How India defines organizational citizenship behaviour: an inductive study from an employee perspective

Organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) holds importance for employees and employers. Although it is culturally relativistic, its definition is West-dominated. Conceptual investigations in non-Western cultures yield different dimensions of OCB. Existing OCB models lack contemporariness and reciprocity. Their perspective may be biased towards management. Practice based on such theory gives poor outcomes. To address these gaps, the authors reconceptualized OCB in the Indian context from an employee perspective.

The authors conducted a qualitative study to build an employee-centric, inductive OCB model. The authors briefed respondents about the meaning of OCB and sought descriptions of instances of OCB performed or witnessed by them. The authors collected 478 descriptions from 49 private sector employees in India. The thematic analysis developed ten themes, each an OCB component, organized into four super-themes, denoting interpersonal, individual, organizational and community orientations.

Five OCB components are new emic additions by the model: Building social relationships, emotionally mature behaviour, learning and knowledge creation, housekeeping and event management, and higher order citizenship. Organizational governance participation is absent from the model. Housekeeping and relationship building are the most appearing OCBs, while voice is the least. Findings are discussed in relation to temporal and cultural background, respondent characteristics and perspective.

Organizations can better support employee OCBs by acknowledging OCBs unique to India, investigating low proportions of voice and civic virtue in the Indian model and informing people policies with this new knowledge.

This is the first attempt to build an inductive model of OCB in India from the employee perspective, making significant contributions to organizational theory and practice.