A meta‐analytic comparison of self‐reported and other‐reported organizational citizenship behavior

• Date: 01 May 2014
• Author: Nichelle C. Carpenter,Lawrence Houston,Christopher M. Berry
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.1909
• Published date: 01 May 2014

A meta-analytic comparison of self-reported and

other-reported organizational citizenship behavior

NICHELLE C. CARPENTER

1

*, CHRISTOPHER M. BERRY

2

AND LAWRENCE HOUSTON

3

1

School of Labor and Employment Relations, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,

Champaign, Illinois, U.S.A.

2

Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, U.S.A.

3

Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Summary Given the common use of self-ratings and other-ratings (e.g., supervisor or coworker) of organizational

citizenship behavior (OCB), the purpose of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the extent to which these rating

sources provide comparable information. The current study’s results provided three important lines of

evidence supporting the use and construct-related validity of self-rated OCB. The meta-analysis of mean

differences demonstrated that the mean difference in OCB ratings is actually quite small between self- and

other-raters. Importantly, the difference between self- and other-raters was influenced by neither the

response scale (i.e., agreement vs. frequency) nor the use of antithetical/reverse-worded items on OCB

scales. The meta-analysis of correlations showed that self- and other-ratings are moderately correlated

but that self–other convergence is higher when antithetical items are not used and when agreement

response scales are used. In addition, self-ratings and supervisor-ratings showed significantly more

convergence than self-ratings and coworker-ratings. Finally, an evaluation of self-rated and other-rated

OCB nomological networks showed that although self-rated and other-rated OCBs have similar patterns

of relationships with common correlates, other-rated OCB generally contributed negligible incremental

variance to correlates and only contributed appreciable incremental variance to other-rated behavioral variables

(e.g., task performance and counterproductive work behavior). Implications and future research directions

are discussed, particularly regarding the need to establish a nomological network for other-rated OCB.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: organizational citizenship behavior; meta-analysis; performance ratings

Considerable research attention has been paid to organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and as a result, a great

deal is known about the nature of the behavior and its complex network of correlates. For example, OCB—generally

defined as the set of positive workplace behaviors that are distinct from the employee’s work tasks and that support

organization members and/or the work environment (e.g., Bateman & Organ, 1983; Podsakoff, MacKenzie,

Moorman, & Fetter, 1990; Podsakoff, Whiting, Podsakoff, & Blume, 2009)—has been shown to include both

prosocial behaviors (i.e., behaviors targeted towards either the organization, OCB-O, or other individuals, OCB-I)

and proactive/change-oriented behaviors (e.g., Chiaburu, Oh, Berry, Li, & Gardner, 2011; Van Dyne, Graham, &

Dienesch, 1994), it also serves as a key criterion variable for several organizational variables such as job attitudes

and justice perceptions (Hoffman, Blair, Meriac, & Woehr, 2007), and has a prominent place within classic theories

and conceptualizations of work performance (see Viswesvaran & Ones, 2000). Indeed, to illustrate the popularity of

OCB, Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, and Bachrach (2000) highlighted that OCB has been cited in hundreds of

published papers.

*Correspondence to: Nichelle C. Carpenter, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, School of Labor and Employment Relations, and

Department of Psychology, School of Labor and Employment Relations Building, MC-504, 504 E. Armory Avenue, Champaign, IL 61820,

U.S.A. E-mail: ncc7@illinois.edu

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 15 November 2012

Revised 03 October 2013, Accepted 20 October 2013

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 35, 547–574 (2014)

Published online 6 December 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.1909

Research Article

Organizational citizenship behavior has most often been measured with either supervisor- or coworker-ratings

(henceforth referred to as “other-ratings”) or employee’s self-ratings, yet these different rating sources appear to

be preferred for different reasons. For example, other-ratings of OCB tend to be regarded as less vulnerable to social

desirability and self-presentation biases relative to self-ratings (Allen, Barnard, Rush, & Russell, 2000; Chan, 2009).

