The Relationship between Individualism, Collectivism, the Perception of Justice, Demographic Characteristics and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour

Transcription

1 The Relationship between Individualism, Collectivism, the Perception of Justice, Demographic Characteristics and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour AARON COHEN and ANAT AVRAHAMI This study examines the relationship between individualism, collectivism, the perception of justice, and demographic variables and organisational citizenship behaviour. The research design is based on survey data acquired from questionnaires distributed to 241 certified nurses and their superiors in 20 units of one of the hospitals in northern Israel. The findings showed that collectivist employees tended to display OCB more frequently than individualistic employees. Positive relationships were found between justice variables and OCB. Of the demographic variables, married employees tended to display OCB more than unmarried workers. In addition, more experienced employees exhibited fewer organisational citizenship behaviours than did their less experienced colleagues. The findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications. Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is a topic that has been widely addressed in management research during the past decade. The concept has its roots in the work of Katz and Kahn [1966], who identified three types of behaviour required of employees for the effective functioning of an organisation. These were the decision to join and remain in the organisation, the performance of prescribed roles in a dependable manner, and the undertaking of innovative and spontaneous activities beyond the prescribed role requirements. The last of these was termed extra-role behavior by Katz [1964] and organizational citizenship behavior by Bateman and Organ [1983]. The term OCB denoted organisationally beneficial behaviours and gestures that can neither be enforced on the basis of formal role obligations nor elicited by a contractual guarantee of compensation. According to Organ s [1988:4] definition, OCB represents individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and in the aggregate promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organization. Thus, OCB consists of informal contributions that participants can choose to make or withhold, without regard to considerations of Aaron Cohen and Anat Avrahami, Department of Political Science, Haifa, 31905, Israel. acohen@poli.haifa.ac.il The Service Industries Journal, Vol.26, No.8, December 2006, pp ISSN print= online DOI: = # 2006 Taylor & Francis

2 890 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL sanctions or formal incentives. OCB derives its practical importance from the premise that it represents contributions that do not adhere to formal role obligations. The presumption is that many of these contributions, aggregated over time and people, enhance organisational effectiveness [Organ and Konovsky, 1989]. The logic of the concept of OCB can be better understood from the way it has been defined and measured. Organ [1988] identified five dimensions of OCB altruism, courtesy, sportsmanship, conscientiousness and civic virtue. Altruism describes behaviour that is directly and intentionally aimed at helping a specific person in face-toface situations (e.g., orienting new people, assisting someone with a heavy workload). It also encompasses voluntary actions that help another person with a work problem instructing a new employee on how to use equipment, helping a co-worker catch up with a backlog of work, fetching materials that a colleague needs and cannot procure on his own. Sportsmanship refers to a toleration of the inevitable inconveniences and impositions of work without whining and filing grievances. Civic virtue is responsible, constructive involvement in the political process of the organisation, including not just expressing opinions, but reading one s mail, attending meetings, and keeping abreast of larger issues involving the organisation. Conscientiousness describes a pattern of behaviour that goes well beyond the minimally required levels of attendance, punctuality, housekeeping, conserving resources and related matters of internal maintenance. Courtesy involves helping others by taking steps to prevent the creation of problems for co-workers and consulting with people before committing to actions that will affect them. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESES Individualism, Collectivism and OCB Since the development of the concept, many studies have been conducted to explore the possible determinants of OCB, and many findings have been amassed on this issue. A demonstration of the vast amount of research on the concept can be found in several meta-analyses that summarise findings on OCB. One of the most recent of these assessments was performed by Podsakoff et al. [2000]. In their review of the OCB literature they mentioned four major categories of antecedents: individual (or employee) characteristics, such as employee attitudes, dispositional variables, employee role perceptions and demographic variables; task characteristics; organisational characteristics; and leadership behaviours. Most of the research that examined the determinants of OCB has concentrated on the employees relationship with their supervisor or their attitudes toward their job or task. Few studies have considered how personal psychological characteristics are related to OCB. One such characteristic is the construct of individualism vs. collectivism, a leading component in the definition of culture. While there is no precise definition of culture, the most widely cited work on culture developed for the study of organisations is Hofstede s [1980] Value Survey Module (VSM) [Erez and Earley, 1993]. More importantly, it is considered the most popular measure of cultural values, holding great promise as a theoretical framework to guide cross-cultural

