The Personal Costs of Citizenship Behavior: The Relationship Between Individual Initiative and Role Overload, Job Stress, and Work-Family Conflict.

Abstract

By and large, prior research has focused on the positive aspects of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). D. W. Organ and K. Ryan (1995), though, suggest that individuals who engage in high levels of OCB may become overloaded. This research explores the relationship between a specific type of OCB--namely, individual initiative--and role overload, job stress, and work-family conflict. Results from a sample of 98 couples indicate that higher levels of individual initiative (as assessed by the spouse or significant other) are associated with higher levels of employee role overload, job stress, and work-family conflict. The findings also suggest that the relationship between individual initiative and work-family conflict is moderated by gender, such that the relationship is stronger among women than among men. Some implications of this work and directions for future research are discussed as well.

Achieving strategic renewal: the multi-level influences of top and middle managers’ boundary-spanning

“…At the individual level, we controlled for gender (female = 1, male = 0) and job grade. Research findings suggest that relative to men, women are more likely to experience role conflict (Bolino and Turnley 2005). Gender could accordingly impact MMs' role conflict.…”

“…It is likely that MMs faced with disparate and incompatible demands fail to identify, let alone seize improvement opportunities to enhance their units' exploratory innovation (Bolino and Turnley 2005). Although the entrepreneurial actions expected of MMs encompass proposing and interpreting new business opportunities (Hornsby et al 2009), MMs experiencing role conflict will respond to problems in familiar ways, to save time and effort, and use low-risk solutions based on existing capabilities (Daft and Lengel 1986;Galunic and Rodan 1998).…”

“…Because MMs have limited time and are exposed to a myriad of requests, they face challenging and conflicting cognitive demands (Leroy 2009). Overall, we expect that boundary-spanning of TMT members will result in role conflict among MMs, who find it increasingly difficult to execute their roles successfully because the expectations imposed upon them are incompatible (Bolino and Turnley 2005;Kahn et al 1964).…”

Cooperating when “you” and “I” are treated fairly: The moderating role of leader prototypicality.

“…We measured OCB with six items from Bolino and Turnley (2005): This employee "attends work related functions in his/her personal time," "goes into the office before normal business hours," "carries a cell phone or a pager so that he/she can be reached after normal business hours," works during his/her vacation," "volunteers for special projects in addition to his/her normal job duties," and "checks back with the office even when he/she is on vacation" (Cronbach's ␣ ϭ .88).…”

Pro-active Behaviour in Context of Team Climate

“…Employees who are under constant pressure in the area of initiative from managers, who increasingly expect proactive behaviour such as personal initiative, may, under constant pressure, become overloaded and will be unable to sustain their eff orts over time (Bolino and Trunley, 2005;Grant, 2008). Based on the research of Grant, Nurmohamed, Ashford et al (2011) high pressure on personal initiative results in negative consequences from employees in the form of increasing quantity over quality of ideas.…”