Volume 12(6): 889–917 ISSN 1350–5084 Copyright © 2005 SAGE (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
Organizational Citizenship Behavior: What’s Gender Got To Do With It?
articles
Ronit Kark Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Ronit Waismel-Manor Cornell University, USA
Abstract. In this paper we present a feminist reading of the concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and its components. We propose that although the OCB discourse in the literature is presented as gender-neutral, gender is deeply embedded within the concept. We reveal the gendered nature of the concept in two ways. First, drawing on a poststructural feminist perspective, the analysis examines the rhetorical nature of the text, the language and metaphors used in the definition of the concept of OCB and its different dimensions. Second, using a critical post liberal perspective, which considers gender as socially constructed and focuses on gender/power relations, the analysis explores how the constructs of the OCB concept are defined and enacted in ways which culturally differentiate men and women, and reveals the dynamics through which the use of this concept reproduces the gendered division of labor and inequality between women and men in organizations. The importance of this critique is that it highlights the theoretical concepts themselves, and shows that they not only reflect existing organizational work structures, but also contribute to the nature of these structures and help stabilize and reproduce the existing order. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the possible negative aspects of OCB for both men and women, consider the implications of our analysis and point to future directions. Key words. critical post liberal feminist perspective; feminist critique; gender; organizational citizenship behavior; poststructural feminist perspective
DOI: 10.1177/1350508405057478
http://org.sagepub.com
Organization 12(6) Articles
Introduction Interest in the concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) has increased dramatically during the past few years, as demonstrated by an exponential increase in publications from a few papers during the 1980s to more than a 100 papers in the last decade (Podsakoff et al., 2000). Moreover, during this period, interest in citizenship-like behaviors has extended from the field of organizational behavior to a variety of disciplines, including human resource management, marketing, health administration, industrial and labor law, international management, military psychology, economics and leadership (for a review, see Podsakoff et al., 2000). Practitioners and consultants have also shown an interest in the concept, and have incorporated it into the discourse used within organizations, affecting hiring and evaluation processes. Despite this growth in scholarly and practice-oriented interest in OCB, the gendered implications of this construct and its dimensions have been explored only to a limited extent. While interest in the effects of gender on OCB is growing (e.g. Allen, 2000; Lovell et al. 1999)1, extant studies treat gender primarily as a variable, and not as an analytical framework. They tend to focus on the study of gender differences in OCBs, but do not attempt to critically reread and re-think the gendered assumptions of the OCB theory. Recent theoretical papers by Kidder and McLean Parks (1993, 2001) have considered the gendered meanings of OCBs. Their arguments draw on role theory, exploring the effects of gender role expectations on performance and perceptions of OCBs. Although this is an important initial attempt to explore OCB with gender as an analytical framework, the theoretical perspective of gender roles, as used by Kidder and McLean Parks (1993, 2001), has been criticized for two major reasons. First, by using role theory, their analysis addresses gender roles as standing apart from other social processes (i.e. OCBs), while we argue, following Acker (1990), that gender is not an addition to these ongoing processes, conceived as gender neutral, but rather that these processes themselves are gendered and create gender inequality. The second, and most important criticism, is that by considering the ‘male role’ and the ‘female role’ as ‘separatebut-equal’ roles, role theory does not provide an adequate mode to address the dynamics that produce power and inequality in social life (West and Fenstermaker, 1995). Following a different theoretical path, we aim to demonstrate that although the concept of OCB has the potential to bring organization theorists to rethink traditional organizational structures and practices— by understanding the importance of work that stands outside traditional measures of job performance (such as work that has traditionally been performed by women and is associated with femininity)—it does not offer a real alternative (Fletcher and Jacques, 1999) because it is grounded in male-centered assumptions, which do not challenge the basic assumptions of traditional bureaucracy (for a review of these assumptions, see
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior Ronit Kark and Ronit Waismel-Manor J. Martin and Knopoff, 1997). Furthermore, we would like to suggest different dynamics that explain why and how OCB holds different organizational implications for women and men, thus contributing to the reinforcement and reproduction of the existing order of men’s dominance and women’s subordination. We conclude with a discussion of the ‘darker side’ of OCB for both men and women, and consider the changes needed in the organizational literature and research, which would offer a different understanding of the gendered and social consequences of OCB.
Feminist Framework for Analysis of OCB In the last decade, feminist scholars have recognized that organizations are gendered in theory, practice, and discourse (e.g. Acker, 1990; Cal´as and Smircich, 1992; Fletcher, 1999; Hearn and Parkin, 1983; J. Martin, 1990). To say that an organization is gendered means that advantage, power and control versus disadvantage, exploitation and disempowerment are organized in terms of distinction between what is constructed as male and female in the workplace (Acker, 1990). According to this perspective, ‘gender is not an addition to ongoing processes, conceived as gender neutral. Rather, it is an integral part of those processes, which cannot be properly understood without an analysis of gender’ (Acker, 1990: 146). Thus, while organizational logic appears to be gender neutral, there is a gendered substructure that underlies both practical guides for managers and academic theories, and this substructure is reproduced in practical work activities, as well as in the texts of organizational theorists (Acker, 1990; P. Martin, 1996; J. Martin, 2000). Recent organizational analysis from a feminist perspective questions the gendered nature of organizational theory and practices through the critique and re-reading of mainstream organizational theories (for reviews, see Cal´as and Smircich, 1996; Kark, 2004; J. Martin, 2000). Following this stream of work, we seek to critique the concept of OCB and demonstrate that OCB theorizing is not gender neutral. This is done by first examining the OCB construct as an instance of gendered constitution of knowledge and, second, by exploring the potential differential consequences of this mode of conceptualization for women and men. Feminist theories are a collection of diverse theories (Cal´as and Smircich, 1996; Lorber, 2001; Tong, 1998). For our critique, we draw on two different feminist perspectives, namely: the poststructural feminist perspective and the ‘post liberal’ critical gender perspective, which consider gender as socially constructed and whose primary focus is on gender relations. These different epistemological perspectives lead us to different forms of critique. Poststructuralism helps us unveil the ways in which knowledge of what comprises OCB (e.g. the organizational literature of OCB, the theory, language and metaphors used) is gendered, highlighting some forms of citizenship behavior and excluding other behaviors that are
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Organization 12(6) Articles arguably as important as those included. Following these lines, the current paper challenges some of the fundamental assumptions of OCB, giving prominence to the gendered aspects of the concept. Our analysis shows that the theory is constructed in ways likely to perpetuate men’s dominance while facilitating women’s subordination. In order to examine this claim, we analyse the rhetorical nature of the text, by making visible the language and metaphors used to build the theory of OCB. We apply strategies of poststructural inquiry (e.g. J. Martin, 1990; Weedon, 1997) enabling us to reveal assumptions in ways particularly sensitive to the suppressed interests of members of disempowered, marginalized groups. Such strategies include a search for significant silences in the text, a focus on claims that a given state of affair is ‘natural’, and questioning of dichotomous thinking (e.g. Fondas, 1997; J. Martin, 2000; Mumby and Putnam, 1992). We use the ‘post liberal’ perspective to study how OCB is affected by gendered expectations and practices patterned within organizational processes. This perspective helps us uncover the ways that work practices, gender stereotypes, gendered expectations and enactment of OCB impact the potential differential consequences which this mode of conceptualization might have for women and men. The ‘post liberal’ perspective—a general name we use for different but related theories among them the ‘post equity’ perspective (Meyerson and Kolb, 2000), critical social construction feminism (Lorber, 2001) and socialist feminist theories of organizations (Acker, 1990; Cal´as and Smircich, 1996)—suggests that sex differences are socially constructed and are historically and culturally created and maintained through gender and power relations. According to this perspective, observed differences between women and men are not inherent, but rather are created and sustained through social processes and systems of power relations evident in the gendered substructure of organizations (Acker, 1990; Ely and Meyerson, 2000). This gendered substructure is manifested in various internal dynamics and practices that appear as though they frame and treat women and men ‘the same’ but are actually male-preferential, because they are premised on men’s bodies, men’s lives, men’s time and men’s ability to valorize work over home, family and personal life (Acker, 1990; P. Martin, 1996). Gender, therefore, is a complex set of social and power relations enacted across an array of social practices ranging from formal policies and procedures to informal patterns of everyday social interaction within organizations. The paper proceeds as follows. First, we focus on the general concept of OCB and the metaphors used to define it. Second, drawing from feminist poststructuralism, we examine the components of OCB, unveiling their gendered connotations and demonstrating that some of these extra-role components can be seen as stereotypically feminine and congruent with women’s role in society, while others can be seen as stereotypically masculine and as more likely to be attributed to and enacted by
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior Ronit Kark and Ronit Waismel-Manor men. Subsequently, drawing mainly on the ‘post liberal’ perspective, we explore the different dynamics by which both the feminine and masculine components of OCB enable a persistence of the status quo, devaluing women’s extra-role behavior. Subsequently, we consider the wider social implications of OCB and the ‘darker side’ of the theory. Finally, we consider the changes needed in the OCB literature that would offer a different understanding, which brings the hidden into light as gender/ power relations under OCB. It is important to note that, although we focus on the gendered meanings of OCBs, many of the ideas we discuss can be relevant to understanding the meaning of OCB for other minority group characteristics, such as race, ethnicity and social class, or the intersection between gender and these different social identity categories. This is of significance because gender is rarely experienced alone; rather, it simultaneously interacts with other social identities.
The Concept of OCB Bateman and Organ (1983) introduced the construct of OCB, drawing upon concepts of super role behaviors presented by Katz and Kahn (1966). OCB has been defined as an ‘individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization’ (Organ, 1988: 4). Later, Organ (1997) redefined OCBs ‘as contributions to the maintenance and enhancement of the social and psychological context that supports task performance’ (Organ, 1997: 91), and hence, removed the requirements that OCB be discretionary and unrewarded (Motowidlo, 2000). For example, such behaviors include helping a new employee to catch up, helping a co-worker to deal with work overload or staying at work after hours (Organ, 1988). Over the past two decades, researchers interested in behaviors that generally fit the definition of OCB did not always label them as such. These behaviors include prosocial organizational behaviors (Brief and Motowidlo, 1986) and contextual performance (Motowidlo, 2000). As Van Dyne et al. (1995) asserted, the proliferation of various forms of extrarole behaviors ‘have muddied the waters concerning definitions of extrarole behavior . . .’ (Van Dyne et al., 1995: 216). Regardless of the specifics of the definition, however, researchers have always conceived of OCB as a multidimensional concept (LePine et al., 2002; Motowidlo, 2000). Organ’s (1988) framework and its five dimensions: altruism (e.g. assisting others who have heavy workloads), conscientiousness (e.g. work attendance beyond the norm), sportsmanship (e.g. not complaining about trivial matters), courtesy (e.g. consulting with others before taking action) and civic virtue (e.g. involvement in the political process of the organization) have been the subject of the greatest amount of empirical research (LePine et al., 2002). Several other conceptualizations have been proposed and operationalized (Morrison, 1994; Van Dyne et al., 1994). For
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Organization 12(6) Articles example, based on political philosophy, Van Dyne et al. (1994) suggested five dimensions that underlie OCB: obedience, loyalty, social participation, advocacy participation and functional participation. Podsakoff et al. (2000) review the literature on citizenship-like behaviors and identify almost 30 potential different constructs of citizenship behavior. Nevertheless, they were able to organize them into seven dimensions resembling much of Organ and colleagues’ classification (e.g. Organ, 1988; Smith et al., 1983). LePine et al. (2002) who recently conducted a meta-analysis of OCB dimensions, note that ‘the literature on OCB and related concepts is fairly diverse with respect to both the nature of the behavioral dimensions studied, and perhaps more so the jargon used by scholars to label the dimensions’ (LePine et al., 2002: 54). One reason for the ambiguity concerning the definition and operationalization of OCB is that the research has mostly focused on linking predictors to an overall measure of OCB or to a specific OCB dimension, rather than carefully defining the nature of citizenship behavior itself and developing a theory that can guide OCB measurement and analysis (LePine et al., 2002; Podsakoff et al., 2000). Researchers have only recently started to systematically address the question of which OCB operationalization is most appropriate, and how the different dimensions are related to one another (Coleman and Borman, 2000; LePine et al., 2002; Motowidlo, 2000). LePine et al. (2002) argue that Organ’s five-dimensional framework has attracted the largest amount of empirical research for at least three reasons. First, Organ’s framework has the longest history, and he and his colleagues have been very prolific with respect to publishing their work. Second, Podsakoff et al. (1990) provided the field with a sound measure of Organ’s five dimensions, which has been the basis for OCB measurement in a large number of empirical studies. Third, OCB scholars generally assumed that over the long term, Organ’s dimensions are beneficial across situations and organizations; therefore, they usually measure all or most of the dimensions in the same way across studies. Because Organ’s metaphors and components (1988), as well as the survey items of Podsakoff et al. (1990), are the most known and commonly used measures, we submit them to a gender analysis. However, we also extend our analysis beyond their choice of scales.
Reading Gendered Metaphors: The ‘Citizen’ and The ‘Good Soldier’ According to feminist poststructuralism, discourses and language do not represent the ‘truth’, rather they are ways of constituting knowledge. Discourse is more than a way of thinking and producing meaning; it constitutes the ‘nature’ of what we define as reality (Weedon, 1997). Following this perspective, it is important to focus on the language, the symbols and the images used in OCB theorizing to unveil the voices
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior Ronit Kark and Ronit Waismel-Manor represented within the concept. At first glance, the image or metaphor of ‘citizenship’ in the concept of OCB appears as a gender-neutral and a positively innocent concept. Bateman and Organ (1983), who first suggested the concept of citizenship, explain their choice of this concept as follows: Katz and Kahn (1966) have noted the many occasions in which organizational functioning depends on supra-role behavior—behavior that cannot be prescribed or required in advance for a given role. These behaviors include 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. Examples that come into mind include: helping co-workers with a job related problem; accepting orders without a fuss; tolerating temporary impositions without complaint . . . promoting a work climate that is tolerable and minimizes the distractions created by interpersonal conflict . . . For lack of better term, the present authors shall refer to these acts as ‘citizenship’ behaviors. (Bateman and Organ, 1983: 588)
From a poststructuralist perspective, which points to the plurality of language and the impossibility of fixing meaning (Weedon, 1997), the meaning of ‘citizenship’ appears to be arbitrary. Citizenship, as demonstrated in the text above, is chosen for lack of a better term. However, citizenship has connotations that do not apply well to employment relations. Citizens, by virtue of birth, have profound rights in society, whereas employees have neither permanent status with their places of employment, nor a guarantee of voice unless represented by unions. Over time, several researchers sought to subsume a variety of terms/notions under a single signifier ‘citizenship’ (e.g. Manville and Ober, 2003). Whether or not the term citizenship, or any other arbitrary term is used, is of no importance, except that designating the concept ‘citizenship behavior’ is not ‘innocent’—it is loaded with politically significant meaning—of seeming equality and privilege. By choosing the term ‘citizenship’, the dominant interests of organizations are echoed, partly misleading employees, practitioners and scholars to believe that employees resemble ‘citizens’ and are afforded the rights and privileges of citizens—which can be repaid to the organization by employees’ performance of citizenship behavior.2 Furthermore, although the concept ‘citizenship’ appears at first glance as a gender-neutral concept, Pateman (1986), in a discussion of women and political theory, points out the gendered nature of the concept ‘citizenship’. According to Pateman, ‘in order for the individual to appear in liberal theory as a universal figure, who represents anyone and everyone, the individual must be disembodied’ (Pateman, 1986: 8). However, if the individual is not presented as an abstract figure, it would be clear that the individual represents one sex and one gender, not a universal being. The political fiction of the universal ‘individual’ or ‘citizen’, fundamental to the
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Organization 12(6) Articles ideas of democracy, excludes women, judging them as lacking the capabilities necessary for participation in civil society. Although women now have citizen rights in democratic states, they still stand in an ambiguous relationship to the universal individual who is ‘constructed from a male body so that his identity is always masculine’ (Pateman, 1988: 233). Pateman further asserts that the image of ‘citizen’ rests on assumptions of access to and acceptance in the public arena, assumptions that traditionally only applied to males. As commonly noted, the channels leading to political power are few and limited for women, while men have access to high political echelons via different roads (Fogiel-Bijaoui, 1996). Furthermore, women are underrepresented in most countries in governing institutions. Thus, women are constructed as ‘passive’ or second-rate citizens, who are not interested in politics, which is seen as a natural result of their feminine nature and their mother/wife duties (Izraeli, 1997). The study by Miller et al. (1991) illustrates how pervasive this assumption may be. According to the results of their study, when male and female college students were asked to imagine a typical American voter, approximately 75% of the students envisioned the voter as male. Both male and female students tended to see the male as the norm, concluding that a man is a better example of a voter (or citizen) than is a woman. Thus, although not intentional, the choice of the term ‘citizenship’ infers that the employee demonstrating extra-role behavior is likely to be a ‘man’. Another pervasive metaphor used in the literature to describe employees enacting extra-role behaviors is that of the ‘good soldier’. In the first paper introducing the concept of OCB, the metaphor of the ‘good soldier’ was included in the paper’s title (Bateman and Organ, 1983). Subsequently, Organ (1988) used this metaphor to name his first influential book ‘Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Good Soldier Syndrome’. This metaphor of the ‘good soldier’ is strongly associated with masculinity and male stereotypes (Kidder and McLean Parks, 1993).3 Using this metaphor for naming primary and influential works in the field of OCB can promote the association between OCB and masculinity. Following the path of Bateman and Organ, the use of this metaphor has become common practice (Allan and Rush, 1996; Bolino, 1999). For example, ‘the more an individual engages in OCB the more likely he or she is to be seen as a good soldier’ (Bolino, 1999: 92). However, referring to Bolino’s words, we believe that this is not likely to be the case for women in comparison to men because it is unlikely that women will be perceived as ‘soldiers’, and even less likely that they will be seen as ‘good soldiers’. Furthermore, in different cultures and countries, women’s roles in the military help produce and reproduce their marginalization as citizens. For example, in Israel, which is the only country in which military service is compulsory for women as well as for men, women did not serve in combat roles until recently and were (and still are) mostly active
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior Ronit Kark and Ronit Waismel-Manor in home front and support functions. This restriction limits women’s ability to advance to high-level commanding ranks. Israeli men and women tend to consider as a given that, because women do not take part in combat units, they have less entitlement as citizens to influence the political agenda, and that high-ranking officers of the Israel Defense Forces have a natural cachet to be those that deserve and can automatically be advanced to senior political echelons (Fogiel-Bijaoui, 1996; Izraeli, 1997). Therefore, the ‘good citizen’ metaphor, and moreover that of a ‘good soldier’, most probably constructs a male image of the prototype employee who exhibits OCBs, and presents women as those who are limited, almost by definition, in achieving the qualities of a good worker who performs extra-role behaviors.
The Gendered Nature of OCB Components Apart from the general concept of citizenship and the prominent metaphor of a soldier, the different components of OCB evoke images having gendered connotations. In this section, we present definitions of the different components and note their gendered associations. This lays the groundwork for exploring the dynamics leading to the devaluation and possibly the disappearance of women’s OCBs.4 According to poststructuralist feminism, language and discourse can be seen as serving the interests of dominant groups by constituting systems of signification that both express and reconstitute the dominant ideological structure of an organization (Cal´as and Smircich, 1996; Weedon, 1997). Constructing theories and naming concepts in a certain manner, which becomes accepted as the objective representation of the organizational phenomena, favors dominant groups (i.e. men), while disadvantaging or even silencing the interests of other groups (i.e. women). These naming dynamics are evident in our analysis above regarding the use of the gendered metaphors: ‘citizen’ and ‘good soldier’. To further demonstrate these dynamics, we examine each of the underlying dimensions of OCB for evidence of gendering in the labels chosen to name the dimensions, and also in the content of what is presented as ‘the knowledge’ of what comprises OCB components. These components are altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy and civic virtue. The first two components, altruism and conscientiousness, are considered as helping behaviors (Podsakoff et al., 2000). Altruism is defined by Organ as all the ‘discretionary behaviors that have the effect of helping a specific other person with an organizationally relevant task or problem’ (Organ, 1988: 8). Altruism is characterized as a helping behavior, which involves voluntarily helping others with work-related problems. The OCB altruism scale by Podsakoff et al. (1990) includes items such as
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Organization 12(6) Articles ‘helps others who have been absent’, ‘helps others who have heavy work loads’ and ‘is always ready to lend a helping hand to those around him/ her’ (Podsakoff et al., 1990: 121). Courtesy is also a form of helping behavior; however, it is distinct from altruism. While altruism is defined as coming to the aid of someone who already has a problem, courtesy implies helping someone prevent a problem from occurring, or taking steps in advance to mitigate the problem (Organ, 1988). Courtesy items include gestures such as being ‘mindful of how his/her behavior affects other people’s jobs’, ‘avoid creating problems for coworkers’ and taking ‘steps to try to prevent problems with other workers’ (Podsakoff et al., 1990: 121). According to Podsakoff et al. (2000), other related dimensions of helping behaviors suggested at a later stage by Organ (1990) include cheerleading, the words and gestures of encouragement and reinforcement of coworkers’ accomplishments and professional development and peacemaking, which are actions that help to prevent, resolve and mitigate non-constructive interpersonal conflict. These types of helping behaviors, which focus on the welfare of others, are stereotypically associated with the female gender role. Women are typically perceived as concerned with the welfare of others, as caring and considerate of others, and as higher in empathy and sympathy (e.g. Eagly and Crowley, 1986). Such characteristics are likely to facilitate helping behaviors. The dimension of cheerleading, especially, has a strong gendered connotation, and is highly identified as a women’s role. It brings to mind the ‘Rah-Rah girl’ with the short skirt twirling a baton in football games. The three remaining OCB dimensions are related to stereotypical notions of masculinity and to the male gender role. Sportsmanship is ‘a willingness to tolerate the inevitable inconveniences and imposition of work without complaints’ (Organ, 1990: 96). These are mostly behaviors that people refrain from doing, such as avoiding whining and making grievances (Organ, 1988), even when there is a problem and the employees’ complaints can be seen as justifiable (Kidder and McLean Parks, 1993). It is operationalized with reversed items such as: ‘tends to make “mountains out of molehills” ’ and ‘is the classic “squeaky wheel” that always needs greasing’ (Podsakoff et al., 1990: 121). The domain of sports, in general, and sports(man)ship more specifically, is typically seen as a man’s domain. Patricia Martin (1996) comments in her analysis of the discourse of men and on ‘doing of masculinity’ in organizations: ‘I could practically smell the “locker-room sweat”’ (P. Martin, 1996: 186). The odor is evoked from this concept of sportsmanship as well. Civic virtue is defined as: ‘responsible, constructive involvement in the political process of the organization, including not just expressing opinions but reading one’s mail, attending meetings, and keeping abreast of larger issues involving the organization’ (Organ, 1990: 96). It includes behaviors such as attending ‘meetings that are not mandatory, but are
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior Ronit Kark and Ronit Waismel-Manor considered important’ and attending ‘functions that are not required but help the company image’ (Podsakoff et al., 1990: 121). Subsequent work has expanded the civic virtue dimension to include ‘voice’ behaviors that are more in line with the metaphor of citizenship: ‘Voice is making innovative suggestions for change and recommending modifications to standard procedures even when others disagree’ (Van Dyne and LePine, 1998: 109). The authors’ scale includes items such as, ‘speaking up with ideas for new projects or changes in procedures’ and ‘communicating his/her opinions about work issues to others even if his/ her opinion is different and others in the group disagree with him/her’ (Van Dyne and LePine, 1998: 112). Men are perceived as more proactive and assertive than women (e.g. Eagly et al., 1992), and may therefore be seen as performing more ‘voice’. Men are also more likely to have the means and resources to become involved in politics and to contribute to the company’s image (Acker, 1990; Pateman, 1988). The results from a study performed by Kidder (2002) show that men were more likely to report performing civic virtue behaviors during their work than women. The last component, conscientiousness, ‘is a pattern of going well beyond minimally required levels and attendance, punctuality, housekeeping, conserving resources and related matters of internal maintenance’ (Organ, 1990: 96). It includes behaviors such as work attendance beyond the norm, refraining from taking extra breaks and ‘obeying company rules and regulations even when no one is watching’ (Podsakoff et al., 1990: 121). Smith et al. (1983), as well as Morrison (1994), who modified measures from both Posdakoff et al. (1990) and Smith et al. (1983), use only time-related items to operationalize conscientiousness (e.g. ‘being punctual every day’, ‘not spending time on personal calls’ and ‘coming to work early if needed’) (Morrison, 1994: 1553). Some aspects of this dimension would also stereotypically be related to men, who are able to stay for long hours at work, or come early, and limit their breaks and days off, because they are usually not the ones who are expected to invest time and working hours in the private sphere, attending to the needs of their spouses and children (Acker, 1990; Hochschild, 1989; J. Martin, 1990). Other items measure conscientiousness as housekeeping, which is traditionally women’s domain because they tend to be those who are responsible for household maintenance (Hochschild, 1989). It is important to reiterate that these different dimensions are used to define, measure and evaluate employees’ OCBs, and therefore they have important material implications for men and women in organizations. Although these components are presented in the theory as genderneutral, they may be seen as associated with different gender stereotypes, through the language chosen to name the concepts (e.g. cheerleading versus sportsmanship), which automatically tie the concepts to gender, and more subtly through the characteristics and behaviors they emphasize which have different connotations relating to gender stereotypes.
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Organization 12(6) Articles Thus, it could be argued that some of the components associated with OCB (e.g. altruism and courtesy), although not exclusively, are stereotypically associated with women’s behaviors, while others (e.g. sportsmanship, civic virtue and conscientiousness) highlight characteristics that are stereotypically associated with men. The representation of both genders in the components of OCB may be interpreted as contributing to the notion that women and men can equally perform extra-role behaviors, or at least can each perform more successfully some aspects of OCBs, leading to the evaluation of both men and women as good organizational citizens. However, we assert that there are different dynamics at work regarding extra-role behaviors that have been overlooked by the OCB theory, and these dynamics contribute to the reproduction of power relations between men and women in organizations. This, we claim, eventually leads to the devaluation of women’s extra-role work. To further illustrate this discussion a focus on the component of good sportsmanship may serve as a good example. First, we can see that the concept of sportsmanship in the English language is by definition focused on masculinity. Second, the sphere of sports, in the past, and to a more limited extent up to the present, is highly identified as a masculine sphere, where women take an active role mostly as ‘cheerleaders’ (see the above component of cheerleading—Organ, 1990). In the business world, it has been noted by various researchers that men’s background in sports is considered a valuable training for organizational success, and provides an image for team work, champions and tough competitiveness (Acker, 1990; Tannen, 1994). Furthermore, conversation on sports topics in some organizations, and the encouragement of joint sports activities during working hours (e.g. going to play golf together), were noted as playing a major role in the exclusion of women in organizations (Tannen, 1994). According to poststructuralists, re-reading a text using substitutions of phrases and metaphors within the text, that are apparently chosen arbitrarily, can reveal the worldview and ideology represented by the original text and sound alternative voices (J. Martin, 1990). In her work on the psychological construct of ‘field dependence’,5 Haaken (1988) notes that this apparently value-neutral representative of ‘knowledge’ and reality is tied to specific social interests and ideologies. Unsurprisingly, experimental studies found women to be significantly more field dependent than men. While Haaken (1988) did not challenge the results of the field dependence research, she offered an entirely different interpretation of the meaning of the empirical findings, suggesting to re-name the construct ‘field relatedness’ or ‘contextual sensitivity’. Reforming the concept in this manner is likely to carry other associations of this notion, stressing the importance of sensitivity to environmental cues. Similarly, in relation to the OCB construct of ‘sportsmanship’, another possible label for the ‘willingness to tolerate the inevitable inconve-
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior Ronit Kark and Ronit Waismel-Manor niences of work without complaints’ could be ‘patience’. This substitution, even without changing the definition of the sportsmanship component, would inevitably lead to another image of who is likely to perform this type of citizenship behavior. Apart from the language and the choice of words, the very definition of good sportsmanship (i.e. the willingness to tolerate the inevitable inconveniences and imposition of work without complaints, whining and grievances) creates gendered dichotomies that set the norm of what is a good citizen and what is not. The implications of good sportsmanship are that emotional responses, sharing of sore feelings, paying attention to details and responses that seem personal and subjective should be ruled out. According to this logic, the ideal employee should be rational, objective, impersonal, compliant and under control. The definition of good sportsmanship does not take into account the alternative possibility that, when individuals care about their work, they might decide not to behave in compliant ways. Instead, they may attempt to convey information that can be used for diagnosis and assessment; for example, by letting their supervisors know they are suffering and having a hard time by ‘whining’. Furthermore, the ‘good sports’ are employees who do not make a ‘mountain out of a molehill’ and are not the ‘squeaky wheel’. However, this concept of good sportsmanship circumvents the question of who defines what is ‘a mountain’ and what is ‘a molehill’, and who tends to be perceived as the whiner and the ‘squeaky wheel’. It is likely that people with minority status (e.g. women) are those that people from higher status groups (e.g. men) tend to view as the squeaky wheel. When people in power protest or speak out, it is seen as a legitimate and helpful feedback, but when individuals with limited power in the organization (e.g. women) protest, their expression may be labeled by others as whining.6 Therefore, we contend that the stereotypically masculine definitions and assumptions that are embodied in the language, of what are, for example, ‘good sports’, suppress various aspects of organizational life, leading to an unrealistic and narrow view of the concept of OCB. Stereotypic feminine attributes such as emotions and subjectivity (e.g. ‘whining’ and voicing grievances as an act of communication, sharing and caring) serve to challenge these organizational assumptions. One can justifiably pose the question of why these characteristics are absent from the definition of OCB.
Gendered Dynamics in the Practice of OCB How is OCB devaluated and silenced when enacted by women? Drawing mainly on the ‘post liberal’ perspective (Acker, 1990; Lorber, 2001; Ely and Meyerson, 2000), we demonstrate below how the gendered substructure of organizations is reproduced in differential expectations and attributions toward men’s and women’s OCBs, and reflected in the
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Organization 12(6) Articles different practical OCB work activities and evaluation of men’s and women’s OCBs.
Gendered Enactment of OCB: What Counts as OCB? In studying OCB, researchers have primarily used measures that tap the frequency of OCB. This was guided by the assumption that ‘the more an individual engages in OCB, the more likely he or she is to be seen as a “good soldier”’ (Bolino, 1999: 92). However, by focusing solely on the frequency of citizenship behaviors, researchers neglected other important features suggested by Bolino (1999), such as the type of OCB, the target of action, timing, audience, and magnitude. Bolino posits that OCBs might have a different effect and gain more appreciation and reward when the type of OCB enacted is that most valued by the organization or the managers; when the target of the behavior is a powerful person in the organization (i.e. supervisor versus co-worker as the focus of the behavior); when they are timed strategically (i.e. executed at critical junctures); when there is an audience present witnessing the employees’ citizenship behaviors; and when the behavior is dramatic (i.e. costly and appears to involve self-sacrifice). These characteristics can be central to understanding how different ways in which OCBs are enacted can influence the image enhancement of the individual actor. More specifically, the ways in which women and men enact OCBs, or refrain from enacting them, can shape the differential perception of them as good citizens and account for the gendered nature of OCB. Although the excellent work by Bolino (1999) on citizenship behaviors and impression management advances our understanding of OCB, he does not consider how the actors’ social identity characteristics (i.e. gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation) might influence the way in which OCBs might be enacted by the individual and noticed and valued by the observers. In this regard, we would like to suggest that the characteristics of OCBs suggested by Bolino (i.e. type, target, magnitude, timing and audience), and the way they are interpreted and evaluated, are likely to be influenced by the actors’ gender, among other attributes. Findings summarized in an extensive meta-analysis on gender differences in helping behaviors by Eagly and Crowley (1986) show that women and men differ in their helping behaviors regarding the characteristics mentioned by Bolino (1999). According to the findings of Eagly and Crowley (1986), those helping behaviors expected of men are of greater magnitude and more dramatic than those expected and performed by women. They encompass non-routine and heroic, risky acts of rescuing others, the target of these behaviors is commonly strangers, and the presence of audience, as well as the availability of other helpers, may also be relevant to heroic helping. Thus, bystanders may elicit greater helping behaviors from men than from women because the hegemonic gendered perceptions suggest that ‘heroic status’ is achieved only if there is public recognition for one to exploit. As summarized in the words of
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior Ronit Kark and Ronit Waismel-Manor Hoffer (1951): ‘there is no striving for glory without vivid awareness of an audience’ (Hoffer, 1951: 65). Thus, according to Eagly and Crowley (1986), the availability of other potential helpers may also increase men’s helping behaviors because heroism is achieved by being the one person among many who is willing to take the risk involved in helping. The helping expected of women mainly consists of caring for others, primarily individuals they know in close relationships. These helping behaviors, which are usually not considered as heroic acts and are most often not witnessed by an audience, are not likely to elicit high levels of organizational image enhancement and appreciation, although they may play a critical role for individuals and for the organization. Applying these findings to the concept of OCB, it is likely that women and men will enact different types of helping OCBs. The above discussion implies that, even when we focus on helping OCBs, which can be seen as more characteristic of women and as giving women an advantage over men, the different social value attributed to different types of enactment of helping behaviors (i.e. common/routine versus heroic) may result in the devaluation of women’s helping citizenship behaviors in organizations.
The Valuation of Gendered Expectations People’s implicit hypotheses about men and women include differing expectations about their behavior and professional competence. These are likely to play a major role in shaping our differential expectations of men’s and women’s OCBs and the way individuals will interpret and evaluate their citizenship behaviors. We suggest that OCBs displayed by women might possibly be overlooked because of three different but related dynamics, which shape expectations: (1) congruence and incongruence with gendered social expectations; (2) the sex segregation of occupations; and (3) the gendered structuring of OCB.
Congruence and Incongruence with Gendered Social Expectations When focusing on gender congruent behavior, it might be the case that there will be prior social expectations that women will perform the feminine helping aspects of OCB (i.e. altruism and courtesy) to a greater extent than men (Allen, 2000). Because different judgment standards may be used to evaluate men’s and women’s helping behaviors, the assessment of their citizenship behavior may be held to a different standard. More specifically, if a female performing helping OCBs is judged as a good organizational citizen, it may be that she is in fact a very good organizational citizen, because prior social expectations may lead to the use of very high standards when evaluating the helping OCBs of women. Consequently, even when men and women perform helping OCBs at similar levels, the evaluation of OCB may be higher for men than for women (Allen, 2000).
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Organization 12(6) Articles However, would women be rewarded for acting in an incongruent manner, i.e. enacting the masculine aspects of OCB (e.g. civic virtue and sportsmanship), as men are for enacting the feminine aspects of OCB? Research suggests that when women enact incongruent behaviors, such as displaying political skills, working long hours, displaying good sportsmanship by behaving in a non-emotional, indifferent manner and taking a stand on organizational issues, instead of being valued for performance of these less expected OCBs, they might be penalized. Support for this assertion comes from a meta-analysis of studies on evaluation of women as leaders. This study suggests that women are at a particular disadvantage and are seen as less effective when their leadership style is perceived as masculine and as a violation of expectations of ‘feminine’ behavior (Eagly et al. 1992). Thus, a woman enacting OCBs such as staying very late hours at work, for example, might not be rewarded and valued as a good citizen. Rather, she might be perceived as a workaholic and possibly as a mother/wife with limited commitment to her family and children. However, for the male managers, leading in a feminine manner did not create a disadvantage (Eagly et al., 1992). This implies that a man being perceived as behaving in a non-congruent way (e.g. enacting the feminine components of OCB, offering and displaying helping behaviors) might get much appreciation and value for this. As asserted by McDowell (1997), ‘feminine characteristics in a masculine body may offer the best of all worlds’ (McDowell, 1997: 208). Therefore, helping citizenship behavior performed by men may be more likely to be noticed and remembered, whereas helping OCB performed by women may be less likely to be remembered and noticed. Consistent with this line of thought, Allen and Rush (1998) found that behavioral observation accuracy ratings of OCBs differed across ratee sex. Specifically, raters made the most accurate behavioral observations when males engaged in OCB and when females did not. An empirical study by Chen and Heilman (2001) also provides some support for the assertion that differential expectations of men and women would influence the ways in which their helping OCBs are perceived and valued. Their study demonstrates that, when women performed helping OCBs, their performance was rated no differently from that of women about whom the raters had no information concerning their OCBs. However, when women refused to provide helping OCBs, their performance ratings were lower. In contrast, when men refused to perform helping OCBs, their job performance was rated no differently compared to the case in which no OCB information was provided regarding their behaviors. However, when men performed helping OCBs, their performance ratings were significantly higher in comparison to the two earlier conditions. Not surprisingly, this comparison also revealed that men were evaluated significantly higher than women when performing OCBs, but also when OCBs were withheld by men and women.
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior Ronit Kark and Ronit Waismel-Manor Another related dynamic through which women’s OCBs can be devalued is by the misinterpretation of their actions by attribution of selfserving motivation to their behavior. Bolino (1999) suggests that the relationship between citizenship behavior and the image of the good organizational citizen is moderated by the observer’s attribution of the individual’s motives. He asserts that the relationship will be weaker when observers view OCBs as motivated by self-serving motivations (i.e. impression management). According to Fletcher (1999), the display of certain helping behaviors by women, which are perceived as being inline with the female gender role, can be interpreted as an expression of women’s need to be liked, and/or their emotional dependence, rather than the desire to contribute to the workplace. Thus, these attributions may substantially limit the recognition of women’s behaviors as good citizenship behaviors, as well as the rewards they are likely to receive for these behaviors. Furthermore, women also risk the misinterpretation of their motivation when performing OCBs that are not in-line with the gendered social expectations. According to Patricia Martin (1996), the process of evaluation is affected by assumptions of legitimacy, meaning that it is assumed that men and women do not have equal rights for power and hierarchical authority. When women display OCB characteristics and behaviors that are perceived as masculine (i.e. participating in the political life at work) and that might contribute to their power in the organization, they might be challenging these assumptions of legitimacy, and thus their behavior might not be valued. According to Ridgeway (1982), when a contribution is legitimate, there is no need to question the contributor’s motivation in making it. Thus, for members with high external status characteristics, motivation should have little impact on contribution acceptance and influence. However, when a person with low external status characteristics attempts to gain recognition for task contribution, he or she will be challenging implicit legitimacy assumptions. Within a group, if the judgment is that a person is motivated by a desire to help the group in accomplishing the task, the contribution should be accepted and the person’s status enhanced but, if the person is thought to be motivated primarily by a desire for selfaggrandizement, the influence attempt will fail. On this matter, work by Ridgeway (1982) on achieving status in groups showed that women in mixed sex groups achieved fairly high influence and status when they appeared group-oriented, but very low status when they appeared as selforiented. Males achieved high influence regardless of their motivation. Thus, the gendered power dynamic described above suggests that, when men display masculine OCBs, attributing motivation should have very little effect on the status attained. However, this is not the case for women who wish to attain a more influential status within group relations. Women also have to invest extra effort to demonstrate that they
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Organization 12(6) Articles are motivated by concern for the organization and not for their own good when performing OCBs that are perceived as better suited to men.
The Sex Segregation of Occupations Helping behavior is associated with service professions, in which women are over-represented. Women’s concentration in service and support occupations is likely to contribute to the expectation that they will perform higher levels of helping OCBs, and this in turn contributes to the devaluation of that behavior. According to Eagly and Crowley (1986), helping behaviors are required by many of the occupational roles women perform (e.g. secretaries are expected to help their bosses, and social workers to help poor and oppressed people). Women are particularly well represented in occupations that focus on some form of personal service such as teaching and nursing. According to Bateman and Organ (1983), OCBs may be considered ‘extra-role’ because they are not specifically required by the job. However, the distinction between job requirements and helping OCBs is often a difficult one to make. Therefore, because individuals performing service roles are expected to display helping behaviors, it is likely that their extra-role helping behaviors will be overlooked as part of their role. The results from the study by Kidder (2002) support this assertion, showing that nurses, regardless of their gender, were more inclined to perform altruistic behaviors than engineers, even after controlling for the respondents’ beliefs that the OCBs were a part of their job. Because women primarily occupy these service professions, and people tend to associate service with women’s work, women are those who are most likely to be affected by this dynamic of devaluing helping. Furthermore, women are not only overrepresented in service occupations, but also in low status jobs. Subordinate status in hierarchical role relationships increases the likelihood that individuals will be providers of services rather than recipients (Eagly and Crowley, 1986). Because men’s jobs tend to have higher status than women’s jobs in organizations of all kinds, men are more likely to receive aid in attaining job-relevant goals, while women are more likely to provide such aid. Furthermore, because gender functions generally as a status cue (Ragins, 1997; Ridgeway, 1982), assistance in attaining longer-term goals may be disproportionately directed toward men and delivered by women within organizational contexts. This dynamic is likely to raise expectations that women, most likely in subordinate status, will deliver such assistance and that this will be seen as part of the basic requirements of their roles and not as valued extra-role behaviors, which would grant women the status of good citizens.
The Gendered Structuring of OCB Women might also face more difficulty in performing some OCBs (i.e. conscientiousness and civic virtue) due to structural barriers imposed by
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior Ronit Kark and Ronit Waismel-Manor their dual roles (at home and in the organization) and their limited access to organizational resources. The OCB components of conscientiousness and civic virtue both capture the various instances in which organization members carry out certain role behaviors well beyond the minimum. These role behaviors are most commonly operationalized and measured in terms of long working hours, attending functions that are scheduled in late hours and sacrificing personal time. Defining OCBs in terms of working hours is a definition that is an unobtrusive, but active way to suppress and exclude women. The famous study of Hochschild (1989), investigating the time working couples devote to the home sphere, shows that women devote much more time to housework and childcare than men. If, as she concludes, most women at the end of the working day have a ‘second shift’ at home, then women are less able than men to put in longer hours at work. According to Acker’s (1990) critical feminist analysis, the ‘ideal employee’ is one who does not have any obligations outside the boundaries of the job. Thus, the woman worker, assumed to have legitimate obligations other than those required by the job, does not fit the abstract ‘ideal employee’. Acker’s analysis is even more relevant when discussing extra-role behaviors, which demand even higher levels of commitment in terms of time. The criterion of extra-time can be questioned in terms of productivity. People may invest long hours but accomplish little during these hours, whereas others might stay shorter hours but work more intensely during these hours. However, as long as OCBs are defined in terms of the sacrifice of personal time, men are bound to be perceived as better organizational citizens than women. Furthermore, women might not be able to perform some of the OCBs to the same extent as men due to their limited organizational power and resources within the organization. Minority members in organizations have been found to experience exclusion from informal ‘old boys networks’ (Ibarra, 1992), and to have fewer resources of power than majority members (Ragins, 1997). This limited access to networks may in turn limit women’s abilities to display behaviors of civic virtue, such as taking part in the political activities of the organization, or taking advantage of informal opportunities in which they can contribute to the organization that are not defined by their formal role. The configuration of these structural dynamics are further complicated when considering who does the evaluation of OCB behaviors, who is being evaluated and who sets the norms for evaluation? Patricia Martin (1996) contends that managerial evaluations are dominated by men and provide occasions for men’s ‘doing of masculinity’. Her analysis suggests that men’s enactment of masculinity(ies), in and through their enactment of management-related evaluations, reproduces men’s dominance and frames women as less worthy of powerful statuses. Martin’s claim could be extended to the dynamics of evaluating not only in-role behavior, but also extra-role behavior. Moorman (1991) notes that, when supervisors
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Organization 12(6) Articles rate OCBs, it is likely that the results reflect OCBs that are directed towards them. Along these lines, Harris (1992) found that people expected women to feel more grateful for courteous behavior displayed by men than men were expected to feel for the same courteous behavior displayed by women. Therefore, the abundant dynamic in organizations is one in which men tend to be the evaluators of OCBs that are directed at them, while women are the ones frequently being evaluated for performing OCBs, according to evaluation standards set by men—who use the process of evaluation as an arena for enacting masculinities. Such a dynamic is likely to lead to a devaluation of women’s OCBs. This implies that OCBs may be less noticed and under-reported by supervisors when they are performed by females than when they are performed by males. To conclude, we suggest that when women act in-line with gendered expectations (i.e. perform helping OCBs), and also when they act in a non-congruent manner (being good sports or enacting civic virtue behaviors), their OCBs are likely to be less noticed, less rewarded and might even be negatively perceived, as in the case of enacting the masculine aspects of OCB. These responses demonstrate that the different expectations from men and women regarding their OCBs are not separate-butequal expectations, but rather they are gendered expectations. This is evident in the different ways that conforming with or violating these expectations is interpreted and valued for men and women. Therefore, we posit that these gendered expectations lay the groundwork for the gendered dynamics that produce power relations and contribute to structuring inequality between men and women in organizations. Clearly, these dynamics do not operate in isolation from one another, but rather they interact with and support each other.
The Dark Side of OCB Up until now, we have looked at the definition of OCB and its different components in an attempt to uncover the gendered implications of these different components and the dynamics by which they sustain the gendered subtext of organizations. At this stage, we take another step and consider the possible darker side of OCB and its gendered implications. In the preface to his book ‘Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Good Solider Syndrome’, Dennis Organ states: On several occasions as people ask me what I was working on, and I answered with the title of this book, I found that the word ‘syndrome’ in the subtitle was misleading. They thought I was writing about something bad. And when I thought about it, I realized that, more often than not, syndrome carried a pejorative connotation, implying something pathological. Consulting the 1981 unabridged addition of the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, I found that sure enough, the first definition given is ‘a group of symptoms that together are characteristic of a specific condition, a disease, or the like.’ However, the second and third
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior Ronit Kark and Ronit Waismel-Manor definitions given are ‘a group of related or coincident things, events, actions, etc.,’ and ‘the pattern of symptoms which characterize or indicate a particular social condition.’ I feel some reassurance that the term need not imply a malady; in these pages I use it to describe a pattern or mix of related behaviors about which I feel unambiguously positive and which I frankly wish to honor and celebrate . . . (Organ, 1988: xii)
Although Organ states he is ‘unambiguously positive’ about the concept of OCB, we would like to introduce some ambiguity. According to several works (e.g. Haaken, 1988; E. Martin, 1991; Meyerson, 1998), analysis of scientific terminology, and the connotations related to this terminology, can reveal the cultural and political biases in social science inquiry and tell us about the limits of scientific theories. Following this notion, we would like to explore some of the less ‘positive’ aspects of the concept of OCB. Feminist scholars (e.g. Acker, 1990; J. Martin, 1990; J. Martin and Knopoff, 1997) contend that the dichotomy between the public domain (of the marketplace, organizations, the political arena, and the legal system) and the private sphere of home and family is central to many organizational theories and practices. The situation is complicated by the fact that the two spheres are not only separate, but also gendered. That is, men and masculinity are normatively associated with the public domain and women and femininity with the private domain (Fletcher, 1999). This dichotomy rests on certain gendered dualities, such as mind versus body, reason versus emotions and objectivity versus subjectivity (J. Martin, 2000). Furthermore, these dualities are not seen as equally desirable; the masculine images are usually seen as more valuable (Fletcher and Jacques, 1999). Nevertheless, researchers have revealed various ways in which this dichotomy is a false distinction; the private world of family is inextricably intertwined with the public domain; what happens at work affects family life, and what happens in the family directly affects what goes on at work (J. Martin, 1990). This dichotomy, as false as it might be, is also central to the concept of OCB. Theories and practices of OCB sustain the dichotomy by focusing solely on the public domain and, more specifically, on organizational effectiveness, without acknowledging the effect OCB might have on the private sphere—the home, the neighborhood and the wider community. Thus, similar to other scientific terminology that has been shown to reflect a gendered sub-structure that omits the wider social context and environment (Haaken, 1988; Meyerson, 1998), the concept of OCB assumes a particular gendered organization of domestic life and social production. By this dichotomy, it is possible to overlook the question of how extra-role behaviors in the organization might affect other roles in life (e.g. parents, community members, citizens). In this regard, it is also important to note that inherent in the nature of OCBs is the notion that over time, behaviors that begin as extra-role may come to be expected and, consequently, incorporated in the individual’s
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Organization 12(6) Articles formal role as in-role behaviors. This might create a situation in which the extra-role behaviors will constantly demand increasing investment of effort, energy and time in order to be noticed and perceived as OCBs. In line with our argument Podsakoff et al. (2000) assert that, ‘. . . findings suggest that managers either view citizenship behavior as a required part their employees’ jobs, or they define performance more broadly to include any behavior (whether required or not) that contributes to the effective functioning of the organization’ (Podsakoff et al., 2000: 549). The growing popularity of OCB in theory and practice also contributes to this process, making managers more aware of OCB, raising their expectations that employees will perform these behaviors, and thus stretching the limits even further. Through this process, the ‘greedy institution’ (Coser, 1974) can conquer more and more territories of the individual’s energy and time, leaving only a small space for ‘out of role’ behaviors (e.g. leisure time). Cohen and Vigoda (2001) were concerned with the question of whether good citizens make good organizational citizens. We would like to raise the reverse question of whether good organizational citizens make good citizens. It is more than likely that employees who are required to invest longer and longer working hours, and perform more extra-role civic and helping behaviors in the organizational setting, might be limited in their ability to participate actively in their communities and to assume their roles as good citizens in the wider society. This suggests that OCB, in contradiction to what Organ (1988) states, may indeed be seen as a ‘syndrome’ not devoid of some negative and pathological connotations.
Re-Writing Gender into OCB? Some Concluding Thoughts In this paper, we demonstrate that, although OCB is presented as a gender-neutral and a positive concept, which seeks to recognize, name and widen the behaviors that are acknowledged at work—thus having the potential to lead to the appreciation of work investment that has up to now been masked—the inability to discuss the gendered nature and implications of the concept offers only a limited possibility for change. Thus, the use of the concept of OCB, at least partially, reinforces the very interpretation it could have challenged. We consider some of the implications of our analysis above for the theory and practice of OCB and the changes that are needed in the literature that would bring the hidden assumptions into light as gender/power relations under OCB and would unveil the potentially negative aspects of OCB. Due to the growing popularity of OCB, it is important for organizational theorists and researchers to consider some of the implications of the analytical framework that we have developed above for both theory and practice. Our analysis, which draws on critical feminist theory, suggests various dynamics in which OCB, gender and power interact. Based on this analysis, we find a need for empirical studies that will document the possible gendered consequences of OCB. We suggest two ways to docu-
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior Ronit Kark and Ronit Waismel-Manor ment these gendered consequences. First, in order to shed light on the compound relationships between OCB and gender, there is need for empirical studies that use diverse research methods (e.g. qualitative research, quantitative research, action research) in conjunction with the study of comprehensive theoretical models—including, power relations and cultural patterns, using gender as an analytical framework. These studies may advance our understanding of the specific dynamics through which the use of OCB reproduces the gendered division of labor and inequality between women and men in organizations. Second, the gendered dynamics of OCB can be further revealed through feminist poststructuralist analyses of the language and discourse of OCB, as an extension of the analysis presented in this paper. Because discourses and language are ways of constituting knowledge and the ‘nature’ of what we define as reality, organizational researchers should rethink the language, the symbols and the images used in OCB theorizing. By becoming aware of the ways the imagery and terminology chosen to define and write about OCB mirrors certain cultural and political biases, we can limit their power to influence and shape the ways we think about OCB, gender and power. As Emily Martin (1991) posits, ‘One clear feminist challenge is to wake up sleeping metaphors in science . . . Waking up such metaphors, by becoming aware of their implications, will rob them of their power to naturalize our social conventions about gender’ (E. Martin 1991: 501). Apart from revealing the gendered implications of OCB, our critical analysis of OCB enables us to uncover the ways in which OCB can negatively affect both men and women. Expecting people to perform extra-role behaviors and OCBs can be seen as a modern form of organizational exploitation in which employees are expected to do their current organizational work for free. Furthermore, because performed OCBs are likely to eventually become ‘naturalized’ and defined as part of the formal job requirement, people will be forced to invest longer working hours and more effort in their jobs. Facilitating and praising OCB—as a prescription for doing organizational work for free—as well as redesigning jobs to include formerly and formally OCBs and extrarole behaviors as compulsory requirements (‘compulsory OCBs’) leaves men and women without much time and energy for ‘out of role’ nonwork behaviors. The dangers of this trend are of more importance when we take into consideration current changes in the workforce. For example, in postindustrial economies, service jobs, which tend to be low paying, account for most of the market’s job growth. As more service jobs become ‘feminized’, both in terms of the sex of the worker as well as in terms of the behavior expected of a good service worker, regardless of their sex, it is possible that the gendered dynamic of OCB and its aim to promote extra-role behaviors is likely to devalue these types of jobs altogether.
