TODAİE’s Review of Public Administration, Volume 2 No 4 December 2008, p. 87-111.
Perception in Organizational
Citizenship Behavior
Neşe Song“r
*H. Nejat Basım
**Harun Şeşen
***Abstract: Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is an important factor that promotes efficient, effective and high performance. OCB is affected by an individual’s attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions of the organization and in this context; one might mention many antecedents of OCB. In the present study, the relation between OCB and organizational justice perception as an antecedent in a group of 116 public sector manager candidates who were studying in the public sector was examined and an attempt was made to close the gaps in variable dimensions of previous studies. The findings showed that organizational justice perceptions had positive and significant effects on OCBs toward the organization (conscientiousness, sportsmanship and civic virtue), but had no effect on OCBs toward individuals (altruism and courte-sy).
Key Words: Organizational justice perception, organizational citizenship be-havior, antecedent.
Introduction
Today, numerous studies focusing on different dimensions of the administrative/organizational field are conducted for the purpose of ensuring the efficient and effective functioning of organizations. The majority of these studies address organizational structure and organ-izational behavior. In this context, one of the main subjects of recent studies conducted on organizational behavior is organizational citi-zenship behavior (OCB). The reason is that organizational citiciti-zenship behavior aims to protect the organization from destructive and unfa-vorable behaviors that hinder the smooth functioning of the organiza-tion; improving employees’ skills and abilities; enhancing organiz a-tional performance via an effective coordination system.
* Associate Professor, TODAİE.
Undoubtedly, organizational citizenship behavior is affected by the attitudes, behavior and organizational perceptions of individuals. The reason is that besides personal-related factors, individuals also form their organizational attitudes and behavior according to their perceptions of organizational dynamics. Such perceptions of organi-zational dynamics, which are highly influential on attitudes and be-havior, appear as subdimensions of organizational culture and organ-izational climate.
A common finding of previous studies on the relationship between OCB and organizational perception (e.g.. Blakely et al., 2005; Zellars et al., 2003; Williams et al., 2002; Moorman et al., 1998) is that OCB is affected by perceived organizational justice. However, some contra-dictory results relating to the abovementioned important finding, the reduction of organizational justice perception mostly to the dimen-sion of procedural justice and the employment of different OCB di-mensionalizations in different studies necessitate a cohesive study on the relationship between OCB and organizational perception. For this primary purpose, in this study, employees’ perceptions of organiz a-tional justice were measured after being broken down into three di-mensions. Then, it was attempted to determine the antecedent role of these perceptions on OCB.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Discretionary (voluntary) employee behavior and actions benefi-cial for the organization are different from employees’ formal role behaviors. In the literature, such behavior, which is regarded as informal behavior, is called prosocial organizational behavior (Brief -Motowidlo, 1986; McNeely - Meglino, 1994), extra-role behavior (Van Dyne et al., 1994), good soldier syndrome (Turnipseed - Murkison, 1996, 2000; Organ, 1988), contextual performance (Van Scotter - Mo-towidlo, 1996) and organizational citizenship behavior (Bateman - Organ, 1983; Organ, 1988; Smith et al., 1983). This type of behavior also involves social behaviors such as not being insensitive to coworkers’ inappropriate behavior; discussing the issue with them; complaining about them to the management; fulfilling tasks in due time; being innovative, helping others and volunteering.
citi-zenship behavior as individual behavior that is discretionary, not di-rectly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organiza-tion . This type of behavior is rather a matter of personal choice, such that its omission is not generally understood as punishable (Pod-sakoff et al., 2000: 513).
Organizational citizenship behavior generally seems unimportant. Nevertheless, as a whole, it improves the functioning of an organiza-tion. The expression the principle of voluntariness refers to e m-ployee behavior performed without any expectations of reward or punishment with personal choice though not stipulated by his/her job definition. Organ states that such behavior not only facilitates the functioning of the social mechanism and ensures the flexibility need-ed to work in unprneed-edictable situations, but also enables an organiza-tion to tackle problems arising from the interdependency of employ-ees (Tang - İbrahim, 1998: 529-551).
