Abstract
Employees can affect the sustainability of organizations, yet the different effects of employee organizational citizenship behavior motives on employee thriving at work, as elements of organization sustainability, are not clear. Based on self-determination theory and conservation of resource theory, this study examined whether organizational concern motives and impression management motives behind employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors are differently associated with their citizenship fatigue and their subsequent thriving at work, and whether task performance moderates these relationships. Results from a multi-wave and multisource study using a sample of 349 employees show that organizational concern motives had a positive indirect effect on thriving at work through reducing employees’ citizenship fatigue, while impression management motives will undermine thriving at work through inducing citizenship fatigue. This study further found that task performance strengthened the positive relationship between impression management motives and citizenship fatigue. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Highlights
A sustainable organization is viewed as an organization where employees are actively involved in a sustainable process of learning and change
By integrating self-determination theory [30] with conservation of resource (COR) theory [31], this study identifies the different effects of organizational concern (OC) motives and impression management (IM) motives on citizenship fatigue, which respond to the call to investigate the neutral and dark aspects of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) [32]
As self-determination theory suggests that the satisfaction of basic needs depends on the extent to which contextual factors support individuals’ basic needs satisfaction [30], this study further proposes that the effects of OCB motives on citizenship fatigue may be moderated by task performance
Summary
A sustainable organization is viewed as an organization where employees are actively involved in a sustainable process of learning and change. Thriving employees are usually actively and sustainably learning and growing, and at the same time, they are more likely to engage in extra-role duties and contribute to the organization. Some studies have found that employees who are thriving at work engage in more organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) [6,7]. Enacting OCB may consume individual resources, make the actor feel drained [8], and create excessive work stress [9]. This raises an interesting and important question: How will employees’ psychological state of thriving change after they enact OCB? This raises an interesting and important question: How will employees’ psychological state of thriving change after they enact OCB? The impact of employee OCB on employee thriving at work, which is not clear, can affect employee career development and organization sustainability
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