The contextual antecedents of organizational citizenship behavior in Lebanon -

Abstract

Despite the growing interest in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) over the past three decades, the contextualization of OCB antecedents has not been granted much recognition. Most of the literature on OCB has been the product of Western civilizations, and very little has been produced in the Middle East in particular. The aim of this paper is to verify the need to contextualize OCB by looking at its antecedents in Lebanon. This is done by examining the views of forty Lebanese front-line managers through semi-structured interviews around possible predictors of OCB. These views are analyzed within a multi-level approach (micro, meso and macro) and by virtue of the three pillars of institutional forces that govern organizations (regulative, normative, and cognitive). The study uses an inductive qualitative approach to generate a three by three matrix of analysis of proposed contextual antecedents of OCB.It reveals several previously unreported antecedents of OCBs, and hints to the importance of categorizing each antecedent as per a given context. Moreover, it uncovers an abundance of macro level antecedents within the normative and cognitive pillarsimplying that OCB studies must be further recognized at this level.Findings of this study are peculiar to Lebanon, and so it would be inappropriate to generalize them to other nations unless cross national research is employed to test the validity of the suggested themes.Managers,aiming to enhance OCBs in the workplace,may realize that selection processes must integrate contextual variables in employees’ assessment. Furthermore, they may realize the need to adjust variables at the meso level shown related to OCB.