Good Soldiers and Good Actors: Prosocial and Impression Management Motives as Interactive Predictors of Affiliative Citizenship Behaviors

    Authors

    A. M. Grant;D. M. Mayer

    Comments

    Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

    Abbreviated Journal Title

    J. Appl. Psychol.

    Keywords

    organizational citizenship behavior; prosocial motives; impression; management motives; affiliative citizenship; challenging citizenship; RATIONAL SELF-INTEREST; EXTRA-ROLE BEHAVIORS; ORGANIZATIONAL-BEHAVIOR; CONTEXTUAL PERFORMANCE; ROLE-IDENTITY; DISPOSITIONAL PREDICTORS; INTRINSIC MOTIVATION; COEFFICIENT-ALPHA; SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGY; TASK-PERFORMANCE; Psychology, Applied; Management

    Abstract

    Researchers have discovered inconsistent relationships between prosocial motives and citizenship behaviors. We draw on impression management theory to propose that impression management motives strengthen the association between prosocial motives and affiliative citizenship by encouraging employees to express citizenship in ways that both "do good" and "look good." We report 2 studies that examine the interactions of prosocial and impression management motives as predictors of affiliative citizenship using multisource data from 2 different field samples. Across the 2 studies, we find positive interactions between prosocial and impression management motives as predictors of affiliative citizenship behaviors directed toward other people (helping and courtesy) and the organization (initiative). Study 2 also shows that only prosocial motives predict voice-a challenging citizenship behavior. Our results suggest that employees who are both good soldiers and good actors are most likely to emerge as good citizens in promoting the status quo.

    Journal Title

    Journal of Applied Psychology

    Volume

    94

    Issue/Number

    4

    Publication Date

    1-1-2009

    Document Type

    Review

    Language

    English

    First Page

    900

    Last Page

    912

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000267497000006

    ISSN

    0021-9010

    Share

    COinS