| The study examined extra-role behaviors in an environmental boundary spanning context. A new construct, based on the Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs) construct formulated by Organ and his associates (Bateman & Organ, 1982; Organ, 1988; Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983) was the focus of this endeavor. This construct was termed Extra Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (EOCBs) and was defined as behavior which is (1) discretionary, (2) not directly recognized by the formal reward system, (3) beneficial in some respect to the focal organization, and (4) directed to someone outside the organization.; The discriminant validity of the construct relative to the Customer Orientation construct (Saxe & Weitz, 1982) in industrial sales was undertaken. Additionally, a model of the anticipated correlates of EOCBs was presented and hypotheses tested. The model specified relationships between EOCBs and the proposed correlates of empathy, affectivity, demographics, life satisfaction, global job satisfaction, pay satisfaction, satisfaction with the focal constituency (customer), and role overload.; The study was conducted as a field survey of industrial sales persons in a single company. All data were collected via mail survey from the sales persons themselves. Given this method, common method variance was a concern which was assessed through a new technique. |
