IS OCB (Organizational Citizenship Behavior ) Real or a Dream for a Company ?
Dr.Umut KÖKSAL
In this article, I will try to discuss one concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior, in short OCB.
Moreover, is it something that represents an ideal or one step forward, is it a myth?
First of all, let's start with the it's definition. According to Organ,it is a mechanism that an individual works more than his/her responsibilities beyond the standards, job descriptions,procedures,work-place rules and regulations which are determined,set by the organization and shows extra voluntary effort(1). The characteristic of the motive of the effort or performance does not have root from company's recognition,reward/incentive systems. It is produced as an internal motive.
When comes to work-place, these are behaviors that are discretionary, often related with the social,psychological context. By this, it can act as a supporter of recruitment and selection,performance management and of course talent, potential management. As an attitude or a dimension, it helps to encourage the corporate performance.
In other words this behavior affects the competitiveness,performance of the organization,by exceeding the expectations from the role that the undertaken(2).
OCB has five dimensions(3):
· Altruism
· Conscientiousness
· Sportsmanship
· Courtesy
· Civic virtue
First dimension,altruism, can easily be defined as helping others. In terms of work-place attitudes, examples such as voluntary help in new employee orientation, developing employees by giving lectures about useful competency,skills etc.
Secon dimension, conscientiousness is defined as a discretionary behavior that goes well beyond the minimum requirement level of the organization, such as obeying rules and regulations, not taking extra breaks(4).
This dimension finds its roots as complinance that means displaying more impersonal contributions to the organizations(5).
Third dimension is sportsmanship. Sportsmanship can be defined as such behaviors that need displaying of volunteerism to hold back negative acts. It is directly related with the tolearance about the inconveniences and annoyances of work-life without complaining(6).
Fourth dimension is courtesy. As a dimension, courtesy deals with actions related with the prevention of existence of work-related issues,problems and underlining the necessary,useful information(7).
Moreover,it has been explained that this dimension involves actions that are designed to keep others informed before taking action or warning others fort he impending work which might affect them(8).
At last, as the fifth dimension of OCB, civic virtue is defined as behaviors which contain participation to bureaucratic life of the organization. In terms of this dimension, employees are aware of the social and other issues that have influence on management, show ambition and interest to be part of the organizational decision-making process.And of course, meetings of the organization. Participating organizational meetings, following organizational developments, keeping abreast of organizational decisions and issues, expressing opinions and offering opinions to the organization appropriately are good examples for civic virtue term(9).
As an organizational behavior concept, is OCB real or a dream?
This is such a difficult question to answer. Today, business life is under the influence of many factors such as: demographic changes, discussions about generations at work, hypercompetition and this list goes on.
The Dynamics of an organization has been changing. Human capital and the transformation of human capital become complex. Professionalism,demands of new generations at work…
These factors given above make our situation difficult. Organizational Citizenship Behavior is such a work-place attitude that has to discussed very carefully.
Above all given factors, I value the discussions about generations at work at the first place. The perception of the new generation,specifically millennials and also Z's. Work-life and Social-life balance search, in my opinion,directly affects the frequency of OCB at work-place.
What are the work-life attitudes of new generations at work?
What is the effect of digitalization on showing citizenship behaviors at work?
Is OCB a must for Providing and Sustaining Corporate Performance?
As executives, do we send clear messages to our employees about our expectations from them?
And most important of all, Do we need organizational citizens at work-place?
Do they really contribute to the organizational effectiveness in terms of numbers/statistics that we can easily consolidate or understand?
References
1. Organ, D.W., (1988),Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Good Soldier Syndrome, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
2. Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Paine, J., & Bachrach, D. G. (2000). Organizational citizenship behaviors: A critical review of the theoretical and empirical literature and suggestions for future research. Journal of Management, 26(3), 513-563.
3. Organ,a.ge.
4. MacKenzie, S. B., Podsakoff, P. M., & Fetter, R. 1993. The impact of organizational citizenship behavior on evaluations of sales performance. Journal of Marketing, 57: 70– 80.
5. Organ, D. W. & Rayn, K. (1995). A meta-analytic review of attitudinal and dispositional predictors of organizational citizenship behavior. Personnel Psychology, 48
6. Schnake, M., Dumler, M. P. & Cochran, D. S. (1993). The relationship between traditional leadership, super leadership and organizational citizenship behavior. Group and Organization Studies, 18 (3), 352-365.
7. Organ.a.g.e.
8. Schnake,Dumler,a.g.e.
9. Dönmez, A. (2007). The impact of identitiy salience on organizational citizenship behavior. Business Administration Master Thesis, Middle East Technical University, Ankara.
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