Organizational citizenship behavior: understanding interaction effects of psychological ownership and agency systems

Abstract

Organizational citizenship behavior is a highly sought-after outcome. We integrate insight from the psychological ownership perspective and agency theory to examine how the juxtaposition of informal psychological mechanisms (i.e., ownership feelings toward an organization) and formal and informal governance mechanisms (i.e., employee share ownership, agency monitoring, and peer monitoring) influences employees' organizational citizenship behaviors. Our empirical results show that psychological ownership has a positive effect on organizational citizenship behavior. Contrary to the common belief that informal and formal mechanisms complement each other, we find that the positive influence of psychological ownership on organizational citizenship behavior is more pronounced when employee share ownership and agency monitoring is low compared to high. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.

Effects of Family Ownership and Professionalization on Firms’ Financial Performance and Sustainability Reputation

“…First, we directly contribute to recent studies on the coexistence of agency and stewardship governance in family firms (Chrisman, 2019;Hernandez, 2012;Madison et al, 2016Madison et al, , 2018 by introducing and examining professional management practices as enabling factors that drive and reinforce both forms of governance simultaneously. By adopting professional management practices, family firms can strengthen their unique competitive advantage of steward managers, who have long-term perspectives and deeply care about sustaining a strong reputation and long-term survival of the business (Eddleston et al, 2018;Wilhelm et al, 2022), while at the same time addressing agency problems (i.e., nepotism, adverse selection, and moral hazard), which we argue are more severe among family firms. Once both agency and stewardship governance are mutually manifested by being professional, our findings revealed that family firms benefit more from management professionalization than nonfamily firms in terms of both profitability and sustainability reputation.…”

“…As these professional management practices will simultaneously address agency (e.g., nepotism, adverse selection, and moral hazard) and enhance steward behaviors (e.g., extra-role behavior, psychological ownership, and organizational citizenship) (Eddleston et al, 2018; Wilhelm et al, 2022) unique to family firms, professional management is critically important to help strengthen family firms’ unique competitive advantages, which are key to the financial success of family businesses. Taken together, based on these reasons, we propose that professional management practices will have a greater impact on financial performance of family firms than nonfamily firms.…”

Benevolent and authoritarian: How paternalistic leadership promotes employee green behavior

“…Employees with higher psychological ownership also exhibit a stronger desire to present themselves as “good employees” and “good coworkers” in front of their leaders or colleagues, leading them to engage in more pro‐organizational (Avey et al, 2009; Pierce et al, 2001). Moreover, Wilhelm et al (2022) found that psychological ownership is linked to strong inclinations and behaviors aimed at safeguarding the target of ownership from harm and improving its image and performance. Employee green behavior, being both pro‐organizational and pro‐social, not only aligns with the goals of sustainable organizational performance but also contributes to building a positive environmental image for the organization.…”