Organizational citizenship behavior is individual behaviors be-yond role requirements that aim to increase organizational effective-ness (Hunt, 1999: 3). Greenberg and Baron (2000: 212) define organ-izational citizenship behavior as employee performance going be-yond designated job task specifications. In this framework, OCB in-volves helping new coworkers, respecting the rights of others, not taking unnecessary breaks, regularly attending to the organization’s activities and assisting others with difficult tasks (Kidwell et al., 1997: 777), which thus minimizes the need for processing scarce or-ganizational resources required to sustain the activities of the organi-zation (Organ, 1988; Organ - Ryan 1995; Smith et al., 1983: 658).
important is to display behavior that will improve organizational
effi-ciency and effectiveness Özdevecioğlu, : .
Behavioral Dimension of Organizational Citizenship
When the literature on the subject is examined, it is seen that there is not a complete consensus on the dimensions of organization-al citizenship behavior. For instance, Podsakoff et organization-al (2000: 514) found 30 different definitions of citizenship behavior at the end of their comprehensive review of the literature. In their survey, con-ducted by structured interview, Smith et al, another group conducting studies on the subject, (1983) asked supervisors the behaviors, which they deemed extra-role behavior. Then supervisors were requested to appraise their subordinates with a questionnaire prepared for this purpose. The factor analyses conducted on the data revealed the ex-istence of two separate factors. The first factor was called the dimen-sion of altruism or the deliberate pursuit of the interests or welfare
of others and the second one, the dimension of generalized compl
i-ance .
Organ : coined the concept organizational citizenship behavior by developing the definition of extra-role behavior and suggested a five-dimension structure. He named these dimensions as altruism (caring about others), courtesy, conscientiousness, civic vir-tue (supporting organizational development) and sportsmanship. Podsakoff et al (1990) developed a scale for the dimensions defined by Organ, which they employed in numerous studies.
suggested a two-dimension structure as OCB-I (OCB towards individ-uals) OCB-O (OCB towards the organization).
Many studies conducted recently addressed the problem of the dimensionalization of OCB. For instance, Podsakoff et al (2000) based their study on Organ’s dimensionalization and in this fram e-work; they analyzed OCB in seven different dimensions. However, they stated that the result of their analysis indicated the similarity of these dimensions with a basic five-dimension structure. Again, at the end of their detailed study, Lepine et al (2002) said that all the differ-ent OCB dimensionalizations were very similar to Organ’s definition. It was maintained in the study conducted by Hoffman et al (2007), which can be considered the most recent study on this subject, that OCB dimensions were in fact not much different from one another and instead of different dimensionalizations, it would be more ap-propriate to mention a single OCB. When the literature relating to the subject was reviewed, it was considered that the adoption of Organ’s (1988) definition would better serve the purpose of this study due to its holistic approach to the concept. Thus, OCB was investigated with its five-dimension structure. These dimensions are briefly described below:
Altruism involves discretionary behavior directed at helping oth-ers or preventing work-related problems (Graham, 1989; Organ - Konovsky, 1989: 157; George - Jones, 1997: 154; Podsakoff et al., 2000: 514). Podsakoff et al (1990: 111) define altruism as employee behavior aimed at helping specialist coworkers when a problem oc-curs, thus helping coworkers become more efficient. Specialist em-ployees’ e.g.: foremen or senior emem-ployees’ willingness to assist new colleagues without expecting any reward falls within the scope of altruism. Likewise, doing tasks for others when they are sick or ab-sent is among the examples for altruism (Kidwell et al., 1997: 777). This type of behavior contributes to group efficiency by enhancing individuals’ performance.
problems in the future (Burns - Collins, 2000: 1-4). In this context, while courtesy refers to helping others with probable problems, al-truism is helping others with current problems. Most of the studies reveal that employees prefer courteous behavior rather than altruis-tic acts Basım - Şeşen, .
Conscientiousness means that employees voluntarily perform their tasks beyond the minimum required levels (Organ, 1988). In a sense, it refers to an employee’s internalization and acceptance of an organization’s rules, regulations and procedures. The reason why this behavior has been accepted as a type of organizational citizenship is that although every employee is expected to act in compliance with the organization’s rules, regulations and procedures, actually, most of them do not act accordingly (Podsakoff et al., 2000: 528). Even though conscientiousness, which is used for defining basic categories of personality and which involves certain characteristics such as be-ing organized, trustworthiness and willbe-ingness to achieve, reflects employee’s general obedience, what is actually important is that eve-ry employee should obey the organizational rules even when he/she is not being watched (Barksdale - Werner, 2001: 148).
