Journal of Organizational Behavior

J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 93±108 (2002)

DOI: 10.1002/job.123

Examining the roles of job involvement

and work centrality in predicting
organizational citizenship behaviors
and job performance
JAMES M. DIEFENDORFF1*, DOUGLAS J. BROWN2, ALLEN M. KAMIN3
AND ROBERT G. LORD4
1
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, U.S.A.
2
University of Waterloo, U.S.A.
3
Applied Psychological Techniques, Inc., U.S.A.
4
University of Akron, U.S.A.

Summary A recent meta-analysis by Brown (1996) concluded that job involvement was unrelated to job
performance. The present investigation proposed that the null ®ndings reported in this meta-
analysis stem from the choice of performance criteria and the use of job involvement measures
that are confounded with work centrality in the primary studies included in the meta-analysis.
The current study found that job involvement, when assessed with a recently published mea-
sure (Paullay et al., 1994), is a signi®cant predictor of supervisor ratings of organizational
citizenship behaviors (OCB) and in-role performance, controlling for work centrality and
other individual difference variables. Consistent with recent ®ndings, there is evidence that
sex moderates some of the job involvement and OCB relationships, with females having a
stronger, positive relationship between these constructs than males. Copyright # 2001 John
Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction

For over 35 years, researchers have been interested in the relationship between job involvement and
organizational variables (Kanungo, 1982a,b; Lodahl and Kejner, 1965; Saleh and Hosek, 1976).
Although job involvement is considered to be a key factor in¯uencing important individual and orga-
nizational outcomes (Lawler, 1986), a recent meta-analysis (Brown, 1996) found non-signi®cant rela-
tionships between job involvement and overall job performance and concluded that job involvement
may only indirectly affect performance. This ®nding calls into question the notion that greater
employee involvement leads to improved organizational functioning (Pfeffer, 1994). Closer inspection
of Brown's meta-analysis reveals that there are at least two factors that may have led to the non-
signi®cant ®ndings that he reports.

* Correspondence to: James M. Diefendorff, Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70810,
U.S.A. E-mail: jdiefen@lsu.edu

Received 6 November 2000

Accepted 2 August 2001
Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published online 12 December 2001
94 J. M. DIEFENDORFF ET AL.

One possible explanation for the non-signi®cant ®ndings reported by Brown (1996) pertains to the
measurement of job involvement in the primary studies included in his meta-analysis. Ultimately, the
conclusions drawn from any meta-analytic review are limited by the construct validity of the measures
utilized in the primary investigations (Bobko and Stone-Romero, 1998). On this issue Bobko and
Stone-Romero (1998) have noted that the conclusions drawn from a meta-analysis may be particularly
suspect when the `operational de®nitions are re¯ective of more than a single construct' (p. 375). As
these authors suggest, any contamination to the focal construct under consideration can substantially
alter the conclusions that are drawn from a meta-analysis. Because prominent measures of job invol-
vement (Lodahl and Kejner, 1965; Kanungo, 1982a) are confounded with work centrality (Brown,
1996; Paulley et al., 1994), Brown's results may not accurately re¯ect the true relationship between
job involvement and job performance. Based on the above logic we felt that a re-examination of the
job involvement±job performance relationship was warranted. As such, the present investigation
represents the ®rst study of the relationship between a job involvement measure that is not
contaminated with work centrality (Paullay et al., 1994) and supervisory ratings of job performance.
To further assess the independence of these constructs, work centrality was measured and controlled in
analyses.
A second plausible reason for the non-signi®cant ®ndings reported by Brown (1996) may lie in the
narrow de®nition of performance adopted in previous job involvement research. The studies included
in Brown's meta-analysis have primarily de®ned performance in terms of in-role performance, or how
well a person completes his/her assigned duties. However, recent theoretical and empirical work sug-
gests that the conceptualization of job performance should be expanded to include contextual perfor-
mance (Borman and Motowidlo, 1993), or, as labelled by Organ (1997), Organizational Citizenship
Behaviors (OCB). This additional domain of job behaviors is thought to be more discretionary and
consequently more heavily in¯uenced by a person's beliefs and attitudes (i.e., job involvement) than
many task duties, which are often constrained by factors such as the work-process technology and
minimum performance requirements. Thus, the second goal of the present investigation was to exam-
ine the relationship between job involvement and an expanded view of job performance, including
supervisor ratings of both OCB and in-role performance as criteria.
The ®nal purpose of this paper was to explore the role of sex in the relationship between job invol-
vement and OCBs. Although Organ and Ryan (1995) failed to ®nd that sex was related to OCBs, recent
research has begun to identify sex differences (Allen, 2000Ðpaper presented at the Annual SIOP
Conference, New Orleans, LA; Chen and Heilman, 2001Ðpaper presented at the Annual SIOP
Conference, San Diego, CA; Lovell et al., 1999). In the present investigation we examined whether
the job involvement±OCB relationship is moderated by sex, such that, women may demonstrate a
stronger association between their job involvement and OCBs than men, particular when the OCBs
are directed toward individuals (e.g., helping). In the remainder of this paper, we review the job
involvement and OCB literatures and present a study examining their inter-relationship.

