Unpacking the role of demographic characteristics in organizational citizenship behaviour: An intersectional approach

Abstract

Research on the relation of employees' demographic characteristics with organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) has yielded inconsistent findings, possibly due to examining demographics in isolation. Drawing on expectancy–instrumentality–valence theory and adopting an intersectional lens, we propose that employees' demographics (age and managerial status) interact to predict OCB. We hypothesized that older employees in a managerial position but also younger employees in a non-managerial position are more likely to engage in OCB than individuals with other demographic combinations. This hypothesis is based on the notion that older employees in a managerial position tend to feel more responsible for their team because they genuinely care, whereas younger employees in a non-managerial position tend to act more responsibly because they are motivated to progress in their professional careers. Study 1 (N = 444) confirmed that younger non-managers exhibit more OCB than older non-managers. Study 2 (N = 471), pre-registered, showed that older managers enact more OCB than their younger or non-manager counterparts, through increased construal of power as responsibility. Further analyses including gender as an additional demographic characteristic revealed a less consistent role of gender in these relationships. This research underscores the importance of using an intersectional lens to better understand the role of employee demographics in OCB.