Integrating victim precipitation theory with the belongingness perspective of work meaningfulness, this study investigates the interplay among employee perceived overqualification, peer ...overqualification, and peer ostracism and examines how peer ostracism, in turn, leads to subsequent reduced work meaningfulness. In Study 1, a time-lagged field study of 282 employees, we found that employees who felt overqualified, while working with peers who were less overqualified, experienced more ostracism, which was associated with reduced levels of work meaningfulness. These findings were replicated in Study 2, using time-lagged multi-source data collected from 300 employees working in 51 teams. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and identify directions for future research.
This study seeks to identify workplace conditions that influence the degree to which employees feel worn out, tired, or on edge attributed to engaging in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and ...also how this phenomenon, which we refer to as citizenship fatigue, is associated with future occurrences of OCB. Using data collected from 273 employees and their peers at multiple points in time, we found that the relationship between OCB and citizenship fatigue depends on levels of perceived organizational support, quality of team-member exchange relationships, and pressure to engage in OCB. Specifically, the relationship between OCB and citizenship fatigue is significantly stronger and positive when perceived organizational support is low, and it is significantly stronger and negative when the quality of team-member exchange is high and pressure to engage in OCB is low. Our results also indicate that citizenship fatigue is negatively related to subsequent acts of OCB. Finally, supplemental analyses reveal that the relationship between OCB and citizenship fatigue may vary as a function of the specific facet of OCB. We conclude with a discussion of the key theoretical and practical implications of our findings.
In recent years, there has been increasing interest in positive organizational scholarship in general, including positive organizational behavior (POB) in particular. This work identifies ...organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) as a prototypical POB. Conceptualizing OCBs in this way is sensible in light of more than 30 years of research highlighting the desirable aspects of such behavior. At the same time, some researchers have raised questions about positive organizational scholarship and have called for a more balanced view of ostensibly positive behaviors. The purpose of this paper, then, is to take a more nuanced view of OCBs while highlighting the dark side of citizenship behavior. In doing so, we review conceptual and empirical work that has challenged the idea that OCBs are inherently positive. We also discuss research that seeks to develop a deeper understanding of the conditions under which OCB does more harm than good. Finally, important areas for future research and the practical realities facing scholars who seek to publish research investigating the dark side of citizenship are addressed as well.
By and large, prior research has focused on the positive aspects of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB).
D. W. Organ and K. Ryan (1995)
, though, suggest that individuals who engage in high ...levels of OCB may become overloaded. This research explores the relationship between a specific type of OCB-namely, individual initiative-and role overload, job stress, and work-family conflict. Results from a sample of 98 couples indicate that higher levels of individual initiative (as assessed by the spouse or significant other) are associated with higher levels of employee role overload, job stress, and work-family conflict. The findings also suggest that the relationship between individual initiative and work-family conflict is moderated by gender, such that the relationship is stronger among women than among men. Some implications of this work and directions for future research are discussed as well.
Previous research indicates that perceived organizational support (POS) elicits felt obligation on the part of employees who, in turn, reciprocate by helping the organization through the performance ...of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). However, because gender roles dictate that women should be more helpful than men, women may feel more obligated to engage in OCB even when they experience relatively low levels of POS, whereas men may perform OCB only when they experience relatively high levels of POS. In this article, we use social role theory to predict that the relationship between POS and 3 types of OCB will be stronger for men than for women. Our results, using 4 samples of employee-supervisor dyads, support this prediction. Further, in 2 of those samples, we also investigate the possibility that gender moderates the positive POS-felt obligation relationship and the indirect effect of POS on OCB via felt obligation. Taken together, we find evidence of first-stage moderated-mediation. Specifically, the relationship between POS and felt obligation is moderated by gender, such that this relationship is stronger for men than for women (who feel more obligation, even at relatively low levels of POS). Felt obligation mediated the POS-OCB relationship, but only for men. Our findings suggest that men are more likely than women to need POS to feel obligated to make reciprocal organizational exchanges. Implications and future research directions are discussed.
