A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship Between Organizational Citizenship Behaviour

and Counterproductive Work Behaviour

*Dalal, R. S. (2005). A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship Between Organizational
Citizenship Behavior and Counterproductive Work Behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology,
90(6), 1241–1255. http://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.90.6.1241

There are three broad performance domains: task performance, OCB and CWB.
AIM:
1. Estimate strength of relationship between OCB and CWB (both global and facet
levels)
2. Estimate these constructs’ relationship with a common set of antecedents
3. Determine whether the magnitude of the OCB-CWB relationship is moderated by
other variables.
Construct definitions:
OCB = employee behaviour that is discretionary and may be recognized and rewarder
during performance appraisals, improves the functioning of the organization.
CWB = intentional employee behaviour that is harmful to the legitimate interests of an
organization.
There are:
- Different categories of OCB and CWB
- Several reasons why an employee might engage in OCB and CWB
- The OCB-CWB relationship is likely to be moderated by several variables.
Dimensionality:
OCB has two dimensions: interpersonal (OCB-I e.g., volunteering to help a coworker) and
organizational (OCB-O e.g., praising organization to outsiders) based on the target of
behaviours, individual employees or organization as a whole.
Similar distinctions were made for CWB with interpersonally directed (CWB-I e.g.,
gossiping about coworkers) and organizationally directed or workplace deviance (CWB-O
e.g., taking overly long breaks).
Bennet & Stamper (2001): OCB and CWB are opposite poles of one dimension, the other
dimension was target of behaviour.
So OCB-I and CWB-I are behaviours designet to help or harm other employees, and OCB-O
represents behaviours designed to surpass required levels and CWB-O represent employees
behaving in ways they should not and/or failing to meet the minimum requirements.
Antecedents
Job attitudes and Organizational Justice
Using social exchange theory, the theory of psychological contracts and the norm of
reciprocity predict that employees respond to working conditions that are satisfying and to
workplace processes, outcomes and interactions that are fair by behaving in wais that benefit
the organization and/or other employees (OCB) and by exhibiting commitment to the
organization. In contrast, employees retaliate against dissatisfying conditions and unjust
workplaces by engaging in behaviour that harms the organization and/or other employees
(CWB) and by a lack of organizational commitment.
 Expectation that OCB and CWB will be related in opposite directions to job
satisfaction, organizational commitment and organizational justice. But organizational
(in)justice relationship with CWB will be stronger than with OCB, even if meta-
analyses found the difference to be small.
Conscientiousness
This trait is found to be the best personality predictor for OCB and CWB in a meta-analysis.
 They expect that conscientious people to engage in OCB and unconscientious people
to engage in CWB
Positive and Negative Affect
Spector and Fox (2002) suggested that affect is related with general physiological arousal and
induces “action tendencies” that engender behaviour via formulation of behavioural
intentions and/or the initiation of readiness to act. They said that the behaviour may take form
of constructive action (OCB) ar destructive action (CWB). There is evidence that CWB is
designated to ameliorate the negative affect and OCB to maintain positive affect.
 People high in PA engage in OCB and low on PA may or not engage in CWB.
 People high in NA would enageg in CWB and low on NA may or not engage in OCB.
Conclusion: Do OCB and CWB exhibit similar patterns of relationship with antecedents?
Potential Moderator Variables
Source of Ratings
Oc/b-CWB relationship may be much smaller when self-reports are used than when
supervisor reports are used. This can be due to the fact that although most of the
interpersonally CWB may be observable, most of the CWB will be kept private by the
perpetrators, so unobservable.
Supervisor have little basis for judging many CWBs, and also OCB because supervisors
will make their judgements of employee CWB and OCB on the basis of their general
impressions of the employee, an instance of halo error that will inflate the relationship
between OCB and CWB.
 OCB-CWB relationship will be moderated by the source of ratings, relationships
should be more strongly negative when the behaviours are rated by their supervisors
than when they are rated by the job incumbents.
Inclusion of Antithetical Items
The absence of OCB is not identical with CWB. Even though some inventories for OCB
include antithetical items that are reverse scored and resemble CWB behaviour and that
happens also in a few inventories for CWB (including items that describe OCB and are
reverse scored).
 The magnitude of the OCB-CWB relationship is moderated by presence versus
absence of antithetical items within measures of OCB and CWB, the magnitude of the
OCB-CWB relationship will be stronger when such practices are adopted then when
they are not.
Format of Response Options
