A Social Contract Perspective on Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Abstract

A predictive relationship is proposed between stronger communitarian normative ideological values and beliefs regarding the political and economic social contract, and greater amounts of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The theoretical foundation supporting this relationship is based in management literature on organizational cooperation, and political theory literature on individualist and communitarian ideological orientation, which derives from the social contract theories of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Survey data from 315 organizational employees supported the study's proposal that stronger communitarian ideological orientation had statistically significant and positive direct and interaction effects predicting greater OCB performance.