Does organizational formalization facilitate voice and helping organizational citizenship behaviors? It depends on (national) uncertainty norms

Article


Fischer, R., Ferreira, M., Van Meurs, N., Gok, K., Jiang, D., Fontaine, J., Harb, C., Cieciuch, J., Achoui, M., Mendoza, M., Hassan, A., Achmadi, D., Mogaji, A. and Abubakar, A. 2019. Does organizational formalization facilitate voice and helping organizational citizenship behaviors? It depends on (national) uncertainty norms. Journal of International Business Studies. 50 (1), pp. 125-134. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-017-0132-6
TypeArticle
TitleDoes organizational formalization facilitate voice and helping organizational citizenship behaviors? It depends on (national) uncertainty norms
AuthorsFischer, R., Ferreira, M., Van Meurs, N., Gok, K., Jiang, D., Fontaine, J., Harb, C., Cieciuch, J., Achoui, M., Mendoza, M., Hassan, A., Achmadi, D., Mogaji, A. and Abubakar, A.
Abstract

Prosocial work behaviors in a globalized environment do not operate in a cultural vacuum. We assess to what extent voice and helping organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) vary across cultures, depending on employees’ perceived level of organizational formalization and national uncertainty. We predict that in contexts of uncertainty, cognitive resources are engaged in coping with this uncertainty. Organizational formalization can provide structure that frees up cognitive resources to engage in OCB. In contrast, in contexts of low uncertainty, organizational formalization is not necessary for providing structure and may increase constraints on discretionary behavior. A three-level hierarchical linear modeling analysis of data from 7,537 employees in 267 organizations across 17 countries provides broad support for our hypothesis: perceived organizational formalization is weakly related to OCB, but where uncertainty is high; formalization facilitates voice significantly, helping OCB to a lesser extent. Our findings contribute to clarifying the dynamics between perceptions of norms at organizational and national levels for understanding when employees may engage in helping and voice behaviors. The key implication is that managers can foster OCB through organizational formalization interventions in uncertain environments that are cognitively demanding.

Keywordsorganizational citizenship behavior; culture; uncertainty; formalization; multilevel analysis
Research GroupInternational and Cross-cultural Management group
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
JournalJournal of International Business Studies
ISSN0047-2506
Electronic1478-6990
Publication dates
Online21 Dec 2017
Print12 Feb 2019
Publication process dates
Deposited05 Jan 2018
Accepted19 Oct 2017
Submitted02 May 2016
Output statusPublished
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File Access Level
Open
Accepted author manuscript
File Access Level
Open
Copyright Statement

Accepted Manuscript: This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Journal of International Business Studies. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-017-0132-6

With the author(s)’ decision to opt for Open Choice the copyright of the article changed on June 2018 to © The Author(s) and the article is forthwith distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Additional information

The original version of this article was revised due to a retrospective Open Access order, see correction: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-018-0174-4

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-017-0132-6
Scopus EID2-s2.0-85038626661
Web of Science identifierWOS:000460611800008
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Has metadatahttp://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85038626661&partnerID=MN8TOARS
LanguageEnglish
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