Traditional dominance model: assumes that relationships between observed and latent
variables are linear. A respondent will not endorse those positively worded items (or
reverse-scored negatively worded items) that have a more positive standing on the latent
variable than he or she does. Is likely to remain appropriate when participants report
frequency of having engaged in a particular OCB and CWB.
Unfolding model assumes quadratic or at least single peaked relationships. A respondent
typically will not endorse those items that have a more positive or a more negative
standing on the latent variable than he or she does – meaning he will not endorse items
that are distant in either direction from his position. It was posited to underlie attitudinal
and personality data and is most likely to operate when respondents are asked about the
extent to which these behaviours are characteristic of them.
 Relationship between OCB-CWB will be moderated by the type of response options,
a stronger negative relationship is hypothesized for behavioural frequency options
than for agreement-disagreement or characteristic-uncharacteristic response options.
Education Level of Rater
Some studies suggest that special pedagogical tools are needed in the schools to aid the
recognition and understanding of opposites and the ability to draw correct inferences from
them. In general, the ability to detect opposites is likely to vary as a function of education.
Conceptual or definitional oppositions of the kind potentially exhibited by OCB vs CWB
may be specially hard to detect.
 Rater’s education level will moderate the OCB-CWB relationship, the relationship
will be more strongly negative in studies with more highly educated respondents than
in studies with less highly educated respondents.
Method
Literature search in several manuals and with keywords.
Inclusion criteria: explicit mention of OCB or closely related constructs (e.g.,
organizational spontaneity) and CWB and closely related constructs (e.g., workplace
deviance behaviour); behaviour measures that facilitated the creation of composites
approximating these constructs; behaviours were identifiable as beneficial or harmful to
legitimate interests of organization or its employees; satisfaction-behaviour relationships
were included only if the satisfaction measure was either global or included more than
one facet of satisfaction.
Results of searches and application of the criteria: 49 samples from 38 studies, with
overall sample size 16 721.
Procedure: meta-analytic procedures specified by Hunter and Schmidt (1990) were used.
The accuracy of the meta-analytic effect size was examined by means of 90% confidence
intervals.
Results
Reliability of work behaviour: 0.79 OCB and 0.77 CWB.
Relationship between global constructs: mean correlation of -0.27, after correcting for
unreliability was -0.32, that was evaluated as significantly different from zero but is not
indicating that OCB and CWB were strongly related. Given the size of the confidence
interval, it was assumed that in some circumstances the obtained relationship was
stronger than the overall mean and in other circumstances was weaker.
Relationship between facets:
a) OCB-CWB relationships at the facet level were not strong
b) OCB-CWB relationships within target-referent (OCB-I and CWB-I, and OCB-O and
CWB-O) were substantially stronger than OCB-CWB relationships between targets or
referents (OCB-I and CWB-O, and OCB-O and CWB-I
c) OCB-OCB and CWB-CWB relationships between targets or referents (OCB-I and
OCB-O, and CWB-I and CWB-O) were substantially stronger than OCB-CWB
relationships within target-referent (OCB-I and CWB-I, and OCB-O and CWB-O)
 The relationship between OCB and CWB at the facet level is modestly negative. The
results also indicate that the OCB vs CWB distinction is more important than between
interpersonally directed vs organizationally directed behaviour. SO, the target-referent
of behaviour may not be as important as often believed; the previous examination of
global-level OCB-CWB relationship is meaningful and warranted.
Antecedents of OCB and CWB:
Organizational justice: with CWB (range between -0.25 and -0.36), with OCB (range
between 0.20 and 0.34).
Conscientiousness: with CWB (range between -0.26 and -0.38), with OCB (range 0.23
and 0.29).
The next conclusions are tentative because the only standards for comparison on the
CWB side are the present (noncomprehensive) analyses.
Job satisfaction with CWB (-0.37) appears to be stronger than its relationship with OCB
(0.16 to 0.28).
Organizational commitment appears to be slightly more strongly related to CWB (-0.36)
than to OCB (0.20 to 0.32).
Negative affect relationship with CWB (0.41) seems to be much stronger that its
relationship with OCB (-0.10). Supporting Spector and Fox (2002) contention that NA is
more strongly related to CWB than to OCB.
Positive affect impact is less clear with substantial discrepancy in the PA-OCB obtained
results (between Ortega and Ryan – meta-analysis- 0.12 and present results 0.34). These
results make it difficult to compare it with PA-CWB relationship (-0.34).
A preliminary conclusion is that antecedent-CWB relationships are generally a little
stronger than antecedent-OCB relationships. Not only the magnitude, but also the patterns
of antecedent behaviour relationships for OCB vs CWB appear to differ.

