The role of organizational citizenship behavior in turnover: Conceptualization and preliminary tests of key hypotheses.

Abstract

The authors conceptualized levels of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) performance as a behavioral predictor of employee turnover and empirically examined the strength of this relationship. Data were collected from 205 supervisor-subordinate dyads across 11 companies in the People's Republic of China. The results provided considerable support for the hypothesis that supervisor-rated OCB was a predictor of subordinates' actual turnover. In particular, subordinates who were rated as exhibiting low levels of OCB were found to be more likely to leave an organization than those who were rated as exhibiting high levels of OCB. The authors also found that the self-report turnover intention was a predictor of turnover, but this relationship did not hold for 2 companies. The explanations and implications of these findings are discussed.Employee turnover has received much theoretical and empirical attention in organizational behavior and human resource management studies for several decades (Dai-

How Important are Job Attitudes? Meta-Analytic Comparisons of Integrative Behavioral Outcomes and Time Sequences

“…Such a conceptualization also implies that overall job attitude has a stronger connection to contextual performance, lateness, and absence, than to focal performance and (perhaps) turnover (e.g., Chen et al, 1998). That is, when individual control is considered, overall job attitude is predicted to have unique effects on each criterion dimension (see Figure 1, top panel).…”

“…All of the models implicitly specify that job attitudes are temporally prior to behavioral criteria, and the progression of withdrawal models (models B and E) implies a temporal sequence from lateness to absence to turn- over. Our review of relationships between contextual performance and withdrawal behavior (Hypotheses 1-3) further implies that citizenship behaviors are withheld prior to the decision to miss work (Chen et al, 1998).…”

“…Chen, Hui, and Sego (1998) proposed that avoidance of citizenship behavior may be a discretionary and primary means for employees to reduce work role inclusion. If the morale-building or relationship-enhancing actions comprising contextual performance (Van Scotter & Motowidlo, 1996) are considered "prepayment" for eventual good treatment by an employer, then avoidance of contextual performance may signal employees' intentions to "write off" these investments in a firm they plan to leave.…”

“…All of the models implicitly specify that job attitudes are temporally prior to behavioral criteria, and the progression of withdrawal models (models B and E) implies a temporal sequence from lateness to absence to turn- over. Our review of relationships between contextual performance and withdrawal behavior (Hypotheses 1-3) further implies that citizenship behaviors are withheld prior to the decision to miss work (Chen et al, 1998).Because the published meta-analyses on which our meta-matrix is based did not distinguish primary studies with regard to time (except Bycio [1992]), we returned to the original data to differentiate studies with predictive designs (e.g., job satisfaction measured before absenteeism) from those with postdictive designs (e.g., absenteeism measured before job satisfaction). A finding of stronger predictive than postdictive effect sizes would be consistent with the temporal order implied by models A to E.…”

Citizenship in the Workplace : Examining Work Attitudes as Predictors Among French Employee

“…Certain researchers choose to examine citizenship as a whole (e.g., Chen, Hui, & Sego, 1998;Hui et al, 2004;MacKenzie et al, 1998;Thau, Bennett, Stahlberg, & Werner, 2004). There is no distinction between helping behaviour, sportsmanship and civic virtue.…”