A Project Report On Organizational Citizenship Behavior Literature Review And Theoretical Framework

Introduction

The OCB concept originated from the conceptualization of management theorist Chester Barnard (1968, first publication was in 1938). According to Barnard, the vitality of the organizations depends on the willingness of individuals to contribute forces to the cooperative system. Willingness means de-personalization of personal action, and its impact is sticking together, meaning the union of efforts (Barnard, 1968). Barnard suggests that without sticking together, a personal effort cannot contribute to the organization. In 1964, Katz made important contributions to Barnard‘s observations.

Organ and his colleagues (Bateman and Organ, 1983; Smith, Organ and Near, 1983) used the term Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). He states that organizational citizenship behavior is directly or formally not compensated by the organization‘s reward system.

Organ started studying discretionary behaviors in organizations and some of its possible antecedents (Organ ,1977; Bateman &Organ ,1983; Smith ,organ &Near ,1983). Organ (1988) has given five dimensions including altruism or helping behaviors, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, civic virtue and courtesy. Some researchers (e.g. Williams & Anderson, 1991) have also divided OCB into two types including behavior that is directed at individual (OCBI) and organization (OCBO) level. Organ and Ryan’s (1995) Meta analysis of 55 studies showed that employees job attitudes especially job satisfaction and organizational commitment can predict OCB better than dispositional variables.

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