Introduction
It has long been recognized that individuals within orga-
nizations work beyond their formal contracts (Fox 1974;Organ 1988). Typically employees are said to ‘go the extramile,’ do unpaid overtime or ‘stay until the job is done’.Whatever the expressions we use, populist or not, Bolino
and Turnley (2003) state that such endeavors have been characterized among scholars as organizational citizenship
behavior (OCB). Clearly such behaviors are of concern to managers, and organizations, as they provide extra ‘value’ from employees. It is argued by Bolino et al. (2002) that OCB contributes to performance through the creation of
social capital. This frequently results from the willingness of employees to exceed their formal job requirements in
order to help each other, ‘‘…to subordinate their individual interests for the good of the organization, and to take a
genuine interest in its activities and overall mission’’ (Bolino and Turnley 2003, p. 61). As such OCB is of
commercial value having been found to improve competitiveness (Orr et al. 1989; Organ 1990, 1997) and promote
effective functioning of the organization through behavior that managers want but cannot demand (Motowidlo 2000).
Any lessening of these behaviors is likely to impact organizational performance. Research that examines the rela-
tionship between OCB and organizational outcomes is of interest to organizations, and to policy makers in the public
services. The literature demonstrates that there is a growing awareness of the relationship between OCB and its
potential consequences especially as OCB can be considered a key asset that is difficult for organizations to imitate
(Podsakoff et al. 2009). For those working in the public services, their behavior has been characterized as furthering a public service ethos that, in some sense, promotes the public interest, over and above organizational and individual interests. Indeed, the basis of public service ethos goes beyond these characterizations to suggest that public
sector professionals are motivated to perform helping behaviors due to an intrinsic value system that includes
altruistic behavior as well as a belief in a ‘public service ethos’ (Audit Commission 2002; Hebson et al. 2003;Le
Grand 2003).