Cohesiveness and organizational citizenship behavior: a multilevel analysis using work groups and individuals - A Special Issue: Focus on Hierarchical Linear Modeling

Journal of Management, Nov-Dec, 1997 by Roland E. Kidwell, Jr., Kevin W. Mossholder, Nathan Bennett

Perhaps the most salient theoretical basis for possible group-level OCB effects stems from research on social exchange and helping. With regard to social exchange, one could expect that cohesive groups would display more positive and frequent social exchanges than noncohesive groups. Some researchers (e.g., Organ, 1990) have suggested that OCB may reflect members' efforts to maintain exchange relationships within the group that are more social than economic. Work groups characterized by liking and cooperation may encourage trust in the long run that social exchanges will be reciprocated. OCB may act as one medium of exchange in such contexts and may be expected of group members.

Group cohesivehess has been identified as an important situational antecedent to affiliative/promotive behaviors (Van Dyne et al., 1995) like OCB because highly cohesive groups engender a strong social identity that can enhance members' desires to help one another. In a study conducted at the group level, George and Bettenhausen (1990) found that group cohesivehess correlated with a group measure of prosocial behavior. Additionally, George and Bettenhausen (1990) noted that cohesiveness may impact OCB through its broader effect on group members' affective states. Members of cohesive work groups experience more positive mood states than do members of noncohesive groups (Gross, 1954; Marquis, Guetzkow & Heyns, 1951). The social psychological research literature on helping behavior has shown that positive mood states may induce or correlate with proclivities to exhibit altruism toward others (cf. Isen & Baron, 1991), at least at the individual level of analysis.

Research on group process variables provides additional general support for potential group-level effects of cohesiveness on OCB. Broadly speaking, the more cohesive a work group, the greater the conformity to group norms. As Hackman (1992) notes, norm conformity is higher because of the pressures exerted by members on one another and the interpersonal rewards that are available through within-group interactions. It should be emphasized that although the group norms literature is supportive of group-level OCB links with cohesiveness, such support is conditional on whether OCB is considered important by members for group functioning. This is the case because group norms generally form only around behavior that is important to group functioning (Cartwright, 1968).

Where the work context is such that citizenship-type behaviors might contribute to group functioning (e.g., where coordinated service demands exist - see George & Bettenhausen, 1990), OCB on the part of work group members could become well established when group cohesiveness is high. Expectations of cooperation and social responsibility may be internalized by group members in the form of values that when practiced would increase feelings of self-worth, and when not practiced would arouse negative feelings and decrease members' sense of self-worth (Shamir, 1990). The commonality of potential benefits to members increases the possibility that OCB may become a repeated plays occurrence (Axelrod, 1984) and that these behaviors will become increasingly visible as they are reciprocated among group members. In such situations, members may become models for one another in demonstrating appropriate OCB (cf. Schnake, 1991). Logically then, it is reasonable to expect that a "norm of fair dealing" (Stroebe & Frey, 1982, p.127) involving discretionary behaviors (Hackman, 1992) like OCB would be established in groups that are highly cohesive as compared to groups that are not cohesive.