Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Job Attitudes, and the Psychological Contract

Abstract

Previous research has shown a positive relationship between job satisfaction and various dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior. These studies, however, have focused almost exclusively on civilian sector organizations. While insight gained from these studies is instructive, it remains to be seen if these relationships also exist in the context of military organizations. The relationships between job satisfaction as well as cynicism (as moderated by psychological contracts) with organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) are explored. Data were collected from military officers (n = 151) attending a 10-month professional military education school. As an improvement over other similar studies, control measures were incorporated to address potential confounds associated with self-reported attitudes. Results showed job satisfaction was a strong predictor of OCB, cynicism was negatively related to the altruism dimension of OCB, and the relationship between cynicism and the altruism

The relationships between organisational citizenship behaviour, job satisfaction and turnover intention

“…2007). The value of studying job satisfaction is reinforced by the argument that employees’ perceptions of the way organisational change affects their specific job may be a determinant of job‐related attitudes and reactions subsequent to change (Armenakis & Bedeian 1999, Jordan et al. 2007).…”

Relationship between Cynicism and Job Satisfaction: Exploration of Mechanisms

“…A person high in cynicism is suspicious of generous and charitable behavior of others and attributes such behaviors not to altruistic motives but to some self-interest of the person, including ingratiation. Perhaps because of this mistrust of the altruistic behaviors of others, there is evidence that employees who score high on cynicism are less likely themselves to demonstrate altruistic behaviors in organizations (Jordan, Schraeder, Field, & Armenakis, 2007). Hackman and Oldham (1980) argued that five core job characteristics (autonomy, skill variety, feedback, task identity, and task significance) influence job satisfaction.…”

“…According to the authors, the presence of these intrinsic characteristics enriches the job. While there is no prior research on cynicism and perceptions of job enrichment, based on previous arguments and empirical studies cited above (Sarnoff, 1960;Jordan, et al, 2007), one would expect that cross-training an employee or providing job rotation in order to increase skill variety on the job could be viewed negatively by a employee with high cynicism, who might think that the organization is preparing for lay-offs where cross-training and job rotation would help in picking up the work of laid-off employees. Therefore, an employee who scores high on cynicism is likely to view the core characteristics of a job (autonomy, skill variety, feedback, task identity, and task significance) as less meaningful.…”

Revisiting of Theory X and Y

“…Military organizations are generally characterized by high in formalization and formal hierarchy of authority (Jones et al, 2003). Moreover, the psychological and employment contract for military personnel is quite different in such that they swear an oath that they will sacrifice for their country (Jordan et al, 2007). Thus, although followers perceive a social-emotional distance between their leader and themselves and a strictly task-centered relationship characterized by low exchange and top-down influence, they might still feel an obligation to reciprocate the favorable treatment such as commitment to organization and performing more than what is formally required by their job 1898 MD 52,10 descriptions.…”