Moderator analyses:
The strength of OCB-CWB relationship differed as a function of the source of the ratings:
supervisor ratings yielded a much stronger relationship than did incumbent (self) ratings.
The OCB-CWB relationship was also stronger when measures contained antithetical
items.
The relationship was influenced by the format of response options, but the moderation
effect was in the opposite direction than hypothesized, with OCB-CWB relationship
stronger when responses were agreement-disagreement or characteristic-uncharacteristic
variety than when they were of the behavioural frequency variety.
The extent to which the rater was educated had little effect on the OCB-CWB
relationship.
BUT the (potential) moderator variables were themselves intercorrelated suggesting the
effects of different moderators may have been confounded.
Implications for theory and practice:
OCB and CWB are not opposite poles of the same factor.
Research should focus on the source of OCB and CWB not on the target.
OCB and CWB can be defined as adaptive behavioural responses with the goal of
achieving a good mood or a high level of satisfaction in the future.
Practice implications:
- Successful elimination of high CWB employees during the applicant screening
process may not, in and of itself, simultaneously achieve the successful selection of
high OCB employees.
- An organizational intervention to facilitate OCB may not simultaneously deter CWB.
- OCB and CWB ned to be evaluated separately during performance appraisals. For
example, rather than evaluating employees along a continuum ranging from often
harming coworkers to often helping them, it may be necessary to evaluate the
frequency with which the employee harms coworkers separately from the frequency
with which he or she helps them. In this way, one could assess whether the employee
(a) frequently helps oothers but also frequently harm them,
(b) does not help others but does not harm them either,
(c) frequently helps others but rarely harms them,
(d) frequently harms others but rarely help them.
It may be helpful also to create a composite from OCB and CWB and task
performance to assess the employee’s overall contribution to the organization.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Career Outcomes: The Cost of Being a

Good Citizen
Bergeron, D. M., Shipp, A. J., Rosen, B., & Furst, S. A. (2013). Organizational
Citizenship Behavior and Career Outcomes: The Cost of Being a Good Citizen.
Journal of Management, 39(4), 958–984. http://doi.org/10.1177/0149206311407508

In behaviour-based control systems OCB tends to have positive relations with

individual outcomes.
In an outcome-based control system, behaviour that do not directly contribute to an
individual productivity such as helping others may not be valued and may even come
as a cost. So in this type of system, OCB may take time away from productivity and
may be negatively related to certain individual outcomes. In a recent study at the team
level, time-consuming OCB dimesions had negative relationships with performance in
certain groups.
Factors that influence subjective outcomes (performance outcomes) may not be the
same factors that influence objective outcomes (e.g., compensation, career
advancement).
Control system = a set of organizational procedures designed to monitor, direct,
evaluate, and compensate employees.
In behaviour-based control systems, organizations are concerned with how work gets
done, therefore, specific behaviours are evaluated and rewarded. Because OCB
contributes to organizational and group effectiveness, it follows that employees would
be positively evaluated when engaging in OCB in a behaviour-based control system.
OCB and task performance have approximatively equal weight in determining
performance evaluations. Because in a behaviour-based control system the boudry
between OCB and task performance may be blurred and because OCB is a type of
behaviour, it follows that employees would be positively evaluated when engaging in
OCB in a system that rewards behaviours.
In an outcome-based system, organizations are concerned with what gets done. And
individual results are evaluated and rewarded. Task performance will be more
important than OCB in this type of system because the boundary between OCB and
task performance is more clearly defined than in a behaviour-based system, and
because results are the ones rewarded. Task performance is more proximal that OCB
to the central mission.
H1: Time spent on task performance is more important than time spent on OCB in
determining subjective performance evaluations in an outcome-based control system.

