The Relationship between Perceived Organizational Justice and..II

Bilgen Hündür · #1 (**permalink**) 07-29-2006, 09:49 AM

The Relationship between Perceived Organizational Justice and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: A review of the literature

Richard Koopmann Jr.
Applied Psychology, M.S.
Advised by Dr. Richard Tafalla

Organizational Citizenship Behaviors
Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCB) are discretionary behaviors on the part of
the worker, which are neither expected nor required, and therefore cannot be formally rewarded or punished for the presence of lack of, by the organization. Schnake (1991) gives three reasons why OCB are not affected by organizational influences: (1) OCB are subtle and therefore hard to objectively rate, which makes for difficult inclusion in appraisals; (2) Some forms of OCB may pull people away from their own work to assist another; and (3) Because OCB cannot be contractually required (if they were required behaviors, they would be contractual behaviors, not OCB), the organization cannot punish employees for not performing them. For this reason, OCB is commonly defined in terms of social exchange (Moorman, 1991). Moorman describes the difference between economical and social exchange: “Because social exchange exists outside of strict contracts, the exchange tends toward ambiguity, allowing for discretionary, prosocial acts by the employee” (p. 846).
Researchers have identified many different “types” of OCB, but these are currently
consolidated into five dimensions: Altruism, Courtesy, Conscientiousness, Sportsmanship, and Civic Virtue.

Dimensions of OCB

Altruism
The first dimension is Altruism (also referred to as helpful behaviors, pro-social behaviors, and neighborliness). This dimension is associated with behaviors that either directly or indirectly help another worker with a present work-related problem. It is easy to see the benefits for this dimension of OCB: workers helping each other instead of distracting supervisors from their jobs. Also, the workers may benefit by not showing their supervisor how often they need help, which may come up on their performance appraisal.

Courtesy
The second OCB dimension, which is closely related to altruism, but distinctly different, is Courtesy. It refers to helpful behaviors that prevent a work related problem from occurring or help to lessen the severity of a foreseen problem. Behaviors such as advance notices, reminders, and consultation fall under this dimension.

Conscientiousness
The third dimension is Conscientiousness, which includes such behaviors as being punctual; maintaining a better-than-average attendance record (i.e., coming to work when you’re sick or during sever weather conditions); and following an organization’s rules, regulations, and procedures.

Sportsmanship
The fourth dimension is Sportsmanship; this is the only dimension that identifies a lack of behaviors. Organ (1988) described it as tolerating less-than-desirable situations without complaining or “making federal cases out of small potatoes” (p. 11). This dimension might just be a supervisor’s most favorite: a lack of petty grievances.

Civic Virtue
In the same work, Organ defined the fifth dimension, Civic Virtue, as the “responsible
participation in the political life of the organization” (p. 12). An example of such behaviors is staying up-to-date with important issues of the organization.

Organ (1988) makes the note that the five dimensions of OCB may not all be present
when one is found. “The people whom we think of as most conscientious are not always the most altruistic, and vice versa; and the conditions that evoke altruism from us are not always the conditions that inspire us to conscientiousness” (p. 10).

Anti-Citizenship Behaviors
Opposite of OCB is the realm of Anti-Citizenship Behaviors (ACB). These behaviors,
according to Ball et al. (1994), “detract from the work-related output of an individual” (p. 302). Behaviors included in ACB are defiance, resistance to authority, avoidance or escape from assigned work, aggression, and revenge. Burrhus F. Skinner, the behaviorist, showed that punishment on rodents would produce comparable results. Ball and associates (1994) site this reason for superiors often being “advised that punishment only be used as a last resort” (p. 316).

Benefits of OCB
Individually, OCB are frivolous, but in aggregate, they benefit both the organization and its employees in numerous ways. To the organization go the benefits of having a group of employees who are dedicated to the company. According to Chen et al. (1998), the mere presence of OCB (specifically altruism, conscientiousness, and sportsmanship) indicated a lower turnover rate. These dedicated workers will stay with the company longer, produce more products of higher quality, and help the company succeed in many other ways. Logically we can assume that prevalent OCB will foster a better work environment within the organization. This environment, in turn, should elicit greater employee dedication, which yields greater productivity, and lowers turnover (as Chen et al. [1998] have shown).
Allen and Rush’s work (1998) pointed out a benefit to the employee: performance of
OCB “may produce an affective response and hence enhance a managers’ liking for a
subordinate” (p. 248). However, it is not known whether an employee’s persistent performance of OCB causes a greater affective response by management or whether an employee who is already liked by management is noticed engaging in OCB more often than other employees (i.e., schema theory).

Interaction of POJ and OCB
Ball et al. (1994) studied the effects of perceived unjust punishment on OCB. They used 89 supervisor-subordinate dyads, with only one supervisor to a subordinate. There was a requirement that the pair had experienced at least one instance of undesired behavior with punishment, preferably within the previous six months. If there was more than one instance of punishment, they were both asked to consider only one. Ball et al. found that when the subordinate had high POJ (i.e., control over punishment procedures and imposed punishment), they tended to engage in OCB. What’s more, Ball and associates found that the subjects avoided ACB.

Skarlicki and Folger (1997) researched the revenge area of ACB, which they coined as Organizational Retaliation Behaviors (ORB). They found significant negative correlations between ORB and organizational justice (distributive [r=-0.44] and procedural [r=-0.53] types). They also found a significant positive correlation (r = 0.69) between procedural justice and what they call interactional justice (referred to as the class of interpersonal justice in the current review). This significant positive correlation suggests that procedural and interactional justices can, and do, compensate for each other. When a situation is lacking in one, a higher degree of the other may make the situation more tolerable to the employee. Therefore, they concluded that “when supervisors show adequate sensitivity and concern toward employees, treating them with dignity and respect, those employees seem somewhat willing to tolerate the combination of an unfair pay distribution and unfair procedures that would otherwise maximally contribute to retaliatory tendencies” (p. 438).

Moorman’s 1991 research on POJ and OCB initially found a causal relationship between the two. But upon further analysis, the causal relationship was limited to interactional justice and OCB. This finding is supported by Skarlicki and Folgers’ 1997 findings.

Discussion
The areas of organizational justice and organizational citizenship behavior have different roots, but it is easy to see that they are not completely separate and unrelated ideas. Organizational justice is able to elicit citizenship behaviors in many cases and citizenship behaviors are the mainstay in many organizations with high organizational justice. Future research will likely clarify their common roots, but as of now, more empirical research is required.

Obviously this research is not the epitome of all there is to organizational justice and
citizenship behaviors, but it is a start. With the volumes of justice theory research and the proliferation of OCB research in the 1990’s, it would take years to compile a bona fide summary of the theories involved. Also with the rapid changes in the way organizations do business and the way they view their employees (for example, twenty years ago, an employee with a long list of previous jobs was looked at suspiciously, but now they are said to be experienced and may even be desirable), the theories will need to be refined.