Affective organizational commitment and citizenship behavior: Linear and non-linear moderating effects of organizational tenure

Abstract

Utilizing a meta-analytical approach for testing moderating effects, the current study investigated organizational tenure as a moderator in the relation between affective organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). We observed that, across 40 studies ( N = 11,416 respondents), the effect size for the relation between affective organizational commitment and non-self measures of OCB was .23. However, we also found that organizational tenure moderated the relation in a non-linear way. Before 10 years of tenure, the strength of the commitment–OCB relation increased as organizational tenure increased; after that point, the strength of the commitment–OCB relation decreased as organizational tenure increased. In short, the moderating effect of tenure follows a curvilinear pattern.