It is still likely that OCB will be related positively with performance evaluations in
outcome-based control systems because OCB makes groups function more effectively
and make the supervisor’s job easier it can be informally rewarded by supervisors
with a performance evaluations and because outcome-based control systems
promovate short term orientation on short term payofs and ignore the long-term
 results, taking OCB into consideration when conducting subjective performance
evaluations may be a way to encourage cooperation and helping behaviors.
H2: Time spent on OCB is positively related to subjective performance evaluation in
an outcome-based control system.
Using resource allocation perspective, authors argument on the idea that time is a
limited resource and using it for OCB, will diminish the time used for task
performance.
H3:Time spent on OCB will be negatively related to task performance.
H4: Time spent on tsk performance is more important than time spent on OCB in
determining objective individual career outcomes (salary increase, career
advancement) in an outcome-based control system.
H5: Time spent on OCB is negatively related to objective career outcome in an
outcome-based control system.
Method:
- Data set taken from an HR program with hour classification.
- 3 680 participants (from archival data
Task performance: hours employee worked on projects for clients transformed in an
annual measure (nr of hours split by 52 – weeks in a year)
OCB – measured similarly by taking administrative hours from the program and
composing an average weekly hours from the annal number split by 52.
Performance evaluations – by managers on scales from 1 to 5 on meeting expectation
from did not meet expectation to significantly exceeded expectations.
Salary increase – the percentage of increase in individual salary received for the year.
Increses in salary were made like ordinal scales if one have a higher amount of
increase, the sum allocated for increases will drop so will be smaller increases for
other employee. (+ made by supervisor and given to individuals viewed as most
responsible for the year revenue and most valuable relative to company needs).
Career advancement – was available for 2356 participants from the sample because
entry-level employees are subject to an up-or-out system (35% leave within the first 2
years). Advancement speed was assessed as the number of years employees spent in
the associate rank, for those who were promoted to manager rank the variable was the
total amount of the time they spent in the associate rank. For those who were not
promoted, the time was the one spent on associate rank until the date of the data
collection. Was reverse coded, so that positive numbers indicate faster advancement
speed. Promotion was coded as dummy 0 or 1 for promoted or not to manager rank.
Control variables: rank (1-entry level, 2-associate and 3-manager), organizational
tenure (number of years in the firm), rehire status (with 1-rehire and 0-original hire),
sex, race, illness hours and vacation hours.
Results:
Time spent on task performance was positively related to performance evaluation,
salary increase and promotion suggesting the importance of task performance to
career outcomes.
OCB was negatively related to dalary increase and promotion but positively corelated
with rank.
Individuals who spent more time on task performance advanced more quickly,
whereas those who spent more time on OCB advanced more slowly.
 There was a negative correlation between OCB and task performance. Suggesting the
tradeoff posited with time resources.
H1, 2, 3, and 4 were supported.
H5 was partially supported since OCB was negatively related to salary and
advancement speed but not related to promotion.
Conclusion the type of control system is a boundry condition for the relationship
between OCB and outcomes.

Why Abusive Supervision Impacts Employee OCB and CWB: A Meta-Analytic

Review of Competing Mediating Mechanisms
Zhang, Y., Liu, X., Xu, S., Yang, L. Q., & Bednall, T. C. (2019). Why abusive
supervision impacts employee OCB and CWB: A meta-analytic review of competing
mediating mechanisms. Journal of Management, 45(6), 2474-2497.