Measurement of Job Involvement

Job involvement can be de®ned as `the degree to which one is cognitively preoccupied with, engaged
in, and concerned with one's present job' (Paullay et al., 1994, p. 224). Job involvement is considered
by many researchers to be a primary determinant of organizational effectiveness (Pfeffer, 1994) and
individual motivation (Hackman and Lawler, 1971). These links stem from the theoretical notion
that being immersed in your work increases motivational processes which in turn in¯uence job

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 93±108 (2002)
 JOB INVOLVEMENT 95

performance and other relevant outcomes (e.g., turnover, absenteeism). Although job involvement was
®rst identi®ed as an important organizational attitude over 35 years ago (Lodahl and Kejner, 1965),
there have been inconsistencies in its conceptualization and measurement (Brown, 1996).
The most widely used measure of job involvement is Lodahl and Kejner's (1965) measure, or some
variation of it. Despite its widespread use, both Brown (1996) and Paullay et al. (1994) have argued
that this measure is conceptually ¯awed because it confounds job involvement with work centrality.
Unlike work centrality, which refers to the extent to which individuals view work as a main component
in their life, job involvement re¯ects the extent to which individuals are preoccupied by and immersed
in their present jobs. Work centrality is broader in scope than job involvement insofar as it re¯ects a
belief in the importance that work should take in one's life, irrespective of one's current job. Thus, a
person could report a low level of work centrality, indicating that work is not one of the most important
things in his/her life, and also report a high level of job involvement because he/she is immersed in
activities at work and thinks about work-related issues, even when not working. An item from the
Lodahl and Kejner (1965) job involvement scale re¯ecting work centrality is as follows: `The most
important things that happen to me involve my work'. This item clearly re¯ects an implicit assessment
of the relative importance of work compared to other aspects of individuals' lives, rather than how
immersed people are in their present jobs.
Given the fact that work centrality and job involvement represent different constructs, use of mea-
sures confounding the two is inappropriate and may have contributed to the non-signi®cant relation-
ships with performance reported in Brown (1996). Recognizing this dilemma, Paullay et al. (1994)
developed measures of job involvement and work centrality that are factorially distinct. Although
Paullay et al.'s work separated the measurement of the two constructs, it did not provide criterion-
related evidence for their distinctiveness. Thus, the ®rst goal of the present investigation is to examine
the practical importance of distinguishing between job involvement and work centrality by testing
whether they differentially relate to relevant outcome variables (e.g., job performance).

Job Involvement and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

According to Katz and Kahn (1978), effective organizational functioning requires employees to not
only perform their prescribed role, but also to engage in behaviors that go beyond these formal obliga-
tions. This aspect of performance is consistent with Organ's (1988) conceptualization of OCBs. In
general, OCBs differ from in-role performance in two main respects. First, unlike in-role performance,
OCBs do not directly support the technical core (i.e., transformation of raw materials into products),
but rather in¯uence the social and psychological environment of organizations, which in turn in¯u-
ences the technical core (Organ, 1997). That is, in-role behaviors involve producing goods and services
(e.g., selling goods, operating machinery) and maintaining this production over time (e.g., distributing
products, supervising operations), whereas OCBs enhance the psychological environment in which the
technical core operates (Motowidlo et al., 1997). Thus, while both types of behaviors contribute
to organizational effectiveness, OCBs operate indirectly and task performance operates directly.
Podsakoff and MacKenzie (1997) describe this aspect of OCBs as one of `lubricating the social
machinery of the organization, reducing friction, and/or increasing ef®ciency' (p. 135). Second, and
most importantly for the current study, OCBs are more discretionary and less constrained by work-
process technology and other task features than in-role activities. As noted by Van Scotter et al.
(2000), how and when a person performs assigned duties is less a matter of individual choice than
is how and when a person engages in OCBs. Because of these differences, researchers have argued

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 93±108 (2002)
96 J. M. DIEFENDORFF ET AL.

that the antecedents of in-role performance and OCBs are different (Borman and Motowidlo, 1993;
Motowidlo et al., 1997). Whereas task performance is in¯uenced by individual ability and work-
process technology, OCBs are in¯uenced by what individuals think and feel about their jobs (Organ
and Ryan, 1995; Penner et al., 1997).
Although Brown's (1996) meta-analysis of job involvement revealed no signi®cant relationship
between overall job performance and job involvement, none of the studies included in his meta-
analysis conceptualized job performance in terms of OCBs. In fact, no published research has exam-
ined the relationship between job involvement and OCBs. Given the fact that job involvement is
thought to be an important determinant of effort and motivation, and other job attitudes have been
shown to positively relate to OCBs (Van Scotter, 2000), it is anticipated that those high in job involve-
ment will engage in more OCBs. That is, even though OCBs are not part of individuals' assigned
duties, they are still bene®cial to the organization, its members and the employees themselves
(Van Scotter et al., 2000); therefore, highly involved individuals should engage in these behaviors
to a greater extent than less involved individuals.