3 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOUR 891 comparisons. The VSM identifies fundamental differences in the way people in various countries perceive and interpret their worlds. These different value structures have profound consequences for the validity of the transfer of theories and technologies from one country to another [Randall, 1993]. With data from over 40 countries, Hofstede developed an overview consisting of four common dimensions power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism and masculinity/femininity to explain differences among cultures. A country s culture could be summarised using these four factors. Of the four dimensions, individualism vs. collectivism seems to be the most common dimension used by researchers to understand the differences between American culture and other cultures or between any other two or more given cultures. Researchers who stress the importance of individualism/collectivism for cross-cultural research argue that many organisational theories, particularly North American ones, reflect an individualism bias [Boyacigiller and Adler, 1991]. Most American management theories are based on a self-interest motive that may not be appropriate for an inter-cultural model. For instance, the most prevalent work-motivation models, goal setting and expectancy theory, presume a self-interest motive. One can question the basic assumption that the self-interest motive fully explains individual and collective actions within organisational settings. Individualism reflects the extent to which people emphasise their own goals over those of their clan or group. Members who strive to achieve their own goals, who have narrow family structures, and whose movement among groups is a function of self-interest, characterise individualistic cultures. Members who emphasise the needs of the group over self-interests and live in extended family structures, by contrast, characterise collectivist cultures. Determinism characterises collectivist cultures, where people believe that the will of the group should determine members beliefs and behaviour. Self-determination characterises individualistic cultures, where individuals believe that each person should determine his or her beliefs and behaviours. An essential attribute of collectivist society is that individuals subordinate their personal interests to the goals of their collective or in-group, those with whom a person works and identifies. In-group membership is stable even when the in-group makes strong demands on the individual. People belonging to an in-group share common interests and seek collective outcomes or goals. A driving force within a collectivist culture is cooperation so as to attain group goals and safeguard group welfare [Earley, 1989]. An individualistic culture emphasises self-sufficiency and control, the pursuit of individual goals that may or may not be consistent with in-group goals, and encourages the membership of multiple in-groups. Individuals in an individualistic society will often drop out of in-groups if membership becomes a burden or inhibits the attainment of individual goals. In an individualistic culture, people feel proud of their own accomplishments and derive satisfaction from performance based on their own achievements. Individuals in a collectivistic culture derive pleasure and satisfaction from group accomplishment [Earley, 1989]. In cultures where individualism dominates, individuals view their relationship with the organisation from a calculative perspective, whereas in collectivist societies the ties between the individual and organisation have a moral component.