Civic Virtue is responsible participation in the political life of the organization (Organ, 1988). Civic virtue refers to the willingness of an employee to feel responsible against incidents affecting the organ-ization and to voluntarily and responsibly participates in decision-making (Schnake - Dumler, 1993: 352). Here, the exercise of individ-ual initiative is in question and it involves discussing organization-related issues, making constructive suggestions and participating in the decision-making process (Tompson - Werner, 1997: 590; Kidder, 2002: 637). Handling activities not required by the job but which help the organization’s overall image is a good example for civil vi r-tue behavior (Bolino, 1999).
The Antecedents of Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Studies indicate that the antecedents of OCB consist of the follow-ing main categories: employee characteristics, task characteristics, organizational characteristics and leadership behaviors (Podsakoff et al, 2000). Believing that employee characteristics affected OCB
(Bateman - Organ, ; O’Reilly - Chatman, 1986; Smith et al., 1983),
initial studies on OCB focused on two basic issues.
The first field, which was thoroughly investigated in respect of employee characteristics, was moral values (Organ - Ryan, 1995). In this framework, job satisfaction, perceived honesty, organizational commitment and perception of leader support become notable as the antecedents, whose relationships with OCB were investigated most. The studies on moral values found that OCB has a relationship with all these characteristics to some extent.
The second field, which was investigated with respect to employ-ee characteristics, was behavioral tendency variables. The relation-ship of behavioral tendency variables such as agreeableness, consci-entiousness and positive affective with OCB was investigated and it was asserted on the basis of findings that these types of variables af-fected OCB (Podsakoff et al, 2000).
When analyzed in this context, employees’ perception of justice is a very important factor, which has been investigated as an antecedent of OCB within the scope of moral values, one of employee characteris-tics. The findings obtained in previous studies conducted on the rela-tionship of this important factor with OCB will be thoroughly ana-lyzed in the next section of the study. The roles of task characteristics, organizational characteristics and leadership behaviors as the ante-cedents of OCB will not be examined as they do not fall within the scope of this study.
Organizational Justice Perception
2002; Lee, 2001; Zhang, 2006). In brief, fairness is a phenomenon, which employees value very much (Folger, 1998).
The review of management literature indicates that the concept of justice was among the basic subjects, which have been emphasized since Plato and Aristotle, and which has been researched by sociolo-gists since Marx, Durkheim and Weber (Wenzel, 2002). In the mean-time, organizational justice has been arousing the interest of research for the last 35 years (Ambrose, 2002: 803).
The studies on organizational justice are grounded on Adams’s Equity Theory . Research-based knowledge relating to the subject was developed via numerous studies in the course of time (Thibaut and Walker, 1975; Bies - Moag, 1986; Greenberg, 1990, 1993; Colquitt, 2001; Cohen - Charash - Spector, 2001; Ambrose, 2002; Nowakovski - Conlon, 2005).
These studies were conducted according to different viewpoints on organizational justice and hence, different types of dimensionali-zations were suggested. While some of the dimensions were triple-structured consisting of distributive justice, procedural justice and in-teractional justice, (Cohen - Charash - Spector, 2001), some were four-dimension structures embodying distributive justice, procedural justice, inter-individual justice and cognitive justice (Colquit, 2001; Nowakovski - Conlon, 2005).
It can be said that despite the consensus on distributive justice and procedural justice in the studies conducted on organizational jus-tice, there are different point of views about interactional jusjus-tice, in-ter-individual justice and cognitive justice. In this study, a three-dimension organizational justice model has been adopted in view of the consensuses in the literature. These dimensions are briefly de-scribed above:
the grounds for justice decisions as well as predicting the employees’ reactions against unfairness (Cropanzano et al., 2001; Irak, 2004).
Procedural Justice: Employees’ high concern over the procedures used in reaching outcomes along with the outcomes themselves has indicated the inadequacy of distributive justice in explaining the per-ception of distributive justice in organizations: Therefore, the concept of procedural justice that defines the procedures used in reaching de-cisions was developed (Nowakovski - Conlon, 2005: 6).
Procedural justice refers to employees’ perceptions of fair dec i-sions by supervisors when it is believed that such decii-sions are the outcomes of a controlled process (Thibaut - Walker, 1975). In other words, it is related with the perception of fair procedures used in the distribution of outcomes (Irak, 2004). Similar to distributive justice, procedural justice also affects employees’ organizational attitudes and behaviors (Ambrose, 2002).
Interactional Justice: Employees’ different reactions to different supervisors’ various approaches to the operational procedures e.g. the different implementations of performance appraisal system by different supervisors in an organization) have become the starting point of studies on interactional justice (Bies - Moag, 1986).
Interactional justice constitutes the social aspect of organizational justice studies and points to the quality of inter-individual relation-ships (Ambrose, 2002: 804). Interactional justice refers to the fact that employees’ perceptions of justice are affected both by the atti-tudes of decision-makers and their explanations relating to the deci-sions made İşbaşı, : .
The Relationship Between Perceived Organizational Justice and
OCB
The phenomenon that underlies the studies testing the effects of moral values, such as job satisfaction (Bateman - Organ, 1983; Organ - Ryan, 1995; Williams - Anderson, 1991), perception of honesty (Aquino, 1995; Konovsky - Folger, 1991; Konovsky - Organ, 1996; Moorman, 1991; Organ and Moorman, 1993) or perceived organiza-tional support (Moorman et al., 1998), on OCB is social exchange the-ory, which proposes that when an employee believes that the organi-zation is committed to him/her and values him/her, then in return, he/she feels commitment to the organization (Eisenberger et al., 1986).
1959: 9). In this respect, the basic factor that determines the appeal or satisfactoriness of a relationship is the comparison level of the costs and benefits of a relationship. When employees perceive that their exchange with their supervisors or organization is unfair or un-just, they believe that social exchange is harmed. In other words, they think that they are at a loss. An employee, who deems that his/her social exchange is harmed, reevaluates the costs and benefits of sus-taining the relationship. When he/she judges that the relationship will cost him/her much more than it would benefit, he/she displays withdrawal behavior in order to minimize or end the relationship (Blakely et al., 2005). Withdrawal behavior manifests itself as low performance (Cowherd - Levine, 1992), increased lateness or absen-teeism (Hulin, 1991), abnormal behavior (Skarlicki et al., 1999), the decline in organizational commitment (Barling - Philips, 1993) or the decline in organizational citizenship behavior (Moorman, 1991; Moorman et al., 1998; Zellars, 2003).
On the contrary, if employees believe that they are treated fairly, they exhibit more organizational citizenship behaviors as suggested by social exchange theory.
A review of organizational literature indicates that among all jus-tice perception variables, procedural jusjus-tice is the type of jusjus-tice, whose relationship with OCB has been investigated the most (Zellars, 2003). The common finding of these studies conducted on procedural justice is that there is a significant positive relationship between pro-cedural justice and OCB (Ehrhart, 2004; Tepper - Taylor, 2003; Moorman et al., 1998; Zellars, 2003, Muhammad, 2004). Neverthe-less, the findings of some studies did not support the existence of such relationship and maintained that there was not a significant re-lationship between procedural justice and OCB (Rifai, 2005). In this sense, it is observed that there is not complete agreement on the ex-istence of a relationship between procedural justice and OCB.
The similar problem of lack of holistic approach seen in the stud-ies on perception of justice is observed in the dimensionalization of OCB as well. It is highly noteworthy that none of the studies conduct-ed on the relationship of perception of justice with OCB, OCB were handled within the framework of the dimensions defined by Organ (1988). While some researchers used a four-dimension OCB struc-ture (individual initiative, personal industry, interpersonal helping and loyal boosterism) (e.g., Moorman et al., 1998; Blakely et al., 2005), others preferred to use a two-dimension structure. In this con-text, Muhammad (2004) suggested a two-dimension OCB, OCB-I and OCB-O, whereas Ehrhart (2004) preferred to make a distinction as OCB-Helping and OCB-Conscientiousness. On the other hand, Wil-liams et al (2002) defined two separate dimensions as Historical OCB and OCB Intentions. Meanwhile, some researchers did not consider OCB as a multi-dimension, but a single-dimension structure (e.g. Tepper - Taylor, 2003; Zellars et al., 2003; Rifai, 2005). When all these studies are examined as a whole, it is observed that the han-dling of OCB in different structures in different studies hinders a sound and reliable comparison among the findings, thus presenting some complex results with respect to the nature and direction of the relationship between OCB and organizational justice.
