The requirements for how to be successful in a professional career has developed over time. Fifty years ago people excelled in their careers by merely performing the duties in a job description. Only being proficient or even exceptional at the duties illustrated in job descriptions is not sufficient anymore to advance successfully in a professional career. There are other factors, including organizational citizenship behaviors, that people must thrive at to prosper professionally. According to Philip M. Podsakoff, Michael Ahearne, and Scott B. MacKenzie, organizational citizenship behaviors are defined as, “behavior(s) of a discretionary nature that are not part of the employee's formal role requirements, but nevertheless promote the effective functioning of the organization,” (Podsakoff, Ahearne, MacKenzie 1997). However, even though organizational citizenship behaviors can advance organizations and their employees’ performance, they can also harm them. The main issue that results in organizational citizenship behaviors causing negative outcomes is the result of companies focusing too much on organizational citizenship behaviors and taking away from other important tasks. Organizations must design performance management systems that find the balance between encouraging organizational citizenship behaviors and not detracting from other important tasks.
Organizational citizenship behavior can be good for organizations and their employees’ performance in many different ways. There are numerous organizational citizenship behaviors that contribute positively to these things. According to a Personnel Psychology article written by Dennis W. Organ and Katherine Ryan, “contextual performance (like OCB) includes such contributions as volunteering for extra-job activities, helping others, and upholding workplace rules and procedures regardless of personal inconvenience” (Organ, Ryan 1995). Participating in extra-job activities is good for organizations because it helps with their corporate social responsibility and overall image, both being things that attract positive criticism. Workers who help others are good for an organization because this attitude creates a positive work atmosphere and allows for collaboration. Working in a positive atmosphere and being able to collaborate are both things that improve employees’ performances. Upholding workplace rules and procedures is good for organizations because it prevents workplace issues that negatively impact organizations. This attitude allows organizations to focus on how to prosper rather than how to fix inter-organization issues.
Organizational citizenship behaviors can also help improve an organization's customer relation and retention. An organization with good customer relation and retention will make more sales and increase their overall profit. According to a Personnel Psychology article by Daniel J, Koys, “Organizational citizenship behavior can also contribute to customer satisfaction (Morrison, 1995). Conscientious employees would go beyond customer expectations. Altruistic workers would help internal and external customers” (Koys 2001). Improving customer satisfaction, going beyond customer expectations, and helping internal and external customers is extremely beneficial for organizations. Customer-oriented business stay in business because of their customers. Customers will continue to buy products if their satisfactions is improved. Customers are more willing to spread awareness and recruit other customers for businesses that go beyond their expectations. Helping internal and external customers will bring in revenue and productivity. Improving customer retention, going beyond customer satisfaction, and helping customers are the result of organizational citizenship behaviors and produce good results for organizations. However, we should identify the bad organizational behaviors since they can also impact organizations negatively.
There are many different ways to identify bad organizational behavior by employees within organizations. Beyond this, there are even more different types of bad behavior within organizations. In looking at this question, we will divide bad behavior into behavior that is unethical, but good for the organization, and behavior that is unethical, and bad for the organization.
The first type of bad organizational behavior can be referred to as “unethical pro-organizational behaviour” (Umphress and Bingham). Examples of this can include, for instance, a flight attendant saying,“I may lie to protect the company image by telling the passengers that we’re waiting on bags, rather than that the mechanic is taking his own sweet time,” (Umphress and Bingham). Of these unethical behaviors, one is called “necessary evils”. Some examples of a necessary evil are a teacher giving negative feedback to students or a doctor performing a painful operation on someone. These are not necessarily unethical, but they do inflict harm upon another person.
Another reason why a person may engage in unethical, pro-organizational behavior includes the idea of organizational identification. This means that part of an individual’s self-concept derives from membership within a social group. If other people within the organization are doing things that are unethical, a person may also engage in this type of behavior because they want to fit in with the group. Organizational identification can lead to neutralization, which also can lead to unethical behavior. Neutralization refers to a person neutralizing, overlooking, or dismissing the moral or ethical imperatives that are associated with a specific action. Essentially this is saying a person does something unethical because they simply do not consider the unethical implications of that action and therefore don’t feel remorse about doing so. This can come about due to organizational pressure, social relationships, or other external factors, but can also come about due to an individual’s greed or desire to appear good in front of their superiors. Most unethical pro-organizational behaviors are due to an organizational culture issue. The fact that people are doing unethical things for the betterment of their organization is clearly an indication that the organization needs to re-examine its priorities and culture, as the organization itself is what is encouraging the person to be unethical.