4 892 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL The concept of OCB clearly carries very different connotations in collectivist societies from those in individualistic societies. Employees with collectivist values commit to organisations primarily because of their ties with managers, owners, and co-workers (collectivism), and far less because of the job itself or the particular compensation scheme (individualistic incentives). Therefore, in collectivist cultures one would expect high levels of OCB. While most of the studies have examined individualism/collectivism as a cultural dimension, there is evidence that differences in this construct exist at the individual level too [Early, 1989; Hui and Triandis, 1986]. In this paper we focus on individualism/collectivism as a personal characteristic. Individualism and collectivism emphasise personal goals and group goals, respectively, to different degrees. In a collectivist entity, an individual is expected to keep group needs and goals rather than individual needs foremost in his/her mind [Triandis, 1994]. When individual and group needs are in conflict, the individual is expected to give up his/her personal needs in favour of group needs. The individualist entity, on the contrary, emphasises individual needs over group needs. An individual becomes and continues to be a member of the group as long as the group is instrumental in the attainment and satisfaction of individual goals and needs that cannot be attained by working alone [Wagner, 1995]. Whenever an individual s and group s goals are in conflict, or when the group fails to satisfy the needs of a group member, the individualistic person feels free to leave the group and pursue his/her own personal goals. In an individualistic entity, therefore, pursuit of self-interest is reasonably well accepted [Ramamoorthy and Carroll, 1998]. Triandis [1995] argued that in countries or cultures characterised as individualistic there are people who are more collectivist in nature and vice versa. Thus, in addition to the cultural variance among nations regarding this construct, there is a variance in individualism/collectivism among people in the same country or culture. Earley [1994], for example, examined managers from China and the US and found that regardless of the cultural and geographical differences between the two countries, there were differences among individuals in each group in their level of individualism/collectivism. The study found that those with a high level of individualism performed better in individual-oriented tasks, while those who ranked high in collectivism performed better in group-oriented tasks. Wagner [1995] found that students with a high level of individualism tended to cooperate less in group settings than those with a high level of collectivism. In this study we applied the Ramamoorthy and Carroll [1998] definition to individualism/collectivism, which delineated five aspects of the construct. This definition was based on previously validated scales used by several researchers and recently compiled by Wagner [1995]. The scales were designed to measure (1) the intensity of beliefs about the value of competitive success (competitiveness), (2) the value attached to working alone (solitary work preference), (3) levels of self-reliance and autonomy orientation (self-reliance), (4) beliefs about the usefulness of subordinating one s personal interests to group interests (supremacy of group interests) and (5) beliefs about the detrimental effects of pursuing personal goals over group goals (supremacy of group goals).

5 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOUR 893 The above arguments strongly support the notion that OCB will be related to a collectivistic orientation because it requires that time and energy be spent on helping others, rather than achieving personal goals. Indeed, several studies, including those of Moorman and Blakely [1995] and Van Dyne et al. [2000], found a significant relationship between individualism/collectivism and OCB. Thus: Hypothesis 1: In the individualism/collectivism construct, those who exhibit higher levels of collectivism will exhibit higher levels of OCB than those with a higher level of individualism. Justice and OCB One of the common explanations for varying levels of OCB is based on an extension of the exchange theory and suggests that OCB stems from one s perceptions of fairness or unfairness [Organ, 1988; 1990; Schnake, 1991]. Organ [1990] postulated that most people generally assume a social exchange relationship with their organisation. This presumption lasts until the weight of interpreted evidence indicates that such a relationship is not viable because of unfairness. Confirmation of the lack of fairness in social exchange, which is accompanied by dissatisfaction, prompts a redefinition of the relationship as one of economic exchange. Such dissatisfaction can be based on a social comparison, a promise or imagined promise, past experience, salary expectations, or one s image of the way the world should be. Thus, people who feel that the organisation does not treat everyone equally are likely to withhold discretionary behaviours and limit their contributions to the organisation to those behaviours that are formally prescribed. Greenberg [1990] and Niehoff and Moorman [1993] advanced the following two dimensions of organisational justice: (1) distributive justice is the fairness of transactional contracts and economic exchange; (2) procedural justice is the use of procedurally fair supervisory practices that affect higher-order issues, such as the employees commitment to a system; this dimension comprises two factors: formal procedure, namely the existence of a formal and fair process for reward distribution, and interactional justice, namely the level of fairness that governs the interaction between worker and employer in implementing the formal procedures. Organisational justice emerged as an important concept in the prediction of OCB, and many studies found a positive relationship between the two [Ball et al., 1994; Eskew, 1993; Folger, 1993; Greenberg, 1986; Mayer et al., 1995; Niehoff and Moorman, 1993; Organ, 1990; 1994]. Therefore, based on the above argument and findings we hypothesised that perceptions of justice will be related to OCB. Thus: Hypothesis 2: Employees who have higher perceptions of justice would have higher levels of OCB. Demographic Variables and OCB While the demographic variables here will be examined more as control variables, we will offer some justifications for their inclusion. In several studies, education was examined in its relationship to OCB, in the belief that employees with a higher educational level would perceive their exchange with the organisation as more social than calculative. Such employees, who generally occupy the higher ranks in

