Supporting team citizenship: The influence of team social resources on team‐level affiliation‐oriented and challenge‐oriented behaviour

• Date: 01 April 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12173
• Published date: 01 April 2018

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Supporting team citizenship: The influence of team

social resources on team‐level affiliation‐oriented

and challenge‐oriented behaviour

Adam C. Stoverink

1

|Dan S. Chiaburu

2

|Ning Li

3

|Xingshan Zheng

4

1

Department of Management, Sam M. Walton

College of Business, University of Arkansas,

USA

2

Department of Management, College of

Business and Economics, Lehigh University,

USA

3

Department of Management and

Organizations, Tippie College of Business, The

University of Iowa, USA

4

Organization Management Department,

Antai College of Economics and Management,

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, People's

Republic of China

Correspondence

Adam C. Stoverink, Department of

Management, Sam M. Walton College of

Business, University of Arkansas, Business

Building 420, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA.

Email: astoverink@walton.uark.edu

Funding information

Mays Business School, Texas A&M University

Abstract

Using a conservation of resources theoretical framework, we

connect within‐team social resources with team‐level citizenship

behaviours. In a sample of 385 employees situated in 70 teams from

China, we confirm that team social support and team psychological

safety interact to influence both affiliation‐oriented (AOCB) and

challenge‐oriented (COCB) citizenship. Specifically, the two social

resources substitute for one another, such that “either”team social

support “or”psychological safety may be sufficient to increase

AOCB. We find a consistent yet more complex pattern for COCB.

Furthermore, drawing on the team prosocial motivation literature,

we uncover team effort as a mediator to the effects of both social

resources on AOCB. Our findings suggest that managers may

enhance team citizenship by promoting team‐level social resources

(social support and psychological safety), and they may only need

to focus their energies on one of these resources, as exerting effort

towards both may be redundant and inefficient.

KEYWORDS

organisationalcitizenship behaviour, psychological safety, social

support, teams

1|INTRODUCTION

“People make the place”—this adage, which can seemingly be applied to any social setting, is particularly evident in the

workplace (Schneider, 1987), where the ubiquitous use of team‐based structures ensures frequent social interaction

and interdependence among employees (Kozlowski & Bell, 2013). Research suggests that these interactions are

meaningful, as coworkers influence a variety of critical outcomes (Chiaburu & Harrison, 2008; Dutton, Roberts, &

Bednar, 2010; Halbesleben, 2006). We set out to examine one such outcome—team organisational citizenship

behaviour (OCB), defined as “contributions to the maintenance and enhancement of the social and psychological

context that supports task performance”(Organ, 1997, p. 91).

Our theoretical hypotheses are driven by two separate theories—conservation of resources (COR) theory

(Hobfoll, 1989, 2001) and team‐level prosocial motivation theory (Hu & Liden, 2015). We draw from these distinct

Received: 1 February 2015 Revised: 14 July 2017 Accepted: 12 August 2017

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12173

Hum Resour Manag J. 2018;28:201–215. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltdwileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj 201