The Impact of Motive Attributions on Coworker Justice Perceptions of Rewarded Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Research was conducted to determine whether and why the perceived motive (traditional or self-serving) underlying an employee's organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) affects coworkers' justice perceptions of the rewards distributed in response to the OCB. In Study 1, 228 participants read a vignette in which the motive for a coworker's OCB was manipulated and provided ratings regarding liking, distributive justice, and perceived motive. In Study 2, similar methodology was used for a new sample of 227 participants, but vignettes now portrayed the OCB as lesser job-related than in Study 1. In both studies we found that rewards were viewed as more fair when traditional motives were perceived; liking mediated the relationship between motives and distributive justice. Although the conclusions replicated across studies, we found that the job-relatedness of the OCB made a difference such that participants viewed the rewarding of a job-related, traditionally motivated behavior as most fair. Perceptions of the motives underlying OCB and the job-relatedness of the specific OCB behavior are important factors when managers are considering providing rewards for those behaviors. This study provides a new link between the impression management and OCB literatures by exploring the effect of OCB motive attributions on distributive justice perceptions when OCB is rewarded. It also contributes to this body of work by considering the role liking may play in the process, and by suggesting that the job-relatedness of OCBs can impact the perceived fairness of rewards for such behaviors.