6 894 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL the organisation, would more readily acknowledge the importance of the informal support of their co-workers and supervisors. With more financial security, better educated employees can spend more time on social exchange such as OCB. On the other hand, less educated employees would focus on the economic exchange of their workplace. Research findings are not conclusive regarding the relationship between education and OCB. Some of them found a positive relationship [Gregerson, 1993; Smith et al., 1983] and some did not [Organ and Konovsky, 1989]. As for marital status, one would expect that married employees would have less time to devote to extra-role activities because this time would be invested in their family. Employees who are not married have more time and energy for extra-role activities. Russell and Rush [1987] did find some relationship between marital status and different dimensions of performance and contribution to the organisation. We would expect that employees with more tenure would perform more OCB because they are more psychologically involved and have a stronger identification with the organisation. In addition, their organisational experience means they are more familiar with the organisation and its employees needs and know where and how to contribute. Less tenured employees will invest their energies in performing in-role activities to establish their job security. The findings are mixed regarding this variable. O Reilly and Chatman [1986] as well as Morrison [1993] found that longer tenured employees performed more extra-role activities, while Smith et al. [1983] did not find a relationship between the two variables. Another variable examined here is job status, namely part-time versus full-time employment. McLean and Kidder [1998] argued that part-time employees rely more on economic exchange with the organisation rather than social exchange. This leads to a psychological contract between part-time employees and their organisation that does not encourage OCB. Also, part-time employees spend less time in the organisation and have fewer opportunities to perform activities such as OCB. In addition, supervisors have lower expectations from part-time employees, and therefore the supervisor employee relationship does not encourage performing OCB. All the above leads to the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 3: Well educated, unmarried, longer tenured, full-time employees will perform more OCB. Finally, a general hypothesis will be advanced. This hypothesis expects that variables from each model will be related to OCB. There is both research evidence and theory that supports the contribution of variables from each model in explaining levels of OCB. Therefore, no expectations will be advanced regarding a stronger or weaker relationship between any of the variables and OCB. Thus: Hypothesis 4: Variables from each model will be related to OCB. METHOD Subjects and Procedure Data were collected from a sample of 241 registered nurses in a public hospital in northern Israel that had acquiesced to our request that they participate in this study. A total of 296 questionnaires were distributed in 20 units in the hospital; 241

7 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOUR 895 usable questionnaires were returned, a response rate of 76 per cent. About a month after the survey, supervisors in each unit provided the OCB data for each employee who had completed a questionnaire. A demographic breakdown of respondents showed that 87 per cent of the sample was Jewish, 67 per cent were full-time employees, 90 per cent were female, and 66 per cent were married. Of the sample, 42 per cent of the nurses were born in Israel and 41 per cent in the former Soviet Union. The average age of the respondents was 38 years (s.d. ¼ 9.97); average tenure in the hospital and in the unit was years (s.d. ¼ 9.06) and 8.23 years (s.d. ¼ 7.78), respectively. Finally, 39 per cent had a BA degree or higher. Dependent Variables Organisational Citizenship Behaviour. OCBs were measured with the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale, developed by Podsakoff and MacKenzie [1989]. This survey is a modified version of the measure used and validated by Podsakoff et al. [1990]. The items included in this scale were based on the definitions of the five dimensions of OCB described by Organ [1988], namely, altruism, courtesy, sportsmanship, conscientiousness and civic virtue. Each dimension had four items. The psychometric properties of the earlier version of this scale were presented by Podsakoff et al. [1990]. They reported reliabilities for each factor ranging from.70 for civic virtue to.85 for altruism. Confirmatory factor analysis showed evidence for a five-factor model. Independent Variables Individualism/Collectivism. This construct was measured by the scale developed by Ramamoorthy and Carroll [1998] consisting of five dimensions: competitiveness (five items), solitary work preference (three items), self-reliance (four items), supremacy of group interests (five items), and supremacy of group goals (three items). Altogether 20 items were used to measure this construct. It should be noted that the items of the scale were coded or reversed so that a high score represents a collectivist orientation. Organisational Justice. This variable was measured using a scale developed by Moorman [1991] and Niehoff and Moorman [1993]. It consisted of one dimension measuring perceptions of distributive justice and two dimensions measuring perceptions of procedural justice. Five items assessing the fairness of different work outcomes measured distributive justice. Procedural justice was measured by items designed to tap both formal procedures and interactional justice. Formal procedures were measured by six items that calculated the degree to which job decisions included mechanisms that ensured the gathering of accurate and unbiased information, employee voice, and an appeal process. Interactional justice was measured by nine items that calculated the degree to which employees felt their needs were considered in, and adequate explanations were made for, job decisions. As for the four demographic variables, tenure was measured based on the reports of the respondents regarding the number of years they had worked in the organisation, education was measured as an ordinal variable ranging from 1 (no academic degree)

8 896 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL to 8 (PhD). Job status was measured as a dichotomous variable ranging from 0 (full employment) to 1 (part-time employment). The same measurement was used for marital status (0 ¼ married; 1 ¼ not married). FINDINGS Table 1 presents descriptive statistics and the inter-correlations of the research variables. Data analysis revealed very low reliability for the conscientiousness dimension of OCB. We were not able to increase the reliability of this scale by omitting any given item. Therefore, we decided to omit this dimension from the analyses. The remaining four dimensions of OCB have acceptable reliabilities that range between.65 and.86. The reliabilities of supremacy of group interests, self-reliance, and solitary work preference were increased to an acceptable level by omitting one item OCB courtesy. As Table 1 shows, the data indicated reasonable psychometric properties for the other measures used in this study. The somewhat low reliabilities of the individualism/collectivism subscales are common for this construct [Ramamoorthy and Carroll, 1998; Wagner, 1995]. The correlations among the independent variables were not high except for the inter-correlations between two dimensions of justice, namely interactional justice and formal procedures. The correlation between the two was.80 and introduced the possibility of multicollinearity. Two comments should be made in this regard. First, Niehoff and Moorman [1993], whose scale was adopted here, found a similar correlation between the two subscales, r ¼.76, in a sample of employees and managers of a national movie theatre company in the United States. This fact shows that the high correlation between the two subscales in the Israeli sample was not specific to it or to Israeli culture. Second, Blalock [1972] argued that whenever there are high correlations between independent variables, it is necessary to have both large samples and accurate measurement. Both conditions were met in this research. The sample was well above 200, and both scales had high reliabilities. All other correlations among the independent variables were acceptable. The correlation matrix showed positive and consistent relationships among the three dimensions of justice and dimensions of OCB. While the correlations are not high and range in most cases between.10 and.20, they are very consistent. The correlations revealed that two dimensions of individualism/collectivism, selfreliance and supremacy of group interests were not related to any of the OCB dimensions. The demographic variables were not related to any of the dimensions of individualism/collectivism, but were related to some dimensions of OCB and justice. The findings of the regression analyses are presented in Table 2. In general the findings provide support for hypotheses 1, 3, and 4. They do not support hypothesis 2. Hypothesis 1 predicted that individualism/collectivism would be related to OCB. The findings in Table 2 show that individualism/collectivism is related to three dimensions of OCB, namely, sportsmanship, courtesy and altruism. Competitiveness is positively related to sportsmanship and courtesy. Both competitiveness and supremacy of group interests are related to altruism. Only one dimension of OCB, civic

9 TABLE 1 BASIC STATISTICS AND CORRELATION MATRIX (RELIABILITIES IN PARENTHESES). Mean SD Individualism/collectivism 1. Self-reliance (0.61) 2. Competitiveness (0.74) 3. Supremacy of group interests (0.60) 4. Solitary work (0.70) preference 5. Supremacy of (0.70) group goals Justice 6. Interactional justice (0.92) 7. Formal procedures (0.84) 8. Distributive justice (0.65) OCB 9. Civic virtue (0.79) 10. Sportsmanship (0.82) 11. Courtesy (0.65) 12. Altruism (0.86) Demographic variables 13. Education Tenure Marital status Job status N ¼ ¼P.05 P.01 P.001 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOUR 897