Dimensions of OCBs

Organ (1988) originally proposed ®ve OCB dimensions: conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy,
altruism, and civic virtue. Conscientiousness refers to the extent to which someone is punctual, high in
attendance, and goes beyond normal requirements or expectations. Sportsmanship refers to the extent
to which someone does not complain unnecessarily or make a big deal out of small issues. Courtesy
refers to behaviors that prevent problems from occurring for others by doing things such as giving
advance notice and passing along information. Altruism refers to behaviors that help others with exist-
ing job-related problems. Finally, civic virtue refers to the extent to which one contributes to political
issues in organizations in a responsible manner.
In contrast to Organ's (1988) original conceptualization, Williams and Anderson (1991) distin-
guished between OCBs directed at other individuals (OCB-I) and OCBs not directed at any speci®c
persons but that bene®t the organization (OCB-O). Organ (1997) suggested that OCB-I includes the
dimensions of Altruism and Courtesy whereas OCB-O corresponds more closely to Conscientious-
ness. Recent work by Coleman and Borman (2000) demonstrate that OCB-O might also include Civic
Virtue, as participating in organizational life likely bene®ts the organization (or work unit) but is not
directed toward any one individual. Arguably, Sportsmanship may be categorized as either, since not
complaining may keep the social environment running smoothly and also make the lives of individuals
within earshot easier (the items from the scale used in this study are consistent with this interpretation
as well).
Regardless of the theoretical position, it is hypothesized that job involvement will signi®cantly pre-
dict OCBs across their various dimensions. Additionally, given the broader focus of work centrality
(i.e., the importance of work in one's life versus involvement in one's job) we anticipate that it will
have weaker relationships with in-role performance and OCBs than will job involvement. Further-
more, to the extent that job involvement and work centrality represent distinct constructs, it is antici-
pated that job involvement will account for a signi®cant amount of incremental variance beyond that
accounted for by work centrality. Finally, because OCBs are generally more discretionary and less
constrained by work factors than in-role performance, we expect the relationships between job invol-
vement and all OCB dimensions will be stronger than the relationship between job involvement and
in-role job performance. For example, two individuals who differ substantially in their level of job
involvement may perform in-role activities at the same level because of constraints that exist in the
work environment. However, the individual higher in job involvement may perform OCBs to a greater

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 93±108 (2002)
 JOB INVOLVEMENT 97

extent than the individual low in job involvement, because of the discretionary and less constrained
nature of these behaviors.
Hypothesis 1: Job involvement will be positively correlated with supervisor ratings of OCBs across
all dimensions.
Hypothesis 2: Job involvement will be positively correlated with supervisor ratings of in-role
performance, but to a signi®cantly lesser extent than OCBs.
Hypothesis 3: Job involvement will predict supervisor ratings of in-role performance and OCBs
independent of work centrality.

Sex Differences

A recent meta-analysis (Konrad et al., 2000) found that across job types and other sample character-
istics, women preferred job attributes involving helping others, making friends, and working with
others more than men. In contrast, men preferred solitude to a greater extent than women. In addition,
research has demonstrated that women tend to emphasize relational identities (Gabriel and Gardner,
1999) more than men and exhibit more helping behavior than men (Bridges, 1989; George et al.,
1998). These ®ndings suggest that there are general differences between men and women in the
amount of helping and social interaction they prefer to have in their work.
Theory on prescriptive stereotypes (Deaux and Kite, 1993) suggests that because women are per-
ceived to have higher levels of communal attributes and to be more friendly than men (Eagly, 1987),
they may be expected to perform OCBs to a greater extent than men. In fact, research by Chen and
Heilman (2001ÐAnnual SIOP Conference, San Diego, CA) demonstrates that women who do not
perform OCBs receive fewer rewards than men who do not perform OCBs. To the extent that women
internalize these societal expectations, they may perform greater amounts of OCBs than men. In their
meta-analysis, Organ and Ryan (1995) failed to ®nd any sex differences in OCBs or moderating effects
of sex on the OCB and job attitude relationship. As the authors point out, however, this ®nding was
based on a relatively small number of studies.
Recent research has developed theory on sex differences in OCBs (Allen and Rush, 1996ÐAnnual
SIOP Conference, San Diego, CA) and provided data to support the existence of such differences
(Allen, 2000ÐAnnual SIOP Conference, New Orleans, LA; Chen and Heilman, 2001ÐSIOP
Conference, San Diego, USA; Lovell et al., 1999). For example, Allen (2000ÐSIOP Conference)
found that sex moderated the relationship between OCB ratings and promotion decisions, such that
promotions and OCBs were more strongly related for men than for women. Allen interpreted these
results as re¯ecting differences in the OCB expectations for men and women. In particular, because
OCBs may be less expected of men than of women, when a man performs OCBs he will be rewarded to
a greater extent (i.e., promotions) than women performing the same behaviors. Consistent with this
argument, Lovell et al. (1999) found signi®cant differences between men and women in mean levels
of OCBs, with women performing more helping behaviors than men. Also, Morrison (1994) found
evidence for sex differences in the perceptions of OCBs, with women considering OCBs to be in-role
behaviors to a greater extent than men. This ®nding suggests that women may indeed internalize
societal expectations and perceive communal, helping activities as part of their jobs.
Theory suggests that these gender differences may be more evident for OCB-Is (i.e., behaviors
directed toward others, such as helping), than for the less communal OCB-Os (i.e., behaviors directed

