which relate to different types of OCBs that employees may undertake in organisations. In isolation, an activity under any of these umbrella term dimensions may not appear to carry much significance for an organisations, but, consider a scenario where perhaps 50% of employees are undertaking activities that they don’t have to, while still carrying out the tasks they are being paid for.
Helping Behaviours are those which relate to voluntarily helping others in the organisation with work-related problems, or helping them to avoid these problems. These behaviours may include passing on important information that the individual realises would make things easier for a colleague, delivering some ad-hoc, informal, on-the-job training, or engaging in coachable moments.
Sportsmanship concerns a willingness to accept work-related inconveniences without complaint. Good sports maintain positivity when things don’t go their way, when other employees don’t take their suggestions on board, and do not take rejection of their ideas personally. In a practical, day-to-day context, this dimension can see employees working late, starting early, or making suggestions in meetings, without withdrawing from making suggestions if previous ideas are not acted upon. This, in turn, can help to develop and maintain a wider positive and participative organisational culture in which employees make suggestions regarding problem solving or opportunity capitalisation without becoming negative if they are not always heeded. It could also mean that, when coming up to project deadlines or year-end etc., employees will cover the extra workload, negating the need to engage temporary staff.
Organisational Loyalty refers to promoting the organisation to outsiders, perhaps by talking positively about employment, or making others aware of job opportunities in the organisations. The dimension also takes the form of protecting the organisation from threats in the organisational environment, which may be as simple of making managers aware of potential issues identified by the employee, for example, a competitor opening a unit nearby. Individuals who are displaying loyalty behaviours also stay committed to the organisation when it is operating under adverse conditions. In recent times, this may have taken the form of employees staying with an organisation even in the face of recession-induced pay freezes or pay cuts.
The Organisational Compliance dimension covers behaviours such as accepting rules, regulations and procedures, and adhering to them, even when adherence is not monitored or observed. While all employees are expected to adhere to rules and regulations, the reality is that, especially if unmonitored, some do not, meaning that those who always do are considered to be displaying good citizenship. This dimension is not advocating a lack of flexibility on the part of employees, however. Instead, it covers behaviours such as, for example, not taking extra-long breaks or leaving early because there is no manager present, or trying to adhere to procedure in customer service roles.
The Individual Initiative dimension of OCB is categorised as supra-role behaviour as while it involves engaging in behaviours that are task-related, it is at a level that is so far beyond what is expected or required that it begins to take on voluntary characteristics. This may include, for example, a nurse noticing that a patient is not eating and so going out of their way to source food that the patient enjoys. Another example would be a hotel employee hearing a guest comment on flowers at reception, and having some sent to the guest’s room.
Employees displaying Civic Virtue behaviours possess a macro-level interest in, or commitment to the organization. Such commitment is indicated in a number of ways. First, it can be seen in an employee’s willingness to actively participate in the organizations governance, perhaps by joining committees or affinity groups. Employees displaying civic virtue behaviours may also monitor the organizations environment for both threats and opportunities, and look out for the organizations best interests, even if at personal cost. Looking after the organisations interests may be seen in employees making decisions that may render them or their department no longer relevant to the organisation, for example, suggesting outsourcing of their function. Civic virtue also reflects an employee’s recognition of being one part of a larger whole, essentially meaning the employee behaves as a “team player”.
The final dimension of behaviours, Self-Development, refers simply to employees voluntarily improving their knowledge, skills and abilities. This may see an employee seeking training in an area relevant to their particular job, or engaging in training to improve a skill-set not directly related to their position.
The purpose of this post was to give an overall flavour of the types of behaviours employees engaging in OCBs may undertake. In truth, developing a list of OCBs would be a truly mammoth task, as behaviours can range from answering the phone in an office, to going on a voluntary training course in First Aid, to sitting on an organisational steering committee. Regardless of the supra-role behaviour engaged in, OCBs are potentially driven by a number of antecedents, and present a number of positives and challenges, all of which will be discussed in future posts.
About the author
Dr Deirdre O’Donovan is currently a lecturer in Human Resource Management in Cork Institute of Technology, Cork, Ireland, and the course coordinator for the MA in HRM. Previous research focussed on National Culture and Performance Management, while her current research interests are primarily rooted in Industrial/Organisational Psychology, Inclusion and HRM.
LinkedIn: Deirdre-O-Donovan-phd
Email: [email protected]