There is, however, a different type of bad organizational behaviour that is regularly observed in organizations, and one which has much less to do with organizational culture, that being generally bad behaviour that is not beneficial to the organization. This can include workplace deviance, workplace aggression, antisocial behaviour, and workplace violence (Griffin, Lopez, 2005). Each of these are usually associated with an individual’s personality and issues internal to them, rather than issues that are fundamental to an organization. This type of bad behavior can have many different impacts on an organization, particularly if they are held by people who are in power. Many of these individual bad behaviors, if held by management, can actually cause the above-mentioned unethical pro-organizational behaviors. For example, if a manager is aggressive or violent when they are given bad news about sales numbers, the staff is clearly motivated to achieve good sales numbers however they can, including participating in unethical actions. These types of individual behaviors can put much undue pressure on employees and can harm an organization’s culture.
Bad organizational behaviors such as the ones mentioned above can be monitored and fixed in several ways. First, companies can encourage employees to do 360-degree reviews—that is, subordinates are able to anonymously review their bosses, just as their bosses are able to review them. In this case, if a boss is being unethical, aggressive, etc., then employees have an opportunity to report this. Beyond this, encouraging general organizational openness, or giving employees a way to report bad behavior through a helpline or other means, can go a long way in encouraging less bad behavior. Companies need to make sure to clearly define what is good and bad behavior, and come up with ways to measure this behavior effectively. Ways to effectively measure behavior include measuring task performance, ensuring strategic congruence, and understanding differences in employees attributes, all in aim to ensure that they are fairly measured.
Organizational citizenship behaviors can be truly beneficial in the workplace if organizations design performance management systems to encourage these behaviors instead of distracting from other important tasks. One option companies were considering was only hiring individuals who inherited these behaviors, however, that is not a realistic option and should not be used in the workplace. A better option according to Yam, Klotz, He, Reynolds (2016) is to implement a training program for managers and supervisors to teach them ways to motivate their employees and to enhance their organizational citizenship behaviors (Yam, Klotz, He, Reynolds, 2016). According to Yam, Klotz, He, Reynolds in 2016, “Leaders should customize their motivational techniques for each employee to tap into their intrinsic motives, instead of using a one-size-fits-all motivational technique that will fell controlling to many employees.” Managers should also be conscientious of the amount of pressure they are applying and refrain from pushing their employees too much above their job description (Yam, Klotz, He, Reynolds, 2016). Also, the training program should include teaching the company’s leadership not to push the individuals who naturally participate in organizational citizenship behaviors. These employees will go above and beyond their job description therefore it is important to protect them from burnout. Another form of training that companies can implement into their performance management system is a mentorship program that allows experienced employees teach new employees. According to Podaskoff, Ahearne, MacKenzie (1997):
When experienced employees help less-experienced ones solve work related problems, find more efficient ways of performing their jobs, or teach them various “tricks of the trade,” it is likely to enhance both the quantity and quality of the less experienced employee’s performance.
Implementing training for managers and supervisors as well as a mentoring program that assists new employees learn from well-experienced employees are both relatively easy ways to boost performance management without detracting from important facets of the job at hand.
Another option to companies can design performance management systems that encourage organizational citizenship behaviors that do not get in the way of other important tasks is by creating a work environment that maximize an employee’s participation in these behaviors (Yam, Klotz, He, Reynolds, 2016). One way a company can implement this is by empowering their employees which can drastically increase an employee’s drive (Yam, Klotz, He, Reynolds, 2016). Furthermore, many individuals work better on a particular schedule and not one that is the usual nine o’clock in the morning to five at night job therefore, companies should allow employees to change their shift schedule to adhere to the times of their highest levels of motivation and effort. Another way to encourage organizational citizenship behaviors according to Yam, Klotz, He, Reynolds (2016) is to “Communicate stories of employees doing exceptional work for intrinsic values over external reward.” It is a common misconception that companies have to dangle a monetary reward to get an employee to work at their best, however, a manager can simply discuss openly about another employee’s work and it will get a similar reaction. These are just some of the simple changes a company can make that fosters an environment that enhances their employee’s organization citizenship.
To conclude, organizational citizenship behaviors has been critical to overall organizational efficiency and effectiveness in recent decades. We listed just a few of the hundreds of benefits to organizations of organizational citizenship behaviors. Two prominent benefits that we mention are improving organizations and their employees’ performance and developing an organization's customer relation and retention. In addition, we are supposed to pay more attention to how to identify the bad organizational behaviors because of the negative impacts brought. More importantly, we should design a well-established performance management systems to create the work environment where the employee can keep their highest levels of motivation and effort by implementing a training program, providing employees with the particular schedule and emphasizing the intrinsic values of the exceptional work over external reward. Therefore, we are confident that the complete, systematic performance management is the future for not only organizational citizenship behaviors, but also the overall organizations.