Abusive supervision = “subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which supervisors

engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviours, excluding
physical contact”
This supervision influences employee behaviours and has detrimental effects on OCB
and CWB.
There is no generally accepted response to why this happens. But there are 2
mechanisms that try to explain why this happens.
1. Organizational justice perspective argues that abusive supervision damages
perception of fairness, thereby motivating employees to decrease OCB and
increase CWB.
2. Resource perspective argues that abusive supervision represents a source of work
stress, which depletes the resources required to engage in OCB and refrain from
CWB. This view is supported by empirical findings: abusive supervision
increased employee psychological distress, and depletes resources of employees
and impaires their interpersonal facilitation and job dedication (forms of OCB).
Few studies investigated these explications simultaneously. So it is not known if the effect of
abusive supervision is explained by one perspective or both.
H1a: Organizational justice mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and
employee OCB.
H1b: Organizational justice mediates the relationship between abusive supervision and CWB.
Hypothesis 2a: Work stress mediates the negative relationship between abusive supervision
and employee OCB.
Hypothesis 2b: Work stress mediates the positive relationship between abusive supervision
and employee CWB.
Hypothesis 3a: Relative to work stress, organizational justice better explains why abusive
supervision influences employee OCB.
Hypothesis 3b: Relative to organizational justice, work stress better explains why abusive
supervision influences employee CWB
Hypothesis 4a: Masculinity/femininity moderates the negative relationship between abusive
supervision and employee OCB such that the relationship is stronger in masculine cultures.
Hypothesis 4b: Masculinity/femininity moderates the positive relationship between abusive
supervision and employee CWB such that the relationship is stronger in masculine cultures.

Practical implications:
- Organizations should take measures to decrease the abusive supervision, for example
with training self-control capacity
- organizations may launch regular leadership training programs to help supervisors
learn and adopt more effective interpersonal strategies when interacting eith
employees. e.g., emotional intelligence trainings to coach abusive supervisors to listen
employees ideas, be empathetic to their concerns and emotions, and provide greater
support.
- If there is abusive supervision and the organization aims to maintain OCB they should
attempt to reduce employees’ injustice perceptions, for example by implementing fair
disciplinary procedures to address systematic, ongoing forms of abusive supervision
- If the goal is to reduce or prevent CWB, organization can make effort to ensure that
employees have sufficient resources to improve their jobs.; they may support
employees’ coping with abusive supervision by providing stress management training
or promoting employees with high self-control.

Good Soldiers and Good Actors: Prosocial and Impression Management Motives
as Interactive predictors of Affiliative Citizenship Behaviours
Grant, A. M., & Mayer, D. M. (2009). Good soldiers and good actors: prosocial and
impression management motives as interactive predictors of affiliative citizenship
behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(4), 900–12.
http://doi.org/10.1037/a0013770

Citizenship behaviours can be classified in2 different categories: affiliative versus

challenging.
Affiliative citizenship behaviours = actions directed toward maintaining the status
quo by promoting and supporting existing work processes and relationships. Include:
helping colleagues, showing courtesy toward others, and taking initiative to working
additional hours.
Challenging citizenship behaviours = actions directed toward changing the status
quo by questioning and improving upon existing work processes. Include voicing
problems, selling issues and taking charge to implement constructive changes to work
methods.
Both types can contribute to effective outcomes in organizations.
Much attention is given to understanding the emergence of citizenship behavior by
examining the reasons that guide the decision to engage in this behaviour.
Considerable research related citizenship behaviours with prosocial motives or desires
to benefit other people. At least 3 mechanism were proposed through which prosocial
motives may increase the likelihood of citizenship behaviour.
 1. Employees with prosocial motives tend to focus their attention outwardly rather
than inwardly, which increases the chances they will recognize opportunities for
contributing to other people and their organizations.
2. Employees with prosocial motives tend to place greater value and feel more
responsible for improving the welfare of other people and organizations, which
increases the chances that they will feel commited to engaging in citizenship
behaviour.
3. Because employees with prosocial motives are concerned with the welfacre of
other people and the organization, they are often willing to subordinate their own
interests to contribute.
 They expect that prosocial motives will predict higher levels of both affiliative and
challenging forms of citizenship behaviour. Employees with prosocial motives will be
more likely to recognize and act on opportunities to engage in affiliative forms of
citizenship, such as helping and courtesy, as well as challenging forms of citizenship
such as voice.
Hypothesis 1a: The stronger the employee’s prosocial motives, the greater the employee’s
level of affiliative citizenship behaviours. Mix
Hypothesis 1b: The stronger the employee’s prosocial motives, the greater the employee’s
level of challenging citizenship behaviours.