In the light of the findings of previous studies on the subject, the study aims to assess OCB on the basis of its five-dimension structure as defined by Organ (1988); to focus on the relationship between OCB and perceptions of organizational justice (distributive, proce-dural and interactional); thus, to attempt to fill a gap in the literature. In this framework, the hypothesis of the study has been identified as follows:
Hypothesis 1: There is a significant positive relationship between employees’ perceptions of distributive justice and o r-ganizational citizenship behaviors.
Hypothesis 2: There is a significant positive relationship between employees’ perceptions of procedural justice and o r-ganizational citizenship behaviors.
Hypothesis 3: There is a significant positive relationship between employees’ perceptions of interactional justice and o r-ganizational citizenship behaviors.
Method
The survey was conducted with 116 prospective administrators studying for a master’s degree in public administration, justice a d-ministration, law enforcement and education management in the Public Administration Institute for Turkey and the Middle East TODAİE in the -2008 Academic Year. The range of participants
was 25-42 years (Meanage= 35.08, ss= 4.143). Their years of service
ranged from 5 to 23 years (MeanOrtyrser= 12.05, ss= 4.61). 81.9 of the
participants (n=95) had higher education and 18.1% (n=21) had master's degrees at the time of the survey. Survey data were obtained by applying two measurements on the respondents via face-to-face interviews and self-completed interviews under surveillance.
Measurement Tools
The survey was conducted by face-to-face and self-completed in-terviews. Questionnaire forms consisting of two separate scales were used in order to measure respondents’ organizational citizenship b e-havior and perceptions of organization justice.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale
With a view to measuring employees’ organizational citizenship behavior, the OCB scale was designed by making use of two separate surveys conducted by Vey-Campbell (2004) and Williams-Shiaw (1999). The questionnaire form, which was compiled on the basis of these two surveys, was designed to measure the five basic dimen-sions of organizational citizenship behavior suggested by Organ (1988).
The OCB scale consisting of 19 items aimed to measure the di-mensions of organizational citizenship behavior: altruism (5 items), conscientiousness (3 items), courtesy (4 items), sportsmanship (4 items) and civic virtue (4 items). The questionnaire included declara-tive sentences such as I help a coworker with a heavy workload, I don’t do anything personal during working hours , I don’t waste my time complaining about insignificant matters and I support stru c-tural changes in the organization . The respondents were asked to choose one option that best matched their view on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from never to always . The reliability alpha of the to-tal scale was (cronbach alpha) 0.87. The reliability values on dimen-sion basis ranged from 0.65 to 0.75.
The scale for perception of organizational justice (SPOJ) was
de-veloped by İşbaşı . The scale consisted of items such as
The rules for the functioning of the organization provide accurate i
n-formation to the supervisor for decision-making, We can equally use
the resources of the organization in line with our needs or My supe r-visor respects my opinions . Participants were asked to choose one op-tion that best matched their view on the 5-point Likter scale ranging from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree. The scale consisted of three subscales measuring distributive justice (7 items), distributive justice (7 items) and interactional justice (13 items).
In his study, İşbaşı 2001) identified the reliability alpha of the to-tal scale as (Cronbach alpha) .93. The OCB scale was later used in an-other study (Dilek, 2005). The findings of this survey were quite simi-lar to those of İşbaşı’s 2001) survey results in respect of both factor loadings and the reliability of the total scale (
α
= .93). In the current study, the reliability of the total scale was calculated as .95.The Validity of Scales
Chart 1. The Results of Confirmatory Factor Analyses of the Scales
Scale /
Model ∆χ² df ∆χ²/df RMSEA CFI RFI IFI GFI OCB
Scale 130.1* 51 2.55 0.10 0.84 0.70 0.84 0.85
SPOJ 502.8* 321 1.57 0.07 0.92 0.78 0.92 0.77
Note: RMSEA = Root Mean Square Error of Approximation; CFI = Comparative Fit Index; RFI = Relative Fit Index; IFI = Incremental Fit Index; GFI = Goodness of Fit Index. *p<.001.
Findings
In the survey, firstly, the average values of variables and dimen-sions were calculated. The results given in the analysis in Chart 2 show that employees’ perceptions of organizational justice were low (distributive justice mean=2.28, ss=0.73; procedural justice mean=2.79, ss=0.80 and interactional justice mean=2.62, ss=0.92), while their organizational justice behavior was high (altruism mean=4.60, ss=0.74; courtesy mean =5.36, ss=0.58; conscientious-ness mean=4.50, ss=0.83; civic virtue mean=4.63, ss=0.82 and sportsmanship mean=4.57, ss=0.74).
