Organizational citizenship behaviour for collectivist cultures: instrument development and human resource development implications

ABSTRACT

Organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is an increasingly examined construct in human resource development (HRD) research. The OCB construct is noted for being heavily influenced by culture leading to renewed calls for the development of OCB definitions and measurement approaches that can be used internationally. This study developed an OCB measurement appropriate for use in a collectivist society using Thailand as the setting. A literature review and a series of interviews with human resource directors were used for item generation. A survey of 1779 employees and 751 supervisors was then conducted to examine the cultural appropriateness of classifying the items as either in-role or citizenship behaviours in order to reduce the number of items. The resulting 35-item instrument was tested with survey data from 451 employees. Results showed acceptable validity for the instrument with conclusions and discussion highlighting the need for future analysis and refinement for further application of culturally relevant measures for use in international HRD research and professional practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Organizational citizenship behaviour
• instrument development
• collectivist society
• Thailand

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant awarded to the first author by the Thailand Research Fund (TRF), the Office of the Higher Education Commission (OHEC, Thailand), and Prince of Songkla University (MRG5580106). The ideas expressed herein are not necessarily endorsed by the funding organizations.