Research on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) typically focuses on either one type of OCB or an aggregate of multiple types of OCB. We investigate a third conceptualization of OCB by ...examining how employees use conscientiousness, sportsmanship, civic virtue, courtesy, and altruism in distinct combinations. In Study 1, we identify 5 profiles of citizenship in a sample of 129 workers in a medium-sized firm. Some employees used either high levels (prosocial citizens), above average levels (contributors), or low levels of all 5 OCBs (disengaged). Another profile of employees (specialists) displayed relatively high levels of civic virtue and altruism, and a final profile of employees (moderates) engaged in below-average levels of all OCBs except conscientiousness. We also found that organizational concern citizenship motives related to these profiles. In Study 2, using a more generalizable sample of over 400 employees, we replicated 4 of the 5 profiles and identified a group of employees who mainly engaged in OCBs aimed at others (good coworkers). Using data collected at 3 points in time, we also found that citizenship motives (impression management, prosocial values, and organizational concern) predicted all 5 OCB profiles and that these profiles predicted job performance ratings, workplace status, and citizenship fatigue.
Anecdotal accounts and reports in the popular press often suggest that international assignments are critical for employees who seek to move up the career ladder more quickly. Nevertheless, previous ...research on repatriation indicates that many former expatriates feel that their overseas assignments have harmed, rather than helped, their careers. Relatively little research, though, has sought to understand how expatriate assignments might be related to career success. This paper, then, presents a conceptual model describing the relationship between expatriate assignments and intra-organizational career success. Specifically, theories of career mobility are used to develop a framework for outlining the factors likely to determine whether expatriate assignments help or hinder the advancement of employees who have worked as international assignees. The model also indicates that repatriate career success influences an organization's ability to retain its current repatriates and recruit future expatriates. Some implications of this research and directions for future research are discussed as well.
Despite the generally negative relationship between organizational citizenship behaviors and counterproductive work behaviors, employees often engage in both. Psychologists have found that when ...people engage in morally praiseworthy behaviors, they often grant themselves a moral license to behave immorally. In this article we draw on moral licensing theory and research on identity orientations to explain why and when citizenship behavior may lead to subsequent counterproductive behavior. We also explain how the harm done to the personal reputation of employees who engage in counterproductive work behaviors will be lessened by the degree to which they have a moral license to engage in such behaviors.
Research on traumatic events indicates that the effects of abuse can last a lifetime. This work further suggests that people who have been mistreated can grow and experience positive outcomes from ...traumatic experiences. We integrate theory on traumatic events, the self-concept, appraisal, and coping to develop a process model about the effects of abusive supervision after it has ended. According to our model, the more employees experience abusive supervision as extraordinary, uncontrollable, and overwhelming, the more likely they are to experience changes to the content of their self-concept, which leads to posttraumatic stress (PTS), a state characterized by alternating states of intrusive thoughts, avoidance, and hyperarousal. We propose that having a complex self-concept protects abused employees from experiencing PTS by diluting and segregating the impact of past abusive supervision. We also identify differences in cognitive processing regarding employees' experience and appraisal of memories associated with past abuse, and argue that these differences determine whether abused employees recover from PTS, endure prolonged PTS, or experience posttraumatic growth (PTG). Finally, we explain how prolonged PTS and PTG resulting from past abusive supervision affect employees' personal and professional lives in the future, thereby revealing a unique set of consequences for the abusive supervision literature.
Whereas the study of leadership has generally focused on how leaders influence the behavior of their followers, this article focuses on how and when the behaviors of followers can influence leaders' ...behavior. Specifically, we use moral licensing theory to examine the possibility that positive follower behavior could lead to unethical behavior by leaders. Across a pilot study, 2 experiments, and 1 field study, our findings suggest that when their followers perform organizational citizenship behaviors, leaders are more likely to grant themselves moral credit to behave unethically. Moreover, we find that leaders are especially likely to gain moral credit as a result of followers' good deeds when leader narcissism is high or when they identify with their followers. Together, these studies provide evidence that good behavior on the part of followers may psychologically free leaders to engage in subsequent unethical behavior, thereby contributing to our understanding of how followers can influence leader behavior and how vicarious moral licensing operates in organizational contexts.