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 93±108 (2002)
98 J. M. DIEFENDORFF ET AL.

toward the organization). Regardless of a person's sex, it may be expected that an individual high in job
involvement will feel compelled to engage in OCB-Os, such as staying late, attending non-mandatory
meetings, and not taking extra breaks. Alternatively, OCB-Is may be exhibited at different levels for
highly involved women and highly involved men. Speci®cally, women who are deeply involved in
their work may feel more obliged to help others than equally involved men, because women may inter-
nalize the belief that they should act communally and help others. Thus, highly involved women may
engage in more OCB-Is (operationalized as altruism, courtesy, and possibly sportsmanship) than
highly involved men, suggesting that sex will moderate the relationship between job involvement
and OCB-Is.
Hypothesis 4: The relationship between job involvement and OCB-I dimensions will be moderated
by sex such that there will be a stronger positive relationship between job involvement and OCB-I
for women than for men.

Other Theoretically Important Variables

In Motowidlo et al.'s (1997) theory of performance, personality is considered to be the primary deter-
minant of OCBs. Organ and Ryan (1995) found some support for the relationship between OCBs and
the dimensions of conscientiousness and agreeableness, but concluded that job attitudes are potentially
better predictors of OCBs because they are more proximally related. Controlling for personality in the
present investigation will provide a more stringent test of the job involvement and OCB relationship.
Also, a concern in the present investigation is potential differences in job involvement between part-
time and full-time employees. Previous research has demonstrated that full-time employees report
higher levels of job involvement than part-time employees (Martin and Hafer, 1995). This ®nding
was interpreted as meaning that part-time workers feel their jobs are less important to them and that
they are less integrated into the organization. In fact, individuals may choose part-time work so that
they can be less involved in their jobs and more involved in other non-work roles. One way to oper-
ationalize this difference between part-time and full-time employees is to assess the average number of
hours each individual works per week. To provide a stricter test of the job involvement and perfor-
mance relationship, hours worked per week, conscientiousness, and agreeableness will be included
as control variables in the present study.
Participants responded to measures of job involvement, work centrality, personality and demo-
graphic variables as part of a larger study. With participants' permission, OCB and in-role rating forms
were sent to the participants' immediate supervisors. A strength of the current investigation is that the
criteria and predictor measures were completed by different sources, eliminating the possibility of
percept±percept in¯ation in the results.

Method

Participants
The sample consisted of 130 employed, undergraduate students (43 males and 87 females) with a mean
age of 24.3 years. An initial group of 248 individuals, and their supervisors, were recruited from a large

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 93±108 (2002)
 JOB INVOLVEMENT 99

urban, commuter campus. However, the return rate for supervisor performance ratings was 54.8 per
cent, resulting in complete data for 136 participants. Six participants were excluded because of outliers
on one or more variables (Tabachnick and Fidell, 1996). The ®nal sample of 130 employees had an
average organizational tenure of 2.8 years and 65.8 per cent of the individuals worked at the same
company for a year or more, suggesting these jobs are not temporary. Individuals worked in a variety
of jobs across a heterogeneous cross-section of occupations (20 per cent professional (e.g., engineer-
ing, education, healthcare), 10 per cent management, 33 per cent sales and service, 17 per cent clerical,
12 per cent laborer, and 8 per cent student workers). Participants worked an average of 28.9 hours per
week, with nearly 38 per cent of the sample working full time (based on the criteria of working 35
hours or more per week; Martin and Hafer, 1995). Also, 52 per cent of the participants stated that their
present job was consistent with their career goals. Participants received extra credit toward their course
grade and the opportunity to win U.S. $50 in a lottery draw.

Measures

Job involvement
Job involvement was measured using the 27-item scale ( ˆ 0.91) developed by Paullay et al. (1994).
In developing their measure of job involvement, Paullay et al. (1994) divided job involvement into two
dimensions: role (13 items) and setting (14 items). Role represents the extent to which `one is engaged
in the speci®c tasks that make up one's job' (p. 225). Setting represents the `degree to which one ®nds
carrying out the task of one's job in the present job environment to be engaging' (p. 225). Since the
present investigation is concerned with job involvement as a global construct, results are reported only
for the full scale. Participants rated each item using a 7-point Likert scale (7 ˆ `strongly agree';
1 ˆ `strongly disagree').

Work centrality
Work centrality was measured using the 12-item scale ( ˆ 0.80) developed by Paullay et al. (1994).
Participants rated each item using a 7-point Likert scale (7 ˆ `strongly agree'; 1 ˆ `strongly disagree').