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Organization 12(6) Articles Organizational theorists, practitioners, managers and employers have to critically re-think the concept of OCB and possibly discard the notion that employees must devote their lives to work in order to perform their jobs well. According to Ciulla (2000), ‘If anything, those who lead good, full lives outside of work are just as likely or more likely to do a good job’ (Ciulla, 2000: 233). Thus, jobs should be designed so that they are not too demanding and wearisome, inhibiting an individual’s ability to live a good life outside of it. OCB does not have to be a ‘way of life’. Therefore, we suggest that theorists and researchers re-claim the term of OCB in its negative forms, without allowing themselves to be deceived into thinking it is merely an innocent positive concept, serving the organization and the well-being of employees. Future organizational theory development and research should further examine the OCB concept as a ‘syndrome’ and advance our understanding of the possible ‘darker sides’ and the harmful potential of the rhetoric and the practice of OCB.
Notes We are thankful for the helpful suggestions of Jane Dutton, Heather Geraci, Dafna Izraeli, Boas Shamir, Pamela Tolbert and Monique Valcour. We also wish to express our great appreciation to Marta Cal´as and Linda Smircich for applying a tailored and encouraging ‘feminist practice’ in reviewing this paper and to the reviewers who provided challenging and thoughtful feedback. The second author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Alfred Sloan Foundation (grant #96-6-9 and #99-6-3). 1
Authors tend to differentiate between ‘sex’, which is biologically based, and ‘gender’, which refers to the socially constructed and culture-bound categorization of men and women. In our work, we draw on theories of ‘post liberal’ feminism that focus on the social construction of the notion of men and women, and poststructural feminism that views masculinity and femininity as fluid and constantly changing categorizations constructed linguistically according to historical and political contexts. Therefore, we find the use of the term gender more appropriate than the word sex, which implies a more stable biologically determinant concept. We use the word sex only with regard to experiments that categorized the respondents according to their biology. 2 We would like to thank the editors, Marta Cal´as and Linda Smircich, for pointing us to this citation and suggesting this direction of analysis. 3 Initially, we thought that the samples used in these studies were comprised of soldiers. However, re-reading the texts of these works, we found no reference to soldiers and armies or a rationale for the use of this metaphor. 4 In this regard, it is important to note that the different gender connotations and ‘stereotypical’ notions of masculinity and femininity are culture-bound. In this work, we use the gendered notions which are embedded in a white, Western, heterosexual society. Although these tend to be the stereotypes that are prevalent in workplaces in the Western society, there can be different variations, which will not be discussed within the scope of this paper. 5 Field dependence according to Haaken (1988) refers to a subject’s ability to separate a stimulus from its embedding context. It was defined as lack of
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independent thinking and an inability to separate one’s reactions from contextual influences. In a similar vein, Cal´as and Smircich (1993) challenge the traditional assumptions of management theory and call for the use of the image of the ‘hysterical woman’, who ‘releases her emotions to cry and scream in moral indignation for the crimes against humanity that are constantly committed in the name of economic rationality’ (Cal´as and Smircich, 1993: 79), suggesting this image provides an inspirational alternative to traditional management theory.
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Organization 12(6) Articles Mumby, Dennis K. and Putnam, Linda (1992) ‘The Politics of Emotion: A Feminist Reading of Bounded Rationality’, Academy of Management Review 17(3): 465–86. Organ, Dennis W. (1988) Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Good Soldier Syndrome. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Organ, Dennis W. (1990) ‘The Subtle Significance of Job Satisfaction’, Clinical Laboratory Management Review 4: 94–8. Organ, Dennis W. (1997) ‘Organizational Citizenship Behavior: It’s Construct Clean-Up Time’, Human Performance 10: 85–97. Pateman, Carole (1986) ‘Introduction: The Theoretical Subversiveness of Feminism’, in C. Pateman and E. Gross (eds) Feminist Challenges. Winchester, MA: Allen & Unwin. Pateman, Carole (1988) The Sexual Contract. Cambridge: Polity Press. Podsakoff, Philip M., MacKenzie, Scott B., Moorman, Robert H. and Fetter, Richard (1990) ‘Transformational Leader Behaviors and their Effects on Followers’ Trust in Leader, Satisfaction, and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors’, Leadership Quarterly 1: 107–42. Podsakoff, Phillip M., MacKenzie, Scott B., Paine, Julie Beth and Bachrach, Daniel G. (2000) ‘Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Critical Review of the Theoretical and Empirical Literature and Suggestions for Future Research’, Journal of Management 26(3): 513–63. Ragins, Belle R. (1997) ‘Diversified Mentoring Relationships in Organizations: A Power Perspective’, Academy of Management Journal 22(2): 482–521. Ridgeway, Cecilia L. (1982) ‘Status in Groups: The Importance of Motivation’, American Sociological Review 47: 76–88. Smith, Ann C., Organ, Dennis W. and Near, Janet P. (1983) ‘Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Its Nature and Antecedents’, Journal of Applied Psychology 68: 653–63. Tannen, Deborah (1994) Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men in the Workplace— Language, Sex and Power. New York: Avon Books. Tong, Rosemarie (1998) Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Van Dyne, Linn and LePine, Jeffery A. (1998) ‘Helping and Voice Extra-Role Behavior: Evidence of Construct and Predictive Validity’, Academy of Management Journal 41: 108–19. Van Dyne, Linn, Graham, Jill W. and Dienesch, Richard M. (1994) Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Construct Redefinition, Measurement, and Validation’, Academy of Management Journal 37(4): 765–802. Van Dyne, Linn, Cummings, L.L. and McLean Parks, Judi (1995) ‘Extra-Role Behaviors: In Pursuit of Construct and Definitional Clarity (A Bridge Over Muddied Waters)’, in L. L. Cummings and B. M. Staw (eds) Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 17, pp. 215–85. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Weedon, Chris (1997) Feminist Practices and Poststructuralist Theory, 2nd edn. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. West, Candace and Fenstermaker, Sarah (1995) ‘Doing Difference’, Gender and Society 9(1): 8–37. Ronit Kark is a lecturer in organizational studies in the Departments of Psychology and of Sociology and Anthropology at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Her research interests focus on leadership, mentoring relationships, identity and identification
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior Ronit Kark and Ronit Waismel-Manor processes and gender in organizations. Address: Department of Psychology, BarIlan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel, 52900. [email:
[email protected]] Ronit Waismel-Manor is a doctoral candidate in the Organizational Behavior Department in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. Her main research interests are organizational theory and behavior, sociology of work and the family and gender in organizations. Her dissertation examines whether self-employment is more conducive to balancing work and family roles than organizational employment. Address: Department of Organizational Behavior, Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA. [email:
[email protected]]
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