Supply Chain Citizenship: Investigating the Antecedents of Customer Interorganizational Citizenship Behaviors

• Date: 01 December 2015
• Published date: 01 December 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jbl.12108

Supply Chain Citizenship: Investigating the Antecedents of

Customer Interorganizational Citizenship Behaviors

Terry L. Esper

1

, Randy V. Bradley

2

, Rodney Thomas

3

, and LaDonna M. Thornton

4

1

Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas

2

The University of Tennessee

3

Texas Tech University

4

Florida State University

Research has consistently established the strategic importance of supply chain collaboration. As a result, interfirm behavioral dynamics and

relationships have emerged as key topics for both the academic and practitioner communities. This paper explores an interpersonal

exchange tactic that is inherent to many collaborative initiatives—interorganizational citizenship behaviors (ICBs). The study specifically investi-

gates why retail customers in business-to-business exchange relationships would exhibit ICBs, and explores how they assess and respond to the

ICBs of suppliers. Findings of the study suggest that customers generally interpret and value the various types of ICBs differently, resulting in

differential effects regarding the supply chain performance and relational implications of the behavior. These results not only inform managerial

practice but also provide future research opportunities in the area of ICBs and the broader realm of interpersonal supply chain dynamics.

Keywords: citizenship behaviors; supply chain relationships; collaboration

INTRODUCTION

Technology doesn’t make collaboration. Processes don’t

guarantee it. Although both are important, it’s ultimately

the human interface and the trust that it can engender that

build a truly collaborative relationship. (Sabath and Fon-

tanella 2002, 25, italics added)

Collaborative relationship exchange has emerged as a pillar of

supply chain management (SCM) practice and research (Stank

et al. 2001; Zacharia et al. 2009). As the above quote suggests,

such collaboration inherently involves operating at multiple

levels. First, the firm level, which is characterized by interactions

such as those common in contracting, negotiation, and opera-

tional exchanges; and second, the interpersonal level, which

involves the day-to-day interactions, perceptions, and behavioral

exchanges between representatives of the respective firms

(Zaheer et al. 1998).

A comprehensive review of the collaboration literature sug-

gests that research has primarily focused on firm-level phenom-

ena (Charvet and Cooper 2011), even though both the academic

and practitioner communities acknowledge that the less-investi-

gated interpersonal behaviors are key to facilitating effective

supply chain relationships (Mentzer et al. 2000; Narayandas and

Rangan 2004; Gligor and Autry 2012). Moreover, because these

interpersonal exchange behaviors are typically not measured,

and are often exhibited without managerial visibility or fore-

knowledge (Bowersox et al. 2000), they are quite difficult to

track, thus the need for research that provides more insight and

understanding into this realm of supply chain relational

exchange is paramount.

In order to explore interpersonal supply chain dynamics,

Autry et al. (2008) build on the vast organizational citizenship

behavior (OCB) literature to introduce interorganizational citi-

zenship behaviors (ICBs), and established them as positively

related to organizational and financial performance. ICBs are

defined as “interfirm behavioral tactics, generally enacted by

boundary-spanning personnel, that are discretionary, not directly

or explicitly included in formal agreements, and that in the

aggregate promote the effective functioning of the supply chain”

(Autry et al. 2008, 54). Hence, ICBs are discretionary helping

behaviors, whereby the actor voluntarily assists a member of

another organization with work-related duties and responsibili-

ties. Although ICBs have been shown to be of relational and

performance value to supply chains, further exploration into the

reasons behind, and relational implications of, such behavior is

needed in order to fully understand the conceptual domain of

ICBs. In other words, existing research has established the

“what”of ICBs...more work is necessary to investigate the

“why”of ICBs, particularly in the context of supply chain rela-

tional exchange.

This study seeks to provide such insights by addressing the

strategic roots of ICBs through exploring how relational condi-

tions cause the various extant ICBs. Specifically, findings are

reported from an investigation of:

1 The antecedents and contexts that lead to Customer ICBs in

customer–supplier exchanges, and;

2 How customers react to and assess Supplier ICBs.

In addition, existing citizenship behavior research from the

Management discipline (Williams and Anderson 1991) was used

to develop a more parsimonious ICB categorization than exists

in the extant SCM literature. This study theoretically establishes

that ICBs are intended either to extend helping behavior to a

partner firm representative (individual-targeted ICB [ICB-I]) or

assistance to the performance of the partner firm (organization-

targeted ICB [ICB-O]). And, the findings suggest that customers

Corresponding author:

Dr. Rodney Thomas, Associate Professor, Rawls College of Busi-

ness, Texas Tech University, Box 42101, Lubbock, TX 79409-2101,

USA; E-mail: rthoma29@gmail.com

Journal of Business Logistics, 2015, 36(4): 306–320 doi: 10.1111/jbl.12108

© Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals