Organizational Citizenship Behavior - Measures

Measures

Researchers have developed a variety of measures for OCB. However before being able to measure a construct it must be defined. As discussed earlier, this is not a cut and dry task. Thus, the conceptual definitions of OCB used by researches differ from study to study.

Bateman and Organ’s (1983) study was one of the first to tackle the measurement of OCB. Their definition of OCB “includes any of those gestures (often taken for granted) that lubricate the social machinery of the organization but that do not directly inhere in the usual notion of task performance” (Bateman & Organ, 1983, p. 588). Based on this definition, they constructed a 30-item OCB scale that measured cooperation, altruism, compliance, punctuality, housecleaning, protecting company property, conscientiously following company rules, and dependability. The scale asked each participant to rate their agreement or disagreement with each of the 30 items using a 7-point scale that ranged from negative 3 to positive 3.

Another important early study was Smith et al. (1983), which took a slightly more complicated measurement approach by developing a scale in stages. In order to develop their 16-item scale, these researchers interviewed managers in manufacturing organizations and asked them to “identify instances of helpful, but not absolutely required behavior” (Smith et al., 1983, p. 656). The researchers created a 20-item scale based on the interviews in addition to the scale items used in the Bateman and Organ (1983) study mentioned previously. The third step involved administering the scale to a group of 67 students who had managerial experience. The students were asked to complete the scale while thinking of someone who currently, or had in the past, worked for them. Students then described the person’s work behavior and their responses to the scale items. After factor analysis, four items were dropped resulting in the 16-item scale. It is with this scale that the authors found results indicating the first two distinct dimensions of OCB: altruism and generalized compliance. Examples of items in Smith et al.’s (1983) scale include:

• Helps others who have been absent.
• Gives advance notice if unable to come to work.
• Assists supervisor with his or her work.
• Attend functions not required but that help company image.

In 1990, Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, and Fetter conducted an important study using the five dimensions of OCB: altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy, and civic virtue. These researchers developed a 24-item scale by having 10 of their colleagues sort each of the 24 items into one of the five OCB dimensions or an “other” category if they felt the item did not fit any of the five defined conceptual dimensions. Participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement using a 7-point scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” This five-factor structure has served as the building block for a substantial amount of OCB research. Examples of items in Podsakoff et al.’s (1990) scale include:

• Obeys company rules and regulations even when no one is watching.
• Attends meetings that are not mandatory, but are considered important.
• Mindful of how his/her behavior affects other people’s jobs.
• Willingly helps others who have work related problems.