Disentangling role perceptions: how perceived role breadth, discretion, instrumentality, and efficacy relate to helping and taking charge.

The objective of this study was to empirically disentangle role perceptions related to organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) that have been confounded in past research, investigate their unique relationships with both an affiliative (helping) and a challenging (taking charge) form of OCB, and determine their relative importance in explaining these 2 forms of OCB. The authors also examined whether role discretion and role breadth independently moderate the procedural justice-to-OCB relationship. The authors surveyed 225 engineers in India and their direct supervisors. The results showed that 3 of the 4 facets of OCB role perception explain unique variance in either helping or taking charge, and that role breadth moderates the relationships between procedural justice and both helping and taking charge. The authors discuss implications of these findings for OCB theory and research, as well as for managerial practice.

"All in a day's work": how follower individual differences and justice perceptions predict OCB role definitions and behavior.

The authors draw on theories of social exchange and prosocial behavior to explain how employee perceptions of procedural justice and individual differences in reciprocation wariness, empathic concern, and perspective taking function jointly as determinants of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) role definitions and behavior. As hypothesized, empirical findings from a field study show both direct and interactive effects of procedural justice perceptions and individual differences on OCB role definition. In turn, OCB role definitions not only predict OCB directly but also moderate the effects of procedural justice perceptions on OCB. The authors explore the implications of these findings for practice as well as research.