The effects of supervisor feedback behavior on employee organizational citizenship behaviors: The role of perceived supervisor fairness in the social exchange process.

摘要

Organizations can not be successful over the long run unless employees are willing go beyond prescribed role requirements and explicitly rewarded behaviors to engage in discretionary behaviors known as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). OCBs are vital because organizations cannot anticipate all the behaviors needed for achieving organizational goals through written job descriptions. The current study investigated the cognitive explanation that employees who receive beneficial feedback (i.e., timely, specific, constructive feedback with informational value) from their supervisors perceive interpersonal fairness, feel indebted to the supervisor, and reciprocate with OCB in a social exchange. Social exchange theory was used to explain how social exchange mediates the relationship between perceptions of fairness and OCB. Exchange ideology, employees' dispositional orientation towards exchange with the organization in general, was hypothesized to moderate the relationship between fairness and social exchange.; Data collected with questionnaires from 105 supervisor-employee dyads representing a variety of businesses in the Northeastern U.S., was tested using a cross-sectional research design. Employee OCB was assessed by both supervisors and employees using Podsakoff and MacKenzie's (1989) scale. Supervisor fairness was measured with a scale developed by Butler (1991). Social exchange was measured with Rousseau's (1990) scale. Scales to assess beneficial feedback had been previously developed by the author. Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, and Sowa's (1986) exchange ideology scale was used to measure employees' dispositional orientation towards exchange. Supervisors rated employee job performance using Williams and Anderson's (1991) in-role behavior scale.; There were significant relationships between feedback and fairness, and between fairness and the OCB dimension altruism. No significant relationships were found between feedback and social exchange or between social exchange and either fairness or OCB. Hypotheses were tested while controlling for age, time with supervisor, and in-role behavior. These findings extend the research on fairness and OCB by showing that beneficial feedback is related to perceptions of supervisor fairness, and these perceptions have a significant relationship with altruism after controlling for in-role behavior. These results add to the evidence that specific supervisor behaviors can potentially influence employee behaviors and lead to desirable organizational outcomes. Implications for practitioners and future research are also discussed.