Citizen behavior

MGT 5015 - Leadership Alexis Lake Citizen Behavior - 2/28/17 The concept of organizational citizenship behavior focuses on how individuals go beyond the prescribed or assigned roles. These individuals feel a close relationship or stake in the success of the overall organization. In the workplace this means followers go beyond their normal duties without much reward. Organizational citizenship or “good citizenship is thought to include a variety of employee behaviors, such as taking on additional assignments, voluntarily assisting other people at work, keeping up with developments in one’s field or profession, or following company rules when no one is watching,” (Bolino, Turnley, & Averett, 2003). As an example, students demonstrate behaviors consistent with good organizational citizenship.

College students demonstrate citizenship behaviors many different ways. One way is that college students often volunteer their time to help with classmates projects, even if they are not directly involved in the project. For example, when I was an undergrad, more than 50 graduate level students were willing to be in a focus group for my team’s research in a public relations student competition at the national level. The focus groups were time intensive with no immediate reward, but the students were still very willing to pitch in and help us. Many students even expressed that they knew that our group winning the competition meant positive news and success for the college as a whole. By helping the student become more successful, the college or university has more successful students, which helps attract more students (or revenue) in the future.

This behavior happens in the workplace as well. In the office, many co-workers are willing to volunteer for committees or special projects to improve something, even if it is outside their day-to-day responsibilities. This is because the employees know this effort will help the

overall company. One example is the internal communications strategy being developed by my supervisor. People across the organization, including those in the janitorial staff and food services teams, who rarely communicate outside their own teams, have been actively participating in the project meetings. These teams know an established communications system will help the overall organization.

Returning to the example of college students, citizenship behaviors can be viewed the same by both instructors and work supervisors. An important factor of citizenship behavior is that “they are not directly enforceable (i.e., they are not technically required..),” (Bolino, et., al., 2003). This means that the behaviors might not be required by the job, the class, or the professor, but they are noticed, appreciated, and substantiated to the organization’s success. Office managers or leaders can see which employees are stepping up to go the extra mile, just like college instructors clearly see the extra effort other students put in to help each other or to help the instructor directly.

This leads to the leader member exchange (LMX) theory and its connection to citizenship behavior. By students helping the instructor it “creates a sense of mutual obligation and trust between them,” (Bolino, et., al., 2003). This extra effort then creates a stronger leader-member exchange between the students and the professor. Students who are involved become part of the in-group. This could lead to new opportunities for the in-group students such as research projects and co-authored papers. It could even lead to preferential treatment by the professor giving better recommendations or professional opportunities for the in-group students.

The negative side with creating a strong in-group, is that an out-group of students will naturally form as well. It could appear that the professor’s treatment of the out-group students “appears unfair and discriminatory,” (Northouse, 2016, p. 147), which could then have

“undesirable effects on the group as a whole,� (Northouse, 2016, p. 147). This unfair or unbalanced treatment could cause students to help each other less, meaning there would be a decrease in citizenship behavior. A decrease in this citizenship behavior could hurt any class, university or professional organization as whole.

In conclusion, citizenship behavior is proven to create more successful organizations.

However, leaders, including professors, must be aware of the LMX theory and the negative implications of creating in-groups or out-groups amongst followers based on their display of citizenship behaviors.

References: Bolino, M., Turnley, W., & Todd Averett. (2003). Going the Extra Mile: Cultivating and Managing Employee Citizenship Behavior [and Executive Commentary]. The Academy of Management Executive (1993-2005), 17(3), 60-73. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4165983 Northouse, Peter G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles, California: Sage Publications.