Employees’own self-ratings of OCB tend to be used when the research focuses on employee self-perceptions of

their behavior and also because of the recognition that employees may have the most knowledge about the behaviors

they enact at work (Allen et al., 2000; Berry, Carpenter, & Barratt, 2012; Chan, 2009).

However, neither self-rated nor other-rated OCB is without their respective problems and limitations. First, self-

ratings of OCB have been criticized as being inflated (relative to other-ratings), as employees may wish to purposely

over-report the extent to which they engage in desired behaviors like OCB (Allen et al., 2000; Chan, 2009). This

concern for social desirability bias also stems in part from previous findings showing self-reported OCB relation-

ships with personality to be larger than relationships with other-rated OCB (e.g., Berry et al., 2012; Organ & Ryan,

1995). For this reason, self-ratings have been regarded as yielding an unstable assessment of OCB and subsequently

discouraged (Organ & Ryan, 1995). Other-rated OCB may address some of these limitations of self-ratings, but

other-ratings may also be limited in reflecting the full extent to which an employee engages in behaviors (Allen

et al., 2000; Chan, 2009; Lawler, 1967; Organ & Konovsky, 1989). For example, researchers have noted that

other-raters may not havethe opportunity to observe all aspects of an employee’s OCB (Chan, 2009) or, alternatively,

an employee mayengage in OCB towards some supervisorsand coworkers and not others (e.g., Harris& Schaubroeck,

1988; Lawler, 1967; Organ, Podsako ff, & MacKenzie, 2006).

The extant OCB literature is based on both self-ratings and other-ratings of OCB, yet it remains unclear whether

self- and other-ratings of OCB are interchangeable measures of OCB or if they each represent unique but (perhaps)

valid perspectives. As noted by LePine, Erez, and Johnson (2002), an evaluation of the parallels and differences

between self-ratings and other-ratings of OCB is critical to determine whether the understanding of OCB generalizes

across sources. Further, such an examination is likely to provide guidance to researchers and practitioners on when

one type of rating source may be preferred to others. Therefore, the purpose of the present meta-analysis is to

examine three important lines of evidence regarding the relationship between self-report and other-report OCB.

First, we meta-analytically examined the extent to which there are differences in the mean levels of OCB reported

by self-raters relative to other-raters. This line of evidence provides insight into the question of the extent to

which self-raters may significantly over-report their OCB relative to other-raters. Second, we meta-analyzed

the correlation between self-rated and other-rated OCBs to determine the extent to which self- and other-ratings

of OCB are related and reflect shared information. The third line of evidence we examined is whether self-ratings

and other-ratings of OCB have similar or different relationships with theoretically relevant correlates.

Importantly, this line of evidence contributes to the understanding of the construct-related validity of self-rated

and other-rated OCBs, as it will highlight the unique contribution of each rating source to constructs identified

in OCB theory.

Self-rated and other-rated organizational citizenship behavior

Self-ratings and other-ratings of OCB have respective benefits and limitations associated with their use. One reason

why supervisor ratings may be commonly used to measure OCB is simply that supervisors are charged with evalu-

ating employee performance and are likely to have a great deal of understanding of the work behaviors enacted by

employees. Additionally, because employees may enact OCB towards supervisors and coworkers (e.g., providing

assistance), these individuals should be in position to provide valid ratings of the degree of OCB they have received.

Finally, other-ratings of OCB also counter a number of biases/errors that may affect the measurement or understand-

ing of OCB. For example, given that many important correlates of OCB tend to be self-rated job attitudes (e.g., job

satisfaction), contextual perceptions (e.g., organizational justice), and personality traits (e.g., conscientiousness), the

use of other-rated OCB reduces concerns of common method bias (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Podsakoff, 2012).

548 N. C. CARPENTER ET AL.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 35, 547–574 (2014)

DOI: 10.1002/job