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The Social Dilemma Perspective on Psychological Contract Fulfilment and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Chih-Ting Shih  and
Shyh-Jer Chen
Chih-Ting Shih
Affiliation:
National Pingtung Institute of Commerce, Taiwan
Shyh-Jer Chen
Affiliation:
National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan
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Abstract

Recent research suggests that employees perceive organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) as costly while OCB in the aggregate benefits organizations. Employees thus face an OCB dilemma. This study adopts the social dilemma perspective, proposing that employee OCB varies with the three types of psychological contracts (e.g., relational, balanced, and transactional) due to different degrees of perceived social dilemma and explains why employees engage in OCB in the context of varying levels of social dilemmas. We used moderated structural equation modelling to test the mediating and moderating hypotheses using data from 485 supervisor-subordinate dyads from 58 companies in a variety of industries in Taiwan. As predicted, results suggest that employee OCB has the strongest relationship with balanced psychological contract. Results also confirm the mediating role of felt obligations in both relational and balanced psychological contracts and the moderating role of empathie concerns in transactional psychological contract. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results.

Keywords

empathyinstrumental belieforganizational citizenship behaviour (OCB)psychological contractsocial dilemma同理心工具性信念组织公民行为心理契约社会困境

Information

Type
Regular Articles
Information
Management and Organization Review , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 125 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © International Association for Chinese Management Research 2011

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