Does it matter where you're helpful? Organizational citizenship behavior from work and home.

Abstract

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) are commonly studied in the organizational and occupational health literature, yet, current OCB measures inherently assume individuals are performing these behaviors while physically at work. However, recent technological advances have afforded employees greater flexibility to engage in work-related behaviors at home, begging the question of whether OCBs are also being performed from home and their distinction from traditional OCBs. We provide evidence that OCBs performed while physically at work (OCB-W; i.e., traditional OCBs) are conceptually and empirically distinct from OCBs performed while physically at home (OCB-H). In Study 1 (N = 292), we examine construct validity evidence for OCB-H with regard to its distinction from OCB-W and its unique nomological network. In Study 2, we further examine the distinction between OCB-H and OCB-W at the between- and within-person level using an experience sampling approach in a sample of 162 workers. Using results from multilevel confirmatory factor analysis, we show that between-person variance in OCB-H is considerably higher than for OCB-W, and that although OCB-H and OCB-W are strongly correlated at the between-person level, they are independent of one another at the within-person level. We also examine these two forms of OCB as parallel mediators of the relation between work engagement and work interfering with family. Results suggest OCB-H and OCB-W are indeed distinct in the strength of their relationships to work engagement and work interfering with family at between- and within-person levels. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).