Forced to be a good citizen: Exploring the bright‐ and dark‐side effects of daily compulsory citizenship behaviours on subsequent proactive helping and interpersonal deviance

Abstract

Compulsory citizenship behaviour (CCB) refers to extra‐role behaviours that are not necessarily voluntary or driven by goodwill, and are often conducted under duress or performed in response to supervisor or coworker pressure. The literature is currently unclear about whether these behaviours have negative, positive, or a nuanced combination of outcomes. We address this confusion by drawing on Conservation of Resources Theory to explain employees' daily depletion and organization‐based self‐esteem (OBSE) mechanisms that capture respective costs and benefits of daily CCB. We also explain how employees' extraversion and leader–member exchange (LMX) are critical boundary conditions of these effects. Using an experience sampling method, we collected data twice per day from 186 full‐time employees across 10 working days, yielding 1551 valid daily responses. The results of multilevel path analyses showed that: (a) daily CCB had a positive indirect effect on next‐day interpersonal deviance via increased ego depletion, with extraversion buffering this positive indirect effect; and (b) daily CCB had a positive indirect effect on next‐day proactive helping via increased OBSE, with LMX strengthening this positive indirect effect. These results suggest that employees' daily CCB has both costs (i.e., resource depletion) and benefits (i.e., positive self‐focused beliefs).