magazine issue 2 2008 / Issue 6

Taking One for the Team, Even on Your Way Out of the Door

• written by Jeff Joireman

In the primary study, for each in-basket item, participants were asked to choose one of the three options and put it in their “daily calendar.” The catch was that if an employee consistently chose the third option (the OCB), they would need to work late to accommodate all of these OCBs. Two weeks prior to the in-basket exercise, we measured two personality variables, including participant’s level empathy (Davis, 1983) and concern with future consequences (Strathman, Gleicher, Boninger, & Edwards, 1994). Just prior to the in-basket exercise, we asked half of the participants to imagine they had another job lined up and would be leaving the company in three months (short-term time horizon condition). We told the remaining participants nothing about their time horizon in the organization (long-term time horizon condition).

Results from the primary study were consistent with our hypotheses: First, employees with a short-term time horizon were less likely to engage in OCBs. Second, a short-term time horizon led to a decrease in willingness to engage in OCBs mainly among employees low in empathy and high in concern with future consequences.

Multinational Conglomerate Study

To further evaluate our hypotheses, we next went out into the real-world to solicit responses from employees and their supervisors (Joireman, Kamdar, Daniels, & Duell, 2006). In two closely related studies, we first assessed employee’s level ofempathy and concern with future consequences, as before. We also asked employees to fill out a scale that measured their time horizon within the organization (short-term vs. longer-term). In one study, we then asked employees to self-report how often they engage in a set of OCBs (altruism, civic virtue, conscientiousness, courtesy, sportsmanship and voicing opinions). Because self-reports can biased by self-presentation concerns, in another study, we asked supervisors to rate their subordinates’ willingness to engage in these same OCBs.

Results from these studies were consistent with those of the in-basket study. As before, employees viewed the different types of OCBs as social dilemmas involving short-term costs to the employee and long-term benefits to the employee and organization. Second, employees with a short-term time horizon were less likely to engage in OCBs. Finally, a short-term time horizon led to a decrease in OCBs mainly among those employees low in empathy and high in concern with future consequences. In general, these results applied to OCBs directed to co-workers (altruism, courtesy), and OCBs directed toward the organization (civic virtue and conscientiousness).

Conclusions & Implications

It is not uncommon for employees to be asked to go above and beyond the call of duty at work. These organizational citizenship behaviors frequently make important contributions to the well-being of one’s coworkers and/or the organization. One challenge associated with motivating organizational citizenship behaviors is that, while they may eventually lead to long-term benefits, they tend to be costly in the short-run. Assuming an employee anticipates staying within an organization for the long-run, this may not pose an insurmountable problem, as employees may engage in OCBs in an effort to reap the long-term rewards of organizational citizenship behaviors via social exchange and reciprocity. However, if an employee anticipates leaving an organization in the near future, and already has a job lined up, OCBs would seem to lose some of their appeal. What motivates employees to persist in organizational citizenship behaviors despite this short-term horizon? Our results suggest that one important factor is the employee’s pre-existing level of empathy: those employees with a personality high in dispositionalempathy are concerned about others and will help them regardless of whether they plan to leave in the near future or not. Those low in empathy, on the other hand, appear to reduce their involvement in OCBs when facing a short-term time horizon, presumably because they see no future benefits associated with engaging in organizational citizenship behaviors. Interestingly, employees who are concerned with future consequences also show this same tendency (a reduction in organizational citizenship behaviors when faced with a short-term time horizon). While somewhat counterintuitive, this pattern does make sense, because what motivates a person like this to engage in OCBs is presumably the possibility of future returns, and those future returns are unlikely when one plans to leave an organization. Managers wishing to capitalize on these findings would do well to either help employees envision a long-term future within their organization, or, if that is not possible, recruit employees who are high in empathy, employees who are likely to take one for the team, even on their way out the door.

References

Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books.