Chart 2. Mean Values, Standard Deviations, Correlations and Reliability Relating to Variables
Dimension Mean. SS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Distributive Justice 2,28 0,73 (.77)
2. Procedural Justice 2,79 0,80 .67** (.87)
3. Interactional Justice 2,62 0,92 .68** .68** (.94)
4. Altruism 4,60 0,74 -.07 -.01 -.04 (.76)
5. Courtesy 5,36 0,58 .08 .06 .04 .56** (.71)
6. Conscientiousness 4,50 0,83 .19* .27** .25** .30** .39** (.77)
7. Civic Virtue 4,63 0,82 .21** .28** .30** .42** .48** .61** (.72)
8. Sportsmanship 4,57 0,74 .25** .29** .27** .27** .52** .59** .60** (.76)
Note: Reliability coefficients for the dimensions (Cronbach Alpha) are given in brack-ets.
The analysis of interdimension correlations (Chart 2) demon-strates that there was a moderate and high correlation between the perception of organizational justice and the dimensions of organiza-tional citizenship behavior. As to the relationship between the per-ception of organizational justice and organizational citizenship be-havior, while there was no relationship between the dimensions of al-truism and courtesy and the perception of organizational justice, the dimensions of conscientiousness, civic virtue and sportmanship had a moderate relationship with all dimensions of perception of organiza-tional justice.
Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted in order to de-termine which of the dimensions of perceived organizational justice perception dimension (distributive, procedural, interactional) ex-plained the additional variance in predicting the dimensions of organ-izational citizenship behavior as well to find out the most effective dimension among them. The results of the analysis are provided in Chart 3. In the first step, the regression analysis was performed with age and years of service as the independent variables. In the se c-ond step, the effects of the dimensions of organizational justice were investigated.
Chart 3. The Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis
Altruism Courtesy Conscientiousness Civic Virtue Sportsmanship
β βR² β βR² β βR² β βR² β βR²
Step 1 .002 .001 .02 .03 .03
Age .01 .01 .02 -.02 -.03
Years of Service .01 .02 .01 .04 .04
Step 2 .01 .01 .10 .13 .12
Distributive Justice -.11 .07 -.04 -.04 .07
Procedural Justice .08 .03 .25* .23* .15*
Interactional Justice -.02 -.03 .08 .17 .07
F 0,218 0.227 2,457* 3,176** 3,018***
***p<0,001 **p<0,01 *p<0,05
proce-dural justice had a positive effect on conscientiousness (
β
= .25, p < .05; F = 2,457;Δ
R
²
= .10; p < .05), civic virtue (β
= .23, p < .05; F = 3,176;Δ
R
²
= .13; p < .01) and sportsmanship (β
= .15, p < .05; F = 3,018;Δ
R
²
= .12; p < .001). Two important results were derived from regression analysis. The first was that distributive justice and interactional justice did not significantly impact on OCB. The second was that altruism and courtesy, the individual-oriented OCBs were not affected by perception of organizational justice. In conclusion, it can be said that the increase particularly in employees’ perceptions of procedural justice multiply OCB-O.Discussion and Conclusion
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the perception of organizational justice and OCB and to present the antecedent role of the perception of organizational justice in generat-ing OCB by highlightgenerat-ing the contradictory findgenerat-ings from some of the previous studies. The results of the simple correlation analysis indi-cated that all three dimensions of perception of organizational justice (distributive, procedural, interactional) had a significant and direct correlation between the OCB-O. Moreover, the findings of the hierar-chical regression analysis pointed to the dominant role of perception of procedural justice.
In this context, though the findings of this study generally support the assertion, the perception of organizational justice is an i m-portant antecedent of OCB , the common finding of previous studies, which focused on the interaction between the perception of organiza-tional justice and OCB, it certainly differs from other studies in some aspects and makes additional contributions to the literature.
The theoretical structure that lies behind Equity Theory and So-cial Exchange Theory indicates that the perception of organizational justice affects OCB. An employee, who believes that organizational practices are equally applied to everyone, positively responds to this perception of equality as suggested by Social Exchange Theory. The response in question may manifest itself either as an increase in job motivation and job performance or the individual might generate more extra-role behavior like OCB. In conclusion, the employee per-ception of organizational justice mechanisms becomes influential in the emergence or non-emergence of OCB.
conscientio-usness, civic virtue and sportsmanship, whereas they did not have a significant relationship between the dimensions of altruism and cour-tesy. In view of these findings, Hypothesis 1, 2 and 3 were partially accepted.