10 898 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL TABLE 2 RESULTS OF REGRESSION ANALYSES (UNSTANDARDISED BETA) OF RESEARCH VARIABLESONDIMENSIONSOFOCB Variables Civic virtue Sportsmanship Courtesy Altruism Demographics 1. Education Tenure Marital status Job status Individualism/collectivism 5. Self-reliance Competitiveness Supremacy of group interests Solitary work preference Supremacy of group goals Justice variables 10. Interactional justice Procedural justice Distributive justice R Adjusted R F N ¼ depending on the missing values. 1 0 ¼ full employment; 1 ¼ part time employment. 2 0 ¼ married; 1 ¼ not married. p.05, p.01, p.001. virtue, is not related to individualism/collectivism. The consistent effect of competitiveness on three dimensions of OCB is worth noting, indicating that employees with strong non-competitive personalities will perform more OCB. Hypothesis 2 expected that justice would be related to OCB. The findings in Table 2 show that there is no relationship between any of the justice variables and any of the OCB dimensions. Therefore, hypothesis 2 is rejected. It should be noted, however, that in the correlation analysis there was a consistent relationship between most of the dimensions of OCB and most of the dimensions of justice. Hypothesis 3 predicted some effect of the demographic variables on OCB and is supported in general by the data in terms of the existence of the relationship, but not in terms of the direction. Marital status has a consistent relationship with three dimensions of OCB: civic virtue, courtesy and altruism. However, the direction of the relationship contradicted our expectation. The findings show that married nurses perform more OCB than unmarried nurses. Our expectation was the opposite. In the case of sportsmanship, the findings show that it is related to tenure, also contradicting our expectation. Less experienced employees displayed more sportsmanship than did their longer tenured colleagues. So, while in general demographic variables are related to OCB, the direction of the relationship was not according to our expectation. Finally, hypothesis 4 predicted that variables from each of the groups would be related to OCB. The findings provide partial support for this hypothesis. The

11 PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOUR 899 demographic variables and individualism/collectivism were related to OCB, while in contradiction to the expectation, justice variables were not. Finally, it should be noted that the explained variance of the regressions ranged between 10 and 15 per cent (4 to 10 per cent adjusted). While this is not a large magnitude of explained variance, it is not low considering common findings of predicting OCB. If we take into consideration the fact that individualism/collectivism is the main construct in this research, then the explained variance is more than acceptable. DISCUSSION The goal of this paper was to examine the relationship between three groups of variables and dimensions of OCB. Of particular interest was the relationship between individualism/collectivism and OCB, as the former is considered a key component in explaining cultural differences. Applying this variable to a non-north American culture increased the contribution of this study. The findings indeed supported the usefulness of including individualism/collectivism as an important construct that might increase our understanding of OCB. While the general recommendation of the literature is that personal variables do not contribute enough to OCB [Organ, 1994], it seems that individualism/collectivism is an exception. This study supports earlier findings that dimensions of individualism/collectivism are related to OCB [Moorman and Blakely, 1995; Van Dyne et al., 2000]. The consistent relationship between competitiveness and OCB found here also demonstrates the relevance of individualism/collectivism to OCB. This leads us to question whether individualism/collectivism would contribute to OCB in some cultures and less in others. The review of the literature argues that variance in individualism/ collectivism can exist in a collectivist society or in an individualistic one [Earley, 1994; Wagner, 1995]. While we can assume that this construct will have stronger relationship with OCB in collectivist societies, even there the construct will be relevant because some employees will be more individualist in their orientation and some more concerned with the group. Future research should explore the effect of individualism/collectivism on OCB in a variety of cultures. The lack of a relationship between justice variables and OCB is an unexpected finding. OCB researchers definitely consider justice an important determinant [Podsakoff et al., 2000]. Several explanations can be advanced for this finding. First, the specific culture of Israeli nurses may suppress the effect of justice. One should note that in the Israeli public sector the compensation system is very centralised and rigid, offering organisations and supervisors little opportunity to reward employees in terms of income, promotion and the like. Therefore, employees in the Israeli public sector do not feel that they are being treated fairly or unfairly by their organisation, because they understand that their supervisors have almost no control over their benefits As a result, justice variables will not have a strong effect in settings such as those examined here. Second, while in the correlation analysis, significant and consistent although not high correlations were found between most dimensions of justice and most

