Illegitimate tasks diminish my engagement in organizational citizenship behaviors: A reciprocity perspective model

This study aims to examine the effects of illegitimate tasks on both employees' organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) directed at the organization (OCBO) and their OCB focused on person-to-person interactions at the individual level (OCBI). By employing social exchange theory, a moderated mediation model is proposed where perceived negative reciprocity mediates the relationships between illegitimate tasks and both OCBO and OCBI, with job remuneration moderating this mediating effect. The data were collected via a three-wave online survey of 514 employees. The findings show that illegitimate tasks have a positive effect on employees' perceived negative reciprocity which in turn contributes to decreases in both OCBO and OCBI. Meanwhile, job remuneration negatively moderates this indirect effect, suggesting that the negative relationships between illegitimate tasks and both OCBO and OCBI via perceived negative reciprocity become weaker when employee job remuneration is high.