The most noteworthy finding derived from the correlated results was that the perception of organizational justice affected OCB’s o r-ganization-directed dimensions. While altruism and courtesy refer to individual-directed OCB, conscientiousness, civic virtue and sports-manship involve behaviors towards the management system of an organization. The survey findings revealed that although the percep-tion of organizapercep-tional justice affects employees’ behavior towards the functioning of the organization, it has no effect on their individual OCB. This finding is dissimilar to the findings reached by Ehrhart (2004) and Muhammad (2004).
The writers of the study think that the ineffectiveness of perceived organizational justice on individual OCB complies with Equity Theory and Social Exchange Theory. Hence, the main factors that comprise employees’ perceptions of organizational justice are believed to be organizational practices, structures and procedures. When employees experience a problem with the perception of organizational justice, in other words, when they perceive unfairness, they show their reaction by objecting to organizational procedures or by not participating in such procedures as asserted by Social Exchange Theory. Again, com-pliant with the same theory, they do not hold other employees re-sponsible for perceived unfairness of the organization's procedures and policies. Thus, they continue to display OCB to coworkers.
However, whether this finding was specific to the sample of the study or not, should be investigated by different studies. The reason is that the participants of this study were future administrators em-ployed in various public institutions and establishments. As can be understood from the findings of the survey, the participants do not act with their feelings, but act professionally in the work life. As a re-sult, they do not reflect perceived unfairness arising from organiza-tional reasons on their coworkers. In other words, they can make the necessary distinction between these two phenomena. At this point, different studies with different samplings will be able to provide more reliable and valid results, thus opening up the subject to discus-sion.
admin-istration culture, Özen stated that the administrative values in Turkish bureaucracy have been shaped within certain dimensions, which he defined as authoritarianism, self-centrism, dedication and pragmatism. Even though the Turkish public administration culture was not the focus of this study, it is a fact that it constituted the fun-damental context of the sampling used in the survey. From this view-point, focusing on the impacts of the environmental characteristics of Turkish public administration (promotion and the systems of per-formance appraisal, wage reward, favoritism, political corruption, etc.), on the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and the perception of organizational justice in future studies will al-low better comprehension of the subject.
The results of the hierarchical regression analysis indicated the dominant predictory power of procedural justice on OCB compared to other dimensions. When demographic and environmental varia-bles such as age and years of service were considered, procedural jus-tice itself explained a significant variance in predicting the organiza-tion-directed OCB. While this finding overlaps with the findings of the studies conducted by Ehrhart (2004), Muhammad (2004), Tepper and Taylor (2003) and Zellars et al (2003), it contradicts the results
reached by Rifai and İşbaşı .
With a contextual approach to these findings, it is believed that the reason why the perception of procedural justice affects OCB more than the other two types of perceived organizational justice is the Turkish public administration gives importance to outcomes rather than procedures. Nevertheless, this assumption can only be rein-forced by future studies to be conducted on the effects of the percep-tion of procedural justice on different variables (such as job satisfac-tion, organizational achievement and performance appraisal) with different samples. Meanwhile, one of the reasons why perceptions of distributive and interactional justice were less effective on OCB than procedural justice was absolute obedience to supervisors as the re-flection of the Turkish bureaucratic culture.
face-to-face conversation or communication. The reason is that the survey revealed that participants attached more importance to the fairness of procedures used in making decisions than the decisions themselves and their OCBs are shaped as to their perceptions of these procedures.
Along with these findings, this study had some limitations. It was already mentioned that the survey sample led to a restriction to some extent. Another limitation was that the survey was conducted by cross-sectional data. The participants’ OCB is not based on observ a-tions, but their own expressions. Therefore, the probable role of so-cial desirability in the findings should be kept in mind. Apart from the limitation in question, the fact that providing dependent and predic-tor variables from only one source might lead to common method variance can be regarded as another limitation to the study. There-fore, if OCB behavior is based on observations, or if data is obtained from multiple sources in future studies, the findings of those studies will be more helpful in explaining and comprehending the subject. References
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