Disentangling the Direct and Indirect Effects of Task, Individual, and Organizational Factors on Occupational Citizenship Behavior

• Published date: 01 October 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0887403419866895
• Date: 01 October 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403419866895

Criminal Justice Policy Review

2020, Vol. 31(8) 1136 –1164

© The Author(s) 2019

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0887403419866895

journals.sagepub.com/home/cjp

Article

Disentangling the Direct

and Indirect Effects of Task,

Individual, and Organizational

Factors on Occupational

Citizenship Behavior

James Frank1, Eric G. Lambert2, Hanif Qureshi3,

Andrew J. Myer4, Charles F. Klahm5, Bradley Smith5,

and Nancy L. Hogan6

Abstract

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) have been the subject of considerable

research attention within business organizations. Much less attention has been directed

at OCBs within criminal justice agencies, and even less research has addressed OCBs

within police organizations. The present study uses survey data collected from 829

police officers in India to assess the antecedents of several dimensions of OCBs.

Unlike most prior research, we use a path model in an effort to disentangle the

direct and indirect effects of organizational justice, job demands and job resources,

organizational justice, stress, and work attitudes on OCBs while controlling for officer

personal characteristics. Our findings indicate that job satisfaction and organizational

commitment are strong predictors of OCBs and that they mediate the effects of

job stress, which did not directly influence OCBs. In addition, organizational justice

factors exerted inconsistent effects on OCBs. Strategies for increasing the likelihood

that officers will engage in OCBs are discussed.

1University of Cincinnati, OH, USA

2University of Nevada, Reno, USA

3Haryana Police, Chandigarh, India

4North Dakota State University, Fargo, USA

5Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

6Ferris State University, Big Rapids, MI, USA

Corresponding Author:

Eric G. Lambert, Department of Criminal Justice, University of Nevada, Reno, AB601D, Mail Stop 0214,

1664 North Virginia Street, Reno, NV 89557, USA.

Email: ericlambert@unr.edu

866895CJPXXX10.1177/0887403419866895Criminal Justice Policy ReviewFrank et al.

research-article2019

Frank et al. 1137

Keywords

organizational citizenship behavior, police officers, law enforcement, India

Police organizations’ most expensive and important resource is their personnel. Officers

are responsible for numerous duties and tasks to enforce the law and maintain order.

The exercise of discretion by police officers has been the subject of considerable atten-

tion in the policing literature. Most of this attention has been directed at explaining

factors that influence discretionary street-level decisions made by officers when they

encounter citizens, namely, the decisions to arrest, stop and frisk, search, or use force

(Klahm & Tillyer, 2015; Novak, Frank, Smith, & Engel, 2002). Much less attention has

been focused on factors that explain officer decisions to engage in organizational citi-

zenship behaviors (OCBs; Organ, 1988; Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983)—behaviors that

support the work activities of coworkers, show respect for the police organization, and

are intended to promote the effective functioning of the organization. Studies of these

voluntary, prosocial OCBs have proliferated across organizational types and have

received extensive attention in the social psychology and organizational literatures,

especially since the 1990s (Podsakoff, Whiting, Podsakoff, & Blume, 2009). Research

to date, however, is limited to a few occupational fields.

The majority of the studies examining OCBs have been conducted in traditional

manufacturing organizations (Dekas, Bauer, Welle, Kurkoski, & Sullivan, 2013). Only

a limited number of the studies exploring the antecedents and consequences of OCBs

involve criminal justice agencies (e.g., Lambert, Hogan, & Griffin, 2008), and a

smaller subset of these address police agencies. Only three published studies dealing

with OCBs among police officers could be located. Among a group of government

workers in Egypt and Saudi Arabia—a group that included police officers—self-

esteem, organizational self-esteem (the degree that people feel performing their orga-

nizational role will meet their own needs), level of work ethic, job satisfaction, and

leadership consideration help shape OCBs (Tang & Ibrahim, 1998). With Taiwanese

police, collective efficacy and self-efficacy had positive effects on OCBs (Chen &

Kao, 2011). Chen and Kao (2012) reported that perceptions of the psychological con-

tract (i.e., organizational autonomy, control, rewards, and benefits) and professional

commitment (i.e., commitment to being a police officer) had positive effects on OCBs

among cadets in the Taiwanese police academy. Exploring OCBs in policing organiza-

tions is important, particularly, in how workplace variables are associated with police

officer OCBs.

The present study examined how different workplace variables influence the dis-

cretion of officers to engage in OCBs using data from survey of officers with the

Haryana state in India. Past studies of law enforcement agencies examining the rela-

tionship between task, organization, and work environment variables have assumed a

specific direct path between variables and the dependent variable of interest. This is

not the case in the current study. Based on a review of the literature, there appears to

be both direct and indirect effects of workplace variables on OCBs. Using a path

model, the present study examined the antecedents of OCBs, focusing on perceptions