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Being Good Citizens: Understanding a Mediating Mechanism of Organizational Commitment and Social Network Ties in OCBs

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ABSTRACT

Given that citizenship challenges the basis and workings of the basic institutions market, state, and civil society, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) become an important moral tenet found in some codes of ethical principles. This study explores service-oriented OCBs and their determinants. Three dimensions of service-oriented OCBs (loyalty, service delivery, and participation) are hypothetically influenced by distributive justice, procedural justice, personal cooperativeness, and the need for social approval through the mediation of organizational commitment. The three dimensions of OCBs are hypothetically influenced by personal cooperativeness, need for social approval, task interdependence, and outcome interdependence through the mediation of social network ties. The model is tested using data from contact employees at several financial holding companies in Taiwan. Test results reveal that the relationships between need for social approval and organizational commitment and those between task interdependence and social network ties are insignificant, whereas all other paths are significant. This study also provides managerial implications and limitations.

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Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank Chia-Chi Lee for helping collect data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Technological and Vocational Education, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, 123 University Road, Section 3, Douliou, Yunlin, 64002, Taiwan, ROC

    Chieh-Peng Lin

  2. Department of Business Administration, Vanung University, No. 1 Van-Nung Rd., Chung-Li, Tao-Yuan, 32061, Taiwan, ROC

    Wei-Ting Hung

  3. Ching Kuo Institute of Management & Health, 336, Fu Hsin Rd, Keelung, Taiwan, ROC

    Chou-Kang Chiu

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  1. Chieh-Peng Lin
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  2. Wei-Ting Hung
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Correspondence to Chieh-Peng Lin.

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Lin, CP., Hung, WT. & Chiu, CK. Being Good Citizens: Understanding a Mediating Mechanism of Organizational Commitment and Social Network Ties in OCBs. J Bus Ethics 81, 561–578 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-007-9528-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-007-9528-8

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