Citizenship Pressure as a Predictor of Daily Enactment of Autonomous and Controlled Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Differential Spillover Effects on the Home Domain.

Lynn Germeys,Sara De Gieter,Yannick Griep

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00395

Abstract

This study questions the exclusive discretionary nature of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) by differentiating between autonomous OCB (performed spontaneously) and controlled OCB (performed in response to a request from others). We examined whether citizenship pressure evokes the performance of autonomous and controlled OCB, and whether both OCB types have different effects on employees’ experience of work-home conflict and work-home enrichment at the within- and between-person level of analysis. A total of 87 employees completed two questionnaires per day during ten consecutive workdays (715 observations). The results of the multilevel path analyses revealed a positive relationship between citizenship pressure and controlled OCB. At the within-person level, engaging in autonomous OCB resulted in an increase of experienced work-home conflict and work-home enrichment. At the between-person level, enactment of autonomous OCB predicted an increase in experienced work-home enrichment, whereas engaging in controlled OCB resulted in increased work-home conflict. The divergent spillover effects of autonomous and controlled OCB on the home domain provide empirical support for the autonomous versus controlled OCB differentiation. The time-dependent results open up areas for future research.

Highlights

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) are discretionary extra-role behaviors that go beyond an employee’s contractual job and role prescription
We found no support for the mediating role of autonomous organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) on the relation between citizenship pressure and work-home enrichment (β = 0.01, ns.; Hypothesis 5)
We found partial support for the Self-determination theory (SDT) (Deci and Ryan, 1985) rationale that an external controlling work environment—in our study characterized by high citizenship pressure—would undermine the enactment of intrinsically regulated behavior, whereas it would stimulate the enactment of extrinsically regulated behavior

Summary

Introduction

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) are discretionary extra-role behaviors that go beyond an employee’s contractual job and role prescription (e.g., performing additional work tasks to help a colleague; Organ, 1988). The perceived locus of causality to engage in a behavior (i.e., perceived reason for action; Deci and Ryan, 1985; Gagné and Deci, 2005) is conditional upon the extent to which one feels that one initiated the behavior oneself (i.e., internal) or acted in response to external factors beyond one’s control (i.e., external) In line with this differentiation, helping a colleague who’s struggling with heavy workloads for the inherently satisfying feeling would be categorized as autonomous OCB, whereas enacting the same behavior in order to satisfy the colleague’s request for help would be conceptualized as controlled OCB

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion