This research investigates how employees' perceptions of role ambiguity might inhibit their propensity to engage in organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), with a particular focus on the potential buffering roles of two personal resources in this process: political skill and organizational identification. Survey data collected from a manufacturing organization indicate that role ambiguity diminishes OCB, but this effect is attenuated when employees are equipped with political skill and have a strong sense of belonging to their organization. The buffering role of organizational identification also is particularly strong when employees have adequate political skills, suggesting the reinforcing, buffering roles of these two personal resources. Organizations that want to foster voluntary work behaviours, even if they cannot provide clear role descriptions for their employees, should nurture adequate personal resources within their employee ranks.

This study contributes to our understanding of the mediating and moderating processes through which satisfaction with developmental human resources practices are linked with organizational citizenship behaviour. Our model posits that the effect of satisfaction with developmental human resources practices on organizational citizenship behaviour is mediated by perceived organizational support and is moderated by job breadth. The methodology consisted of collecting data from 331 nurses who were surveyed about their satisfaction with developmental human resources practices, perceived organizational support, organizational citizenship behaviours and job breadth. Results support this model.

In this study, we use implicit leadership theory to investigate how leader integrity, one of the most important traditional Chinese virtues, influences subordinates’ organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in the Chinese context. The results of our survey reveal that leader integrity is associated with subordinates’ OCB, and that this relationship is fully mediated by leader effectiveness. In addition, traditionality moderated the relationship between leader integrity and leader effectiveness; the relationship was significant among less traditional subordinates, but insignificant among more traditional subordinates. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications for leaders in China.

What is the relationship between individual members' organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) and team-level performance? Using a social cognitive perspective, the current study proposes that the relationship is mediated by a team's cohesion and collective efficacy. We collected data at two points in time from three sources with a sample of 462 salespersons representing 62 teams (62 branches) of a financial institute in Taiwan. The results support the theoretical argument that OCB positively influences organizational performance. Furthermore, group cohesion and collective efficacy fully mediated the direct effects of OCB towards individuals and the organization on team performance. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

In a cross-cultural experiment, we examined how task interdependence influences the importance of organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in employee performance evaluations in China and the USA. A total of 150 graduate students in China and 154 in the USA (a total of 304), who serve as evaluators, participated in the experiment. Participants were exposed to a task interdependence manipulation and then rated the importance of OCB in their overall performance evaluations of employees. Results support the moderating effects of national culture (both using a country proxy and as a measure of collectivism) on the affects of task interdependence. Although among evaluators from the USA perceptions of the importance of OCB increased as task interdependence increased, the effects of task interdependence were significandy attenuated among evaluators from China. Implications of these results for research and practice are discussed.

In two studies conducted in the United States and the People's Republic of China, we examined how the effects of organizational justice perceptions on employees' organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB) are influenced by individually held cultural value orientations. In Study 1, we did not find evidence of moderation by cultural value orientation. In Study 2, we re-examined the moderated relationships and found that the relationship between procedural justice and OCB was significantly influenced by masculinity-femininity orientation and that the relationship between distributive justice and OCB was significantly moderated by power distance such that the relationships were more strongly positive when followers were more masculine and higher in power distance. Also, we extended our model to include perceived supervisor support as a mediator of the direct and moderated effects of justice perceptions on OCB. We found support for the mediation model, but did not find the moderated mediation effects we predicted. Due to the large number of non-significant findings and inconsistencies across our two studies, we conclude with recommendations for scholars who face similar challenges in their research.

This study had two main aims. (1) To examine the role of discretionary effort (DE) in the multidimensional performance domain consisting of in-role behaviour (IRB) and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB); and (2) to assess whether skills and autonomy are important predictors of DE and show variance in common with DE over and above IRB and OCB. A managers/supervisors sample (n = 476) and a sample with both managerial and nonmanagerial employees (n = 424) were employed. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that the three factor hierarchical model was superior compared to three other models tested, indicating that DE is a separate construct to both IRB and OCB but together with these forms part of the performance domain. Regression analysis showed that both skills and autonomy are important predictors of DE; however, only autonomy explained variance in DE over and above IRB, OCB and skills. Together these results add to the construct validity of DE. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.