Another stream of motivational approach has emerged in the past years. Affiliative
citizenship is often undertaken not only by “good sodiers” attempting to help other
people and their organization but also by “good actors” attempting to create favorable
images in the eyes of others. According to this reasoning, employees engage in
citizenship at strategic times and in strategic ways to bolster their reputations as helpful,
capable contributors. Flynn (2003) found that employees who engage in more frequent
citizenship behaviours earn higher levels of social status from their peers. Other studies
showed that some forms of citizenship behaviours are predicted by impression
management motives, such as image enhacement and ingratiation and status enhacement.
However, there are also studies with mixed results, where impression management
explained incremental variance in sportsmanship behaviours but not in other forms of
OCB.
Interaction of prosocial and impression management motives
Impression management motives is hypothesized as moderator of the effects of prosocial
motives on affiliative citizenship behaviours, rather than an independent predictor of
those behaviours.
It is thought that challenging citizenship behaviour can damage the image of the
employee that involves in that behaviour, so authors suggest that employees with high
impression management are careful to avoid creating a negative image of themselves.
Employees with strong prosocial and impression management motives will tend to evoke
affiliative citizenship behaviour that benefit other people and the organization without
jeopardizing their own reputation
H2: Impression management motives strengthen the positive relationship between
prosocial motives and affiliative citizenship behaviours.
In contrast, they expect that impression management motives will be less likely to
strengthen the association between prosocial motives and challenging citizenship
behaviours. Impression management is a subset of organizational politics, and engaging
in challenging behaviours can be politically risky.
Study 1
114 paid employees and 114 direct supervisors at two nonprofit organizations in the
midwestern United States.
Citizenship behaviour – they described several examples of affiliative citizenship
behaviours and ask employees how important each of the following motives were to their
decision to engage in affiliative citizenship behaviour (1 – not at all like me, 7-very much
like me). Prosocial citizenship motives were measured by four items developed by Grant
(2008). Impression management citizenship motives were measured with a ten-item scale
developed by Rious and Penner.
Affiliative citizenship behaviours – measured with a scale.
Results:
Impression management a significant predictor of interpersonal citizenship. +
confirmation of H1a and H2.
Study 2
Method
455 participants – snowball sampling procedure
Citizenship motives same scales for prosocial motives and impression management
motives.
Affiliative citizenship behaviour: Initiative with a 15 item scale
Challenging citizenship behaviour: Voice with a 6 item scale.
Control variables: organizational concern motives, role definitions, gender, education
level, job level and ethnicity.
Results:
H1a not supported
Interraction existed. Impression management motives srengthened the association
between prosocial motives and affiliative (initiative) but not challenging (voice) forms of
citizenship.
Practical implications:
- Managers who seek to cultivate good citizens may benefit from highlighting the
multiple rewards of citizenship. Ensuring that employees are aware that citizenship
 can result in both helping and status rewards may increase the chances that employees
with strong prosocial and impression management motives recognize the value of
expressing these motives in the form of affiliative citizenship behaviours.
- If managers wish to encourage more challenging citizenship behaviours, they may
place particular emphasis on selecting employees with prosocial motives.

The Good, the Bad, and the Misguided: How Managers Inadvertently Encourage
Deviant Behaviours
Litzky, B., Eddleston, K., & Kidder, D. (2006). The good, the Bad and the
Misguided : How Managers Inadvertently Encourage Deviant Behaviors. Academy of
Management Perspectives, 20(1), 91–103.