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Abstract
Discretionary behaviors, such as counterproductive work behavior (CWB) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), directly refer to an organization’s normative expectations. As such, employees engaging in these behaviors violate or exceed organizational norms, respectively. An employee’s relationship quality with his or her supervisor [i.e., leader–member exchange (LMX)] has been found to be a prominent antecedent of employees’ workplace behavior. However, the actual mechanisms that link LMX and discretionary behaviors (i.e., CWB and OCB) are not yet well understood. Integrating social exchange as well as the social identity theory, we present an employee’s organizational identification (OI) as a mechanism that sheds light on why LMX leads to employees’ subsequent discretionary behavior. Across four empirical studies employing complementary study designs, we demonstrate that LMX is positively associated with OI, which, in turn, curbs CWB and fosters OCB. Specifically, this pattern of findings is consistent across (1) a cross-sectional study with 188 Swiss employees, (2) a time-lagged study with 502 Swiss employees, (3) an online recall experiment with 131 US participants, and (4) an online vignette experiment with 139 US participants. In sum, we present an integrative theoretical model and respective empirical support to shed light on OI as a pivotal mechanism that can explain why the relationship quality with one’s supervisor can simultaneously serve as a deterrent for CWB and foster OCB.
Highlights
In 2014, the largest retail pharmacy in the United States, CVS, faced 29 million USD in fines for losing track of painkillers, suggesting that CVS employees stole prescription drugs (Lazarus, 2014)
We draw from the social identity approach (e.g., Tajfel and Turner, 1986; Turner et al, 1987; Haslam, 2004) to argue that the extent to which employees identify with their organization [organizational identification (OI)] accounts for the effects of leader–member exchange (LMX) on discretionary workplace behavior, such as counterproductive work behavior (CWB) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)
We extend the literature regarding the effects of LMX by having theoretically proposed and empirically illustrated OI as an intervening mechanism that transmits the effects of LMX regarding discretionary behaviors, namely, CWB and OCB
Summary
In 2014, the largest retail pharmacy in the United States, CVS, faced 29 million USD in fines for losing track of painkillers, suggesting that CVS employees stole prescription drugs (Lazarus, 2014). Employees tend to generalize the relationship quality with their supervisor to the organization (e.g., Gerstner and Day, 1997; Zhang and Chen, 2013; Eisenberger et al, 2019), that is, the better the relationship with their supervisors, the more connected employees feel with their employer They should be more inclined to define themselves in terms of the organization (e.g., Carmeli et al, 2011; Loi et al, 2014; Zhao et al, 2019) and, in turn, act in the organization’s best interest by refraining from CWB and engaging in OCB (e.g., Riketta, 2005; Riketta and Van Dick, 2005; Lee et al, 2015). We present four complementary study designs to test our theoretical model in a robust and triangulating fashion [for methodological in-depth discussions, see Turner et al (2017), Aguinis et al (2019), and Podsakoff and Podsakoff (2019)]—in doing so, we offer a consistent empirical support for our theoretical model among employees from Switzerland and the United States in two field studies (studies 1 and 2) as well as in two online experiments (studies 3 and 4; Figure 1)
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