12 900 THE SERVICE INDUSTRIES JOURNAL dimensions of OCB, these relationships disappeared in the regression analysis. Possibly the effect of individualism/collectivism or the demographic variables suppressed the effect of the justice variables. OCB seems more strongly related to a collectivist orientation than to a sense of unjust mistreatment by the organisation. One should also note the consistent effect of marital status on dimensions of OCB. It appears that being married sharpens the sensitivity of people to the needs of others and that increases their OCB. In short, the findings of this study, while not being overwhelming in their magnitude, do contribute to our understanding of OCB. Their contribution is in pointing out several concepts that need further attention in future research. These concepts, particularly individualism/collectivism and marital status, have not been the major focus of OCB research. However, they seem to capture and provide some interesting insight into OCB. The flexibility of individualism/collectivism as representing both a personal construct and a cross-cultural dimension strengthens its potential as an important determinant of OCB. There is definitely a need for more research on this construct in its relationship to OCB in a variety of cultures and occupational settings. REFERENCES Ball, G.A., Klebe Trevino, L. and Sims, H.P. (1994) Just and unjust punishment: influences on subordinate performance and citizenship, Academy of Management Journal, 37(2), pp Bateman, S.T. and Organ, D.W. (1983) Job satisfaction and the Good Soldier: the relationship between affects and employee citizenship, Academy of Management Journal, 26(4), pp Blalock, H.M. (1972) Social Statistics, Kogahasha: McGraw-Hill. Boyacigiller, N.A. and Adler, N.J. (1991) The parochial dimension: organizational science in a global context, Academy of Management Review, 16(2), pp Earley, P.C. (1989) Social loafing and collectivism: a comparison of the United States and the People s Republic of China, Administrative Science Quarterly, 34(4), pp Earley, P.C. (1994) Self or group? Cultural effects of training on self-efficacy and performance, Administrative Science Quarterly, 39(1), pp Erez, M. and Earley, P.C. (1993) Culture, Self Identity and Work, New York: Oxford University Press. Eskew, D.E. (1993) The role of organizational justice in organizational citizenship behavior, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 6(3), pp Folger, R. (1993) Justice, motivation, and performance beyond role requirements, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 6(3), pp Greenberg, J. (1986) Determinants of perceived fairness of performance evaluations, Journal of Applied Psychology, 71(2), pp Greenberg, J. (1990) Organizational justice: yesterday, today, and tomorrow, Journal of Management, 16(2), pp Gregerson, H.B. (1993) Multiple commitments at work and extra-role behavior during three stages of organizational tenure, Journal of Business Research, 26(1), pp Hofstede, G. (1980) Cultures and Organization, Institute for Research on Intercultural Cooperation, University of Limburg at Maastricht the Netherlands. Hui, C.H. and Triandis, H.C. (1986) Individualism-collectivism: a study of cross cultural researches, Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, 17(2), pp Katz, D. (1964) The motivational basis of organizational behavior, Behavioral Science, 9(1), pp Katz, D. and Kahn, R.L. (1966) The Social Psychology of Organization, New York: Wiley. Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.K. and Schoorman, F.D. (1995) An integrative model of organizational trust, Academy of Management Review, 20(3), pp Mclean, P.J. and Kidder, D.G. (1998) Fitting square pegs into round holes: mapping the domain of contingent work arrangements onto the psychological contract, Journal of Organizational Behavior, 19(1), pp

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