Graduation Year

2009

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Granting Department

Psychology

Major Professor

Walter C. Borman, Ph.D.

Co-Major Professor

Russell E. Johnson, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Michael T. Brannick, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Marcia A. Finkelstein Ph.D.

Committee Member

Walter R. Nord, Ph.D.

Keywords

Motivation, Values, Needs, Scale development, Performance

Abstract

Traditionally, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) have been conceptualized within a social exchange framework, implying that individuals perform citizenship behaviors in response to fair treatment by the organization (Zellars & Tepper, 2003). In accordance with this social exchange framework, researchers have identified a number of OCB antecedents, like perceived organizational support (Moorman, Blakely, & Niehoff, 1998; Settoon, Bennet, & Liden, 1996), job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational justice (LePine, Erez, & Johnson, 2002; Organ & Ryan, 1995), and leader-member exchange (Connell, 2005; Settoon, Bennett, & Liden, 1996; Wayne & Greene, 1993). Recently, however, research has shifted from viewing OCB as a reactionary behavior in response to positive attitudes and emotions toward the organization to perceiving OCB as functional (e.g., Finkelstein & Penner, 2004, Rioux & Penner, 2001) - opening the door to exploration of both altruistic as well as self-serving motives to engage in OCB. Applying Schwartz's (1992) values theory and expanding on Rioux and Penner's (2001) three-dimensional OCB motives model, the goal of the proposed research was to identify additional underlying mechanisms for performing citizenship behaviors through the development and validation of the Good Soldier Motives Scale (GSMS). The 46-item scale, consisting of two subscales - (1) motives to perform OCBI (MOCBI) and (2) motives to perform OCBO (MOCBO) uncovered the following motives - Prosocial Values, Organizational Concern and Obligation, Instrumental, Intimacy, Achievement, and Guilt. Construct validation data revealed significant differential relationships between OCB motive dimensions and established constructs in the literature (i.e., regulatory focus, self-identity, Machiavellianism, self-monitoring, and values). Criterion validation results supported the predictive validity of the GSMS subscales with OCBI and OCBO. Furthermore, OCB motives accounted for significant variance beyond that of established attitudinal and personality OCB antecedents, replicating and expanding upon Rioux and Penner's (2001) findings. Lastly, the research took an initial pass at empirically examining the impact of motives on the quality of OCB through the assessment of OCB effectiveness. Findings revealed significant differences in OCB effectiveness when comparing self-enhancing motives versus the more traditional altruistic motives. Establishment of a valid, theoretically-derived OCB motives scale offers researchers an avenue to further investigate burgeoning research on self-serving motivations for OCB as well as altruistic ones. Alternatively, practitioners can leverage the GSMS in a variety of human resource applications, such as performance appraisals and training in order to enhance the participation in quality OCBs.

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