The Concept of Organizational Citizenship

Abstract

This article describes the construct of citizenship performance and summarizes some of the industrial-organizational psychology research on organizational citizenship. Citizenship performance is defined as behaviors that go beyond task performance and technical proficiency, instead supporting the organizational, social, and psychological context that serves as the critical catalyst for tasks to be accomplished. The research reviewed addresses these topics: (a) the weights supervisors place on task and citizenship performance when making judgments about organization members' overall performance; (b) whether personality predicts citizenship performance better than task performance; (c) links between citizenship performance and organizational effectiveness; and (d) relations between organizational characteristics such as justice in the workplace and citizenship performance. Citizenship on the part of organization members is important in contemporary organizations. Because of current trends, such as increased global competition, greater use of teams, continuing downsizing initiatives, and more emphasis on customer service, citizenship performance is likely to be important in the foreseeable future, as well.