What makes articles cited highly? An analysis of Top 100 Highly Cited Articles on Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is amongst the main contributors to organizational performance and a significant outcome of various work-related behaviors. This study aims to evaluate the top 100 highly cited articles published on OCB in the Scopus database to assess the reasons why these articles are highly cited. A total of 3,096 articles on OCB, published from 1983-2018, were retrieved from the database, in which 100 highly cited articles were selected for further analysis. The findings revealed that a 40% contribution in the field of OCB research is due to these articles, and this contribution is expected to increase rapidly. Additionally, meta-analytical articles are frequently cited, followed by the review articles and then empirical research articles. Among various reasons, the highly cited articles are either pioneering studies in the field, proposing a new concept, or scale development studies. This study proposes important implications for practitioners and researchers.