Constructive Organizational Values Climate and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: A Configurational View

Abstract

The discretionary efforts of employees to go above and beyond illustrated by organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) provide an important path to organizational success. Organizational work environment characteristics, notably, organizational climates, serve as fundamental mechanisms for eliciting OCBs. However, existing research on organizational climate and OCBs frequently adopts a variable-centered approach that breaks down climate into individual dimensions. In contrast to past research, our goal is to respond to calls to more fully contextualize organizational climate by offering a configuration of climate attributes. Drawing on a typology of research problematizing, we replace the metaphor of individual dimensions with a metaphor of a climate configuration. To theorize and test the relationship between organizational climate and OCBs, we examine organizational values embodied in the competing values framework through a mesolevel organizational climate perspective. Building on the literature on managing paradox, we propose a constructive organizational values climate configuration, which captures how the different dimensions of the competing values framework coexist and work together. In turn, we propose that constructive organizational values climate predicts three types of OCBs: helping, taking charge, and creative behavior. Furthermore, drawing on regulatory focus theory and on the change-oriented and affiliative roots of OCBs, we offer two distinct mediators that shed light on the underlying processes. We test the proposed theory with data from 737 respondents residing in 166 work units in a wide variety of organizations.