Self-concept and organizational citizenship behaviors from a self-regulatory perspective

Abstract

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) represent an important aspect of job performance, as these actions contribute to organizational functioning in several ways. Although there is growing recognition of the importance of within-person OCB dynamics over time and some work is beginning to suggest self-concept may be an important antecedent of OCBs, previous research does not appear to have integrated these two lines of work. Thus, the present research proposed and examined such an integration, focusing on self-concept orientation and targeted OCBs using a within-person daily survey approach. More specifically, drawing from Greenwald et al.'s unified theory of implicit social cognition and Bolino et al.'s self-regulatory framework, this study examined within-person relationships between self-concept orientation, motives, intentions, and targeted OCBs. Participants (99 employed individuals from the United States) completed daily measures of these variables for up to 15 days. Results from multilevel modeling analyses were largely supportive of the proposed hypotheses, highlighting the relevance of self-concept components in the context of OCBs over time. These findings may contribute to both theoretical development and practical applications, as they provide a more detailed view of self-concept and OCBs over time that might be considered in attempts to enhance citizenship behaviors in organizations.