High-quality relationships as antecedents of OCB: roles of identity freedom and gender

• Date: 18 November 2019
• Pages: 793-813
• Published date: 18 November 2019
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-08-2018-0148
• Author: Barjinder Singh,T.T. Selvarajan,Olga Chapa
• Subject Matter: Hr & organizational behaviour,Employment law

High-quality relationships as

antecedents of OCB: roles of

identity freedom and gender

Barjinder Singh

Department of Management and Entrepreneurship,

Elon University, Elon, North Carolina, USA

T.T. Selvarajan

California State University, East Bay, Hayward, California, USA, and

Olga Chapa

University of Houston-Victoria, Victoria, Texas, USA

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to expand the criterion domain of organizational citizenship

behaviors (OCBs), by examining the relationship between high-quality relationships (HQRs) and OCBs, with

identity freedom as a mediator. In addition, the study also tries to highlight the role of gender as a moderator,

whereby female (vs male) employees deferentially evaluate the importance of HQRs while engaging in OCBs.

Design/methodology/approach –The authors conducted survey research by collecting data from 160

working adults and performed both basic mediation and mediated-moderated regression analysis with

bootstrapping to determine the authors’findings.

Findings –Results of the study establish HQRs as important antecedents of employee citizenship behaviors,

clarify the role of identity freedom as an important underlying psychological mechanism that mediates the

relationship between HQRs and OCBs and position gender as an important boundary condition in the

relationship between HQR and identity freedom, whereby female employees are more likely to enjoy identity

freedom in the presence of HQRs, as opposed to males.

Research limitations/implications –The present study illustrates the importance of HQRs and identity

freedom as precursors of OCBs and in doing so expands the nomological net of OCBs, especially with respect

to the antecedents of OCBs. The study also expands the scope of social identity theory by highlighting, in

addition to social identity, the importance of identity expression.

Practical implications –This study provides guidance to organizational practitioners to focus on building

HQRs at work as HQRs, by making employees feel safe, pave the way for OCBs. In addition, the study also

highlights the importance of gender as a moderator, whereby employees with different gender affiliations

react differently to organizational contexts.

Originality/value –Very littleresearch has examined the relationshipbetween HQRs and OCB. Antecedents

of OCBs have been grouped intofour categories: individual (or employee)characteristics, task characteristics,

organizationalcharacteristics and leadershipbehaviors. Clearly, the roleplayed by the quality of interpersonal

relationships in fostering OCBs has not been fully examined. By highlighting HQRsand identity freedom as

antecedents of OCBs, the study informs the OCB literature by introducing interpersonal-relational and

attitudinal elements as criterions of OCBs.

Keywords Gender, Organizational citizenship behaviours, High-quality relationships, Identity freedom

Paper type Research paper

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) are discretionary behaviors that are not

recognized (directly or explicitly) by the formal reward systems of the organization but do

promote the effective functioning of the workplace (Bizri, 2018; Organ, 1988; LePine et al., 2002).

Two kinds of OCBs are well established within extant research: first, citizenship behaviors that

benefit the organization (i.e. organizational citizenship behavior-organizational (OCBO)), such

as adherence to informal work rules, and second, citizenship behaviors directed toward the

benefit ofother individuals (i.e. OCB-Individual or OCBI), such as helping coworkers who have

been absent from work (Williams and Anderson, 1991). In either form, OCBs are essential for

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 38 No. 8, 2019

pp. 793-813

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-08-2018-0148

Received 28 August 2018

Revised 18 January 2019

29 March 2019

Accepted 18 April 2019

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

793

High-quality

relationships

as antecedents

organizations because at times, formally stated job descriptions are simply not enough to

achieve organizational goals (George and Brief, 1992; Panicker et al., 2018).

Decades of research emphasizes the importance of cooperative and helpful behaviors for

organizational functioning (Katz, 1964). OCBs contribute toward organizational goal

achievement by facilitating judicious allocation of firm’s financial and human resources

(Organ, 1988; VanYperen et al., 1999). For example, a conscientious employee, who exhibits

faithful adherence to work rules and procedures, requires less supervision at work.

Similarly, altruism and courtesy, which are forms of citizenship behaviors, where an

employee chooses to help another employee, also help organizations to save significant

training time and cost (VanYperen et al., 1999). OCBs do not directly support the technical

core of business operations, but they do support the social environment in which the

technical core exists. This makes it imperative for organizations to understand factors that

foster OCBs at work (Donia et al., 2018; Borman and Motowidlo, 1993).

In today’s work environment, most organizations are working toward replacing their

strict hierarchical structures and individualized job routines, with autonomous team-based

structures that require individual initiative and cooperation, and this change further

necessitates the importance of OCBs (Howard, 1995; Ilgen and Pulakos, 1999; LePine et al.,

2000; Motowildo et al., 1997; Motowidlo and Schmit, 1999; Organ and Ryan, 1995; Panicker

et al., 2018). In extant research, antecedents of OCBs have been grouped into the following

four categories: individual (or employee) characteristics, task characteristics, organizational

characteristics and leadership behaviors (Bowler et al., 2019; Podsakoff et al., 2000, 2009).

Within the domain of leadership behaviors, the quality of leader–member exchange (LMX)

and its subsequent influence on OCBs have been studied (e.g. Deluga, 1994; Podsakoff et al.,

2000; Wang et al., 2005). LMX is a dyadic construct and it signifies the quality of relationship

between leader and follower dyads, and, consequently, quality of LMX has been found to be

positively correlated with OCBs (Marstand et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2005). But apart from

LMX dyads, the influence of relationship quality, in general, between employees who are

equally involved in the performance tasks, on OCBs is still under researched. Accordingly,

the focus of our study is on the role played by the overall quality of employee interpersonal

relationships in fostering OCBs.

High-quality relationships (HQRs) are vital both for organizations and employees. HQRs

are defined as relationships between two or more people that facilitate mutual respect,

information sharing and commonality of goals (Brueller and Carmeli, 2011). HQRs promote

open and uninhibited exchange of ideas and emotions and, consequently, augment the

conflict-withstanding capacityin human interactions (Brueller and Carmeli,2011; Dutton and

Heaphy, 2003; Gittell, 2004). By facilitating the detection of errors and mistakes, HQRs

enhance individual and team learning behaviors (Carmeli, 2007; Dutton, 2003; Lewin and

Regine, 2000) and promote organizationalfunctioning (Hochschild, 1997; Weick andRoberts,

1993). HQRs provide a rich source of nourishment to employees’psychological needs and are

pivotal in shaping how individuals think, feel and act (Dutton and Ragins, 2017).

In spite of the importance of HQRs, research on how HQRs influence employee behaviors,

especially extra-role work behaviors such as OCBs is sparse, which according to Kahn and

other researchers has “led to a fragmented understanding of the nature, meaning, and

impact of work relationships”(Brueller and Carmeli, 2011; Dutton and Ragins, 2017; Kahn,

2007, p. 190). HQRs definitely have the ability to directly influence individual behaviors, but,

in current research, we posit that the link between HQRs and OCBs is better understood

when considering the intervening role of psychological processes (Chiniara and Bentein,

2016). Others (e.g. colleagues, friends) play a pivotal role in how we define and express

ourselves (Dutton and Heaphy, 2003). According to Dutton and Heaphy (2003), there are four

“rich veins”of theory (i.e. exchange, identity, growth and knowledge) that explain the

influence of high-quality connections on individual behavior. Out of these, the identity lens

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