Organizational citizenship behaviors

OCB ratings were made by participants' supervisors using the Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Questionnaire developed by Podsakoff et al. (1990). This scale measures ®ve dimensions of OCB:
conscientiousness (®ve items;  ˆ 0.82), sportsmanship (®ve items;  ˆ 0.85), courtesy (®ve items;
 ˆ 0.85), altruism (®ve items;  ˆ 0.85), and civic virtue (four items;  ˆ 0.70). Supervisors indi-
cated the degree to which they agreed with statements regarding participants performance of OCBs
using a 7-point Likert scale (7 ˆ `strongly agree'; 1 ˆ `strongly disagree'). The average intercorrela-
tion between the OCB dimensions was 0.52.

In-role performance
Task performance was assessed by participants' supervisors using Williams and Anderson's (1991)
7-item measure ( ˆ 0.91) of in-role behaviors. This measure is intended to re¯ect how well a person
performs activities required by his or her job description. Ratings were made on a 7-point Likert scale
(7 ˆ `strongly agree'; 1 ˆ `strongly disagree').

Personality
The agreeableness and conscientiousness dimensions of the big ®ve were assessed with Goldberg's
(1992) paper and pencil measure. Participants responded to 40 adjectives (20 per dimension)

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 93±108 (2002)
100 J. M. DIEFENDORFF ET AL.

indicating the extent to which they believed each item described them using a 7-point Likert scale
(7 ˆ `strongly agree'; 1 ˆ `strongly disagree'). Previous research with this measure (Goldberg,
1992) has demonstrated that each dimension has adequate convergent and discriminant validities with
other measures of the big ®ve (e.g., the Hogan Personality InventoryÐHogan, 1986; the NEO-PIÐ
Costa and McCrae, 1985). Reliabilities are high for both the Conscientiousness ( ˆ 0.92) and
Agreeableness ( ˆ 0.91) scales.

Procedure

The data for this study were collected as part of a larger study (Kamin, 2001Ðunpublished doctoral
dissertation). Participants from a wide variety of jobs were recruited from undergraduate psychology
courses to participate in this study. At the time of recruitment, individuals were informed that the pur-
pose of the study was to examine the relationship between job attitudes and job performance and, as a
result, they would have to provide the name and contact information of their immediate supervisor,
who would be mailed a performance appraisal form. All participants agreed to this condition and
attended a research session at which time they completed the demographic, personality, and job atti-
tude questionnaires. Following the research session, participants' supervisors were mailed a packet
containing a cover letter describing the purpose of the study, a document signed by the employee
allowing the supervisor to rate their performance, the performance appraisal form, and a self-
addressed, stamped envelope to return the survey. Supervisors were informed that the employee would
not see the performance ratings and that these ratings would only be used for the purpose of this study.
One advantage of this sampling procedure is that it provided a heterogeneous sample of workers who
were not uniformly in¯uenced by the contextual constraints of any single organization (Johns, 2001;
Rousseau and Fried, 2001).

Analytic strategy

Correlation and multiple regression were used to test the hypothesized relationships between job
involvement and supervisor ratings of OCBs and in-role performance. In the regression analyses,
sex, the personality dimensions of conscientiousness and agreeableness, the number of hours worked
per week, and work centrality were entered at Step 1. Job involvement was entered at Step 2 to exam-
ine its unique contribution to predicting performance after controlling for the previously entered vari-
ables. Finally, in Step 3 the product of job involvement and sex was entered to examine whether the
interaction between these two variables added incremental prediction. If this product term is signi®-
cant, there is evidence of a moderator relationship, such that the relationship between job involvement
and OCBs differs for men and women. Each variable was centered before being entered into the regres-
sion analyses.

Results

Correlations, means, standard deviations, and reliabilities are reported in Table 1. Consistent with
previous research (Martin and Hafer, 1995), job involvement was related to the number of hours indi-
viduals worked per week (r ˆ 0.23), suggesting that individuals who work less may feel less involved

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 93±108 (2002)
 Table 1. Means, standard deviations, reliabilities, and correlations of variables
Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1. Job involvement 5.12 0.90 (0.92)

