Pay-for-Performance And Organizational Citizenship Behavior

A paradox of social organization is that human variability must be reduced to ensure predictable role performance, yet spontaneous and innovative activity that goes beyond role requirements must still be encouraged. A pay-for-performance (PFP) plan is one important form of organizational control, and also one critical form of extra role behavior is organizational citizenship behavior(OCB). This study was conducted to examine the relationship between PFP and OCB through the mediating effects of role definition (RD).A survey was conducted with a sample of 319 independent supervisor and subordinate dyads from 15 organizations. The result shows that OCB is positively influenced by RD. It also shows that individual-based performance pay (IPP) is negatively related to OCB, while group-based performance pay(GPP) has an positive impact on OCB. RD plays a mediating role between GPP and OCB, but not between IPP and OCB.Suggestions for management practices and future research are provided in the thesis as well.