Description
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), or the contextual component of an individual's performance on the job, has been the subject of numerous research studies over the last several decades. One area of expanding research involves the influence of gender role stereotypes on the performance of OCB. Another area of research has demonstrated that some behaviors that were previously assumed to be extra-role are actually considered to be in-role by some people. The purpose of this study was to further explore these more recent extensions of the OCB literature. Specifically, this study examined organizational factors that may moderate the relationship between gender and OCB role definitions. This thesis proposed that women are more likely to consider communal OCB (e.g., helping) as in-role and men are more likely to consider agentic OCB (e.g., voice) as in-role. Additionally, this study examined a variety of organizational factors that can mitigate the effects of gender on the OCB role definitions of men and women for both helping and voice. The sample consisted of 293 participants from Amazon's Mechanical Turk service, who were employed at least part-time, at least 21 years old, and living in the United States. Data were collected via an online survey. Regression analyses were used to test the relationship between gender and OCB role definitions as well as the proposed moderation hypotheses. There were no significant findings regarding the hypothesized relationships; however, a number of main effects on role definitions were found. Specifically, the percentage of female coworkers in a person's immediate work group, group cohesiveness, and organizational collectivism were associated with role definitions for helping, and perceptions of a participatory climate, a climate for psychological safety, and a climate for inclusion were related to role definitions for voice. Exploratory analyses revealed significant main effects of several other variables on role definitions for helping and voice, as well as significant interactions. This thesis contributes to the literature by increasing knowledge about the effects of organizational factors on OCB role definitions across male and female employees and environmental modifications that can maximize the spontaneous performance of OCB by both genders in the workplace.