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

2. Work centrality 3.38 0.81 0.34z (0.80)
3. OCB: altruism 5.89 0.86 0.20* 0.07 (0.85)
4. OCB: courtesy 5.79 0.95 0.04 0.08 0.61z (0.86)
5. OCB: civic virtue 5.34 1.03 0.34z 0.19* 0.66z 0.48z (0.81)
6. OCB: sportsmanship 6.12 1.01 0.18* 0.01 0.45z 0.54z 0.28y (0.88)
7. OCB: conscientiousness 6.09 0.86 0.20* 0.06 0.69z 0.56z 0.53z 0.43z (0.80)
8. In-role performance 5.80 0.72 0.19* 0.08 0.60z 0.39z 0.48z 0.22* 0.53z (0.80)
9. Sex 0.33 Ð 0.11 0.10 0.04 0.04 0.08 0.07 0.03 0.05 Ð
10. Conscientiousness 5.62 0.79 0.34z 0.18* 0.04 0.03 0.11 0.08 0.04 0.04 0.02 (0.92)
11. Agreeableness 5.98 0.65 0.34z 0.02 0.11 0.03 0.11 0.26y 0.05 0.04 0.16 0.54z (0.91)
12. Hours worked per week 28.9 13.6 0.23y 0.08 0.04 0.07 0.15 0.13 < 0.01 0.02 0.32z 0.33z 0.08 Ð
Note. Internal consistency reliabilities are on the diagonal. OCB ˆ organizational citizenship behaviors; sex is scored 1 ˆ male and 0 ˆ female.
*p < 0.05; y p < 0.01; z p < 0.001.
JOB INVOLVEMENT

J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 93±108 (2002)

101
102 J. M. DIEFENDORFF ET AL.

in their jobs. Given this ®nding and support for differences in job involvement for full-time and
part-time employees in previous research, we examined whether the number of hours worked per week
moderated the job involvement±performance relationships. In no case did a signi®cant interaction
emerge from these tests, indicating that although differences in job involvement exist for full-time
and part-time employees, no substantive differences exist in the form of the job involvement and
performance relationships (Sackett and Larson, 1990). In addition to this analysis, we also compared
the mean level of job involvement in the present sample with the level reported in prior research with a
non-student sample (Paullay et al., 1994). This comparison indicated no signi®cant mean difference
between the two groups (5.02 in Paullay et al. and 5.12 in the present study), suggesting that being a
student has little in¯uence on the level of job involvement.
Consistent with Paullay et al.'s (1994) ®ndings, job involvement and work centrality were positively
correlated (r ˆ 0.34, p < 0.001) such that people who are involved in their job are more likely to see
work as being central to their life. Importantly though, the overlap in variance between the two scales
is only approximately 9 per cent (as indicated by r2). Thus, there is a substantial amount of uniqueness
associated with the two scales, supporting the idea that job involvement and work centrality represent
different constructs.

Tests of hypotheses

The correlations reported in Table 1 demonstrate a statistically signi®cant pattern of ®ndings concern-
ing the relationships between job involvement and supervisor ratings of OCBs and in-role perfor-
mance. Speci®cally, job involvement is signi®cantly and positively correlated with supervisor
ratings on four of the ®ve OCB dimensions [Altruism (r ˆ 0.20, p < 0.05), Civic Virtue (r ˆ 0.34,
p < 0.001), Sportsmanship (r ˆ 0.18, p < 0.05), and Conscientiousness (r ˆ 0.20, p < 0.05)] and in-
role performance (r ˆ 0.19, p < 0.05). These ®ndings support Hypothesis 1. Hypothesis 2, which pro-
posed that the correlations between OCBs and job involvement would be larger than those between in-
role performance and job involvement, was tested using the procedure outlined in Cohen and Cohen
(1983) for testing the signi®cance of the difference between dependent r's. The only signi®cant dif-
ference was for the comparison of the correlations for job involvement and civic virtue (r ˆ 0.34) with
job involvement and in-role performance (r ˆ 0.19) (t ˆ 1.85, p < 0.05 (1-tailed)). Thus, Hypothesis 2
received little support, suggesting that OCBs and in-role performance were correlated with job invol-
vement at roughly equivalent levels.
As shown in Table 1, work centrality was signi®cantly correlated with only the Civic Virtue dimen-
sion (r ˆ 0.19, p < 0.05), indicating that this work attitude may not play a strong role in predicting job
behaviors. This ®nding supports the notion that using a job involvement measure that is confounded
with work centrality may result in attenuated relationships with job performance. Hypothesis 3
explicitly examines whether job involvement can predict performance, controlling for the variance
accounted for by work centrality. The regressions in Table 2 address this issue by ®rst controlling
for personality, the number of hours worked per week, sex and work centrality. Results from these
analyses nearly replicated those of the correlation analyses, with only the dimension of Sportsmanship
changing, becoming borderline signi®cant ( ˆ 0.18, p ˆ 0.08). Thus, even after controlling for work
centrality and other theoretically relevant variables, job involvement signi®cantly predicted
supervisor ratings of OCBs for the dimensions of Altruism ( ˆ 0.21, p < 0.05), Civic Virtue
( ˆ 0.31, p < 0.01), and Conscientiousness ( ˆ 0.24, p < 0.05). Job involvement also signi®cantly
predicted in-role task performance ( ˆ 0.25, p < 0.05) in these analyses. These results support
Hypothesis 3, demonstrating that job involvement predicts performance, independent of work
centrality.

