Investigating Organizational Citizenship Behaviour and Deviant Work Behavior as Consequences of Organizational Commitment

Abstract

In this study, we examined the nature of the relation between organizational commitment and two work behaviours – organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and deviant work behaviour (DBW). This study had three main goals. First, it addressed a need for more research investigating the relation between organizational commitment and work behaviours in a non-North American context. Second, this research extends the work on commitment by examining the relation between the components of organizational commitment and DWB, which has yet to be investigated. Specifically, we examined whether the three components of organizational commitment are related differently to different types of work behaviour. Finally, this study examined whether the relation between organizational commitment and voluntary work behaviour was different depending on whether the intended beneficiary was an individual or the organization in general. The sample consisted of 120 Korean employees and their supervisors. Employees responded to a survey about their work attitudes, and supervisors provided data on employees' voluntary work behaviours. For the most part, the results of the study supported the hypotheses. As expected, affective commitment was found to be an important predictor of OCB and DWB. As expected, continuance commitment was found to be an important predictor of DWB. Although, normative commitment was significantly correlated with OCB and DWB, it was not found to account for unique variance in these work behaviours above what was accounted for by the other two components of commitment. A second focus of this study was to consider the target of voluntary behaviours. Organizational commitment was found to have a higher correlation with organization-directed work behaviours than individual-directed work behaviours. However, the only the strength of the correlations between affective commitment and organization-directed DWB and individual-directed DWB was significantly different. This study contributes to the commitment literature in two main ways. First, it provides evidence that organizational commitment theory may be valid in non-Western cultures. Second, the examination of the relation between organizational commitment and supervisor rated OCB and DWB simultaneously highlights the importance of considering the nature of work behaviour as well as the nature of commitment.