Title

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

Authors

Authors

A. M. Grant;D. M. Mayer

Comments

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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

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