Organizational citizenship behaviour

PANEPISTIMIO KRITIS (DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY) |
ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOUR |
(OCB) |
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Abstract
This paper aims to understand the concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) from a series of books and scientific articles written by different researchers. It starts with the definition of the concept and then, in the body of the paper, we will see therelationship OCB has with its antecedents: job satisfaction, personality and justice. Most studies confirm a significant positive relationship between job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior. However, there are disagreements about the relationship between the Big Five Model, since it only shows a significant positive relationship with two of the five dimensions: agreeableness andconsciousness. Through Equity Theory explains the cognitive assessments made on whether the person is treated fairly or unfairly at work. Organ in 1998, found that the relationship between satisfaction and OCBs, is a function of the degree that the person perceives to be treated fairly in their work.

Key words: Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB), job satisfaction, Big Five Model, JusticeIntroduction
For the purpose of studying and analyzing an organization or company can be comparable to an iceberg, where only ten percent of it is visible to the naked eye. That ten percent is composed of the formal organization, the authority and responsibility, rules and procedures. But, to study an organization in its entirety and complexity, it is not enough to study its organization and itsstructures, it is also necessary to study people and groups within it. The invisible part of the iceberg is made up of this last aspect by people and groups, their attitudes and behaviors, degree of motivation, satisfactions and discontents, social harmony and conflict.
Organizational Behavior (OB) is the systematic study of the acts and attitudes that people display in organization (Robbins,1998).
One type of organizational behavior is the organizational citizenship behavior, which is not part of the formal conditions of employment, but promotes the effective functioning. Any successful organization needs employees who have a superior performance to what is required; employees need to practice behaviors of “good citizenship”. The organizations want and need employees to do everythingthat is not listed in the descriptions of any post. Evidence suggests that organizations with these employees to outperform those that don´t. As a result, organizational behavior is interested in organizational citizenship behavior (Robbins, 2004)
There isn´t a long literature on this topic, however, the concept of OCB has been uppermost in the last three decades the attention of many researches.This may be because we live in an era in which increasingly value teamwork and the importance of cooperation for the proper functioning of organizations. There are many behaviors by employees that benefit the organization, but are not recognized by it. For example a person who is more time working off the clock, or other person who helps the partner who has difficulty with his work.
OrganizationalCitizenship Behavior
Organ (1988; in Cheng-Chen & Tai-Kuang, 2009) define OCB as “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the aggregate promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organization”. Later, Organ (1997; in Coyne & Ong, 2007) redefined OCB as “behavior that contributes to the maintenance and enhancement of the social andpsychological context that supports task performance”. There are several taxonomies about OCBs dimensions. One of them is from Organ (1988; in Salgado & Chaparro, 2006) who identified five dimensions of OCBs: Courtesy refers behaviors that hold a person to avoid problems with his partners. Altruism means behaviors directed at specific person to help in an important task for the company....