Interdependence and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Exploring the Mediating Effect of Group Cohesion in Multilevel Analysis

Abstract

The authors investigated the mechanism of group cohesion in the relationship between (a) task interdependence and goal interdependence and (b) individuals' organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The authors adopted a multilevel perspective to facilitate understanding of the complex relations among variables. They collected data from 53 supervisors and 270 employees from R&D departments in Taiwan. The authors found that group cohesion fully mediated the effects of task interdependence and goal interdependence on employees' OCB. In addition, task interdependence had a greater effect on group cohesion than did goal interdependence. The authors discuss implications and suggestions for future research.

Beyond Risk-Taking

“…The theory of goal interdependence posits that cooperative goal interdependence promotes cooperative behavior because of the alignment of interests among individuals (Deutsch, 1949a(Deutsch, , 1949b(Deutsch, , 1973, and this proposition has received widespread support (e.g., C.-H. V. Chen, Tang, & Wang, 2009;G. Q. Chen & Tjosvold, 2008).…”

Les équipes de travail : un moteur de performance organisationnelle

“…Par exemple, une étude auprès d'une population de vendeurs dans le domaine du commerce de détail montre que plus la cohésion est forte à l'intérieur d'un groupe, plus les membres de ce dernier adoptent des comportements pro-sociaux de nature altruiste 14 . La relation entre la cohésion et les comportements discrétionnaires peut s'expliquer par le fait que les membres d'un groupe cohésif ont tendance à être plus enthousiastes et à avoir des interactions positives avec les autres qui les poussent à mettre plus d'efforts vers l'atteinte des objectifs communs 15 . On note d'ailleurs une relation positive entre la cohésion du groupe et le niveau de difficulté des objectifs que ce groupe se fixe 16 .…”

Individual training and employees’ cooperative behavior: Evidence from a contextualized laboratory experiment

“…Coleman (1988Coleman ( , 1990 was among the first to stress the positive effect of identification as a group, or cohesion, on cooperative behavior. By working together for longer periods of time, employees create a strong social identity that fosters cooperative behavior by increasing the level of trust within the group and by reducing the risks of opportunistic behavior (Chen et al, 2009;Frenkel and Sanders, 2007;Gargiulo and Benassi, 2000). Cohesive teams of coworkers have higher levels of trust because in such teams employees are expected to reciprocate past behavior.…”