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 93±108 (2002)
 JOB INVOLVEMENT 103

Table 2. Hierarchical regression of organizational citizenship behaviors and in-role performance on control
variables, work centrality, job involvement and the product of job involvement and sex
Altruism Courtesy Civic Sportsmanship Conscientiousness In-role
virtue performance

Step 1
Sex < 0.01 < 0.01 0.09 0.01 0.06 0.06
Conscientiousness 0.04 0.08 0.01 0.08 0.01 0.06
Agreeableness 0.13 0.06 0.12 0.30z 0.05 0.09
Hours/week 0.04 0.07 0.13 0.12 0.03 0.04
Work centrality 0.08 0.10 0.19y 0.03 0.06 0.07
(R2) (0.020) (0.017) (0.078*) (0.088y ) (0.008) (0.016)
Step 2
Job involvement 0.21y 0.04 0.31z 0.18* 0.24y 0.25y
(
R2) (0.032y ) (0.001) (0.067z ) (0.023*) (0.039y ) (0.044y )
Step 3
Job involvement  sex 0.63 1.38z 1.14 0.95* 0.42 0.39
(
R2) (0.011) (0.054z ) (0.009) (0.026*) (0.005) (0.004)
Total R2 0.063 0.071 0.154 0.136 0.052 0.065
Note. Df Step 1 (5, 124); step 2 (1, 123); step 3 (1, 122). All R2 values are unadjusted.
*p < 0.10; y p < 0.05; z p < 0.01.

Hypothesis 4, proposed a moderating effect of sex for the job involvement and OCB-I dimensions
relationships. This hypothesis was tested at Step 3 in each regression analysis reported in Table 2 by
examining the signi®cance of the product of job involvement and sex. Given the general lack of sta-
tistical power for detecting moderator effects (McClelland and Judd, 1993), a liberal alpha (p < 0.10)
was adopted for the test of the interaction. Results show signi®cant moderation of the job involvement
and OCB relationship for the dimensions of Courtesy ( ˆ 1.38, p < 0.01) and Sportsmanship
( ˆ 0.95, p ˆ 0.06). These effects are illustrated in Figure 1 and can be interpreted to mean that
women who are high in job involvement are rated as engaging in more OCBs de®ned as helping to
prevent problems for coworkers (Courtesy) and not complaining over trivial matters (Sportsmanship);
whereas for men, higher job involvement is associated with lower OCB ratings on these dimensions.
Separate sub-group correlations between job involvement and the Courtesy dimension, revealed a
signi®cant negative relationship for men (r ˆ 0.30, p < 0.05) and a borderline signi®cant positive
relationship for women (r ˆ 0.20, p ˆ 0.06). Thus, as individuals become more immersed in their
job, men are less likely to engage in courteous behaviors and women are more likely to engage in these
behaviors. For the Sportsmanship domain, there was a signi®cant positive relationship for women
(r ˆ 0.28, p < 0.05) and a non-signi®cant relationship for men (r ˆ 0.06, n.s.), suggesting that
more involved women are less likely to complain. Unexpectedly, this moderator effect was not found
for Altruism, which is considered to be a key OCB-I. Thus, partial support was provided for
Hypothesis 4, suggesting that for some dimensions of OCBs, the job involvement and OCB relation-
ship differs for men and women.

Discussion

The current research contributes to the job involvement literature in several important ways. First, this
study reaf®rms job involvement as a potentially important determinant of individual performance.

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104 J. M. DIEFENDORFF ET AL.

Figure 1. Moderating effects of sex on the relationship between job involvement and supervisor ratings of the
OCB dimensions of courtesy (panel A) and sportsmanship (panel B)

Although Brown (1996) found little support for a job involvement±performance relationship, none of
the primary studies included in this meta-analysis operationalized job involvement with Paullay et al.'s
(1994) measure, which was explicitly designed to be distinct from work centrality. Clearly, future
research using Paullay et al.'s measure is warranted before ®rm conclusions about the job involvement
and performance relationship can be made. Second, this study is the ®rst to demonstrate that job invol-
vement is a useful predictor of OCB. Speci®cally, all ®ve dimensions of OCBs exhibited either direct
relationships (Altruism, Civic Virtue, and Conscientiousness) or relationships moderated by sex
(Courtesy and Sportsmanship) with job involvement. These ®ndings are especially compelling given
that (a) the performance ratings were made by supervisors, ruling out percept±percept in¯ation, and (b)
theoretically relevant personality variables, the number of hours worked per week, and work centrality
were all ®rst controlled for. These characteristics of the study bolster the con®dence in the results.

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 93±108 (2002)
 JOB INVOLVEMENT 105

