Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Shifting Standards for Women in the Workplace

Author

Sean Michael Cameron, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

8-1-2012

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Stockdale, Margaret

Abstract

This study explores the gendered nature of OCB effects by examining communal and agentic forms of OCB (altruism and civic virtue, respectively), as well as the possible effects of not performing gendered OCBs on performance appraisals and related job outcomes. Using employee evaluation based scenarios which included task performance and OCBs (altruism/civic virtue; engage/disengage/no OCB), participants (N= 306) rated the job performance of a female or male employee. Employees engaged in OCBs experienced higher performance evaluations than did employees in scenarios which did not contain OCB information or scenarios in which employees disengaged in OCB. Employees who engaged in OCB, despite gender, were rated similarly. Gender differences were found in the disengaging of OCB but directions were contrary to the past research and theories. In this study, employees incurred lower evaluations when disengaging in gender incongruent OCB in comparison to disengaging in gender congruent OCB. The findings of this study are two-fold. First, in comparison to past research, the results of this study present positive possibilities for women and men who engage in the OCBs of altruism and civic virtue. Second, the results on disengagement suggest more research needs to be conducted to explore evaluations of employees disengaging in gender incongruent OCBs.