Death Awareness and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a theoretical model that explains how two components of death awareness (i.e., death anxiety and death reflection) influence organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). We draw from terror-management theory (TMT) and post-traumatic growth (PTG) theory to argue prosocial motivation as an underlying mechanism for this relationship. We supplement this model by examining organizational identification (OI) as a potential moderator of the indirect relationship proposed. Data were collected from 241 employees at 3 time points over the course of 3 months. Our findings support the mediating role of prosocial motivation. Specifically, the more emotional death anxiety was negatively related to prosocial motivation, whereas the more cognitive death reflection was positively related to prosocial motivation. In turn, prosocial motivation was positively related to OCB. Interestingly, lower levels of OI were found to strengthen the indirect effect of death anxiety, but not death reflection, on OCB through prosocial motivation. These results highlight the conceptual differences between death anxiety and death reflection that have yet to be explored in the organizational literature. Further, these findings provide evidence for the relevance of assessing death awareness in the workplace.