In terms of the speci®c OCB dimensions, the Civic Virtue dimension was most closely related to job
involvement. Conceptually this ®nding makes sense given that Civic Virtue is de®ned as the level of
involvement a person has in the political life of the organization. The fact that both the OCB-O dimen-
sions (Conscientiousness and Civic Virtue) and in-role performance were predicted by job involve-
ment regardless of sex, lends credence to the idea that exhibiting behaviors such as staying late,
attending meetings, and completing task duties are performed at the same level for involved men
and women. These dimensions represent behaviors that can be thought of as facilitating task perfor-
mance and enhancing the environment surrounding one's focal tasks. Furthermore, the moderating
effect of sex for the Courtesy dimension is consistent with the notion that OCB-Is would be performed
to a greater extent by highly involved females than highly involved males. Although it is unclear
whether Sportsmanship is primarily an OCB-I or OCB-O, it appears that highly involved women tend
to complain less than highly involved men. These ®ndings may be a result of highly involved women
considering behaviors from these dimensions as being more `in-role' than men and thus less discre-
tionaryÐor perhaps more likely to facilitate the social components of work. Similarly, research
(Allen, 2000ÐSIOP Conference; Chen and Heilman, 2001ÐSIOP Conference) suggests that there
may be a general bias to expect women to engage in these communal behaviors more than men,
leading to an internalized belief that these behaviors are necessary and that an effective employee will
perform them. It is important to recognize, though, that sex did not moderate the relationship between
job involvement and altruism, which is a key OCB-I involved in helping. Future research examining
these issues is needed.
The third contribution of this study is that it provides further evidence of the need to distinguish
between job involvement and work centrality. In an attempt to remedy the confound between job invol-
vement and work centrality that exists in earlier measures, Paullay et al. (1994) developed factorially
independent measures of job involvement and work centrality. The present investigation extended
Paullay et al.'s (1994) research by showing that this measure of job involvement predicts supervisor
ratings of performance independent of work centrality. Furthermore, the present study demonstrated
that work centrality was not very useful as a predictor of supervisory performance ratings. Although
somewhat preliminary, these results combined with those of Paullay et al. suggest that researchers and
practitioners interested in job involvement should discontinue the use of job involvement measures
which confound job involvement with work centrality (e.g., Lodahl and Kejner, 1965).

Limitations and future research

One potential limitation concerns the nature of the sample used in the present study. All participants
were employed college students, calling into question the generalizability of results. Although this
concern is legitimate, it should be reemphasized that the participants were somewhat different from
a traditional undergraduate population. Participants attended a large urban, commuter campus, where
most individuals worked off campus and attended school simultaneously (only 8 per cent of the sample
were student workers). Also, we found no differences in job involvement between the present sample
and a non-student sample used in previous research (Paullay et al., 1994). An additional sample con-
cern was the use of part-time workers. Although job involvement was related to how much individuals
worked, our results demonstrated that the relationship between job involvement and performance was
unaffected by status as part-time versus full-time worker. Thus, although mean differences in job invol-
vement exist for full-time and part-time employees (Martin and Hafer, 1995), the relationships
between the substantive variables of interest is not affected (Sackett and Larson, 1990). Furthermore,
because nearly 20 per cent of the U.S. workforce (Nardone, 1995; Tilly, 1991) works part-time,
research on this segment of workers represents an important area of investigation.

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 23, 93±108 (2002)
106 J. M. DIEFENDORFF ET AL.

Another limitation of the present study was the lack of attention to speci®c organizational
(e.g., public versus private sector), task (e.g., task scope, task interdependence; see Fried and Ferris,
1987), and work context features (e.g., leadership, time pressure) and how they might in¯uence the job
involvement and job performance relationship. However, given that this is the ®rst study to investigate
the criterion-related validity of this measure of job involvement and the relationship between job invol-
vement and OCBs, we feel the results offer a signi®cant contribution to the job involvement literature.
An additional issue for future research would be to expand the de®nition of OCBs to include constructs
related to political philosophy and solidarity (Van Dyne et al., 1994) and examine the relationship of
job involvement with these behaviors.
Future research should also attempt to determine the causal nature of the job attitude and perfor-
mance/OCB relationship. Although many people would expect attitudes to in¯uence behaviors, it is
not out of the realm of possibility that doing a better job and engaging in more extra-role behaviors
leads to greater feelings of job involvement, rather than vice versa. Furthermore, the ®ndings for gen-
der need to be further substantiated and tested across situations. For example, the issue of different
expectations for men and women could be further examined using methodology developed by
Morrison (1994) to examine perceptions of OCBs as in-role versus extra-role. Finally, more theory
is needed to clearly explicate the job involvement and OCB/performance relationships. A solid theo-
retical model with clearly delineated antecedents and consequences will aid hypothesis testing in this
area.

Author biographies

James M. Diefendorff is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Louisiana State

University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S.A. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Akron in
industrial±organizational psychology. His research interests are in the areas of motivation, emotions at
work, and job attitudes.
Douglas J. Brown is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo,
Canada. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Akron in industrial±organizational psychology.
His research interests are in the areas of leadership, work attitudes and recruitment.
Allen M. Kamin is a Ph.D. candidate studying industrial±organizational psychology at the University
of Akron. He is currently a Project Manager at Applied Psychological Techniques, Inc., in Darien, CT.
His areas of expertize include pre-employment and promotional assessment techniques, performance
management systems, and litigation support.
Robert G. Lord received his Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from Carnegie-Mellon University
in 1975. He has been at the University of Akron since that time and is currently a Professor in the
Department of Psychology. His research interests include emotions, motivation, self-regulation, social
cognition, leadership processes, leadership perceptions, and information processing.

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