Justice, citizenship, and role definition effects

A limitation of the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) literature is that theory and empirical evidence suggest that some employees define OCBs as part of their job. A theoretical framework that addresses this problem is tested in this article. The framework focuses on 2 effects: a role enlar gement effect (i.e., employees with more favorable attitudes define OCB; as inrole behavior, which, in turn, results in greater citizenship) and a rol e discretion effect (i.e., the relationship between employees' attitudes an d their citizenship will be stronger among employees who define OCB as extr arole behavior). In tests of this framework with 2 independent samples of s upervisor-subordinate dyads, role definitions were found to moderate severa l relationships between procedural justice and OCB, providing support for t he role discretion effect. Implications for OCB theory and research are dis cussed.