Research Notes. Getting More Than You Pay For: Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Pay-For-Performance Plans

Abstract

Economic control frameworks such as agency theory start with the assumption that employee and employer interests naturally diverge, whereas alternative control frameworks imply that employee and employer interests are often aligned. Integrating these literatures, we hypothesized that value alignment moderates the impact of pay for performance on extrarole behaviors. Our study of employees in the utility industry supported this hypothesis. Pay for performance had a negative impact on extrarole behaviors for employees low in value alignment but not for employees high in value alignment.