Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Ethics at Work
This paper examines the concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and its relationship to workplace ethics, employee autonomy, and organizational performance. Drawing on Singh, Pathardikar, and Bandyopadhyay (2012), the paper argues that values-based leadership — rather than transactional reward-and-punishment systems — more effectively encourages employees to act as ethical "good soldiers" who contribute beyond their formal job descriptions. The paper also explores how demographic inclusivity, deontological decision-making principles, and trust between employees and organizations interact to shape OCB. It concludes that ethical organizational behavior and profitability are increasingly complementary rather than opposing goals.
- Introduction: Balancing Oversight and Employee Autonomy: OCB as balance between oversight and employee discretion
- OCB and the Shareholder Profit Model: OCB challenges shareholder-only view of the firm
- Values-Based Leadership and Demographic Inclusivity: Inclusive values raise OCB levels across demographics
- Deontological Ethics and Unsupervised Employee Conduct: Principle-based ethics guide autonomous employee behavior
- Ethics and Organizational Performance: A Convergence: Ethical behavior and profitability increasingly align
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What makes this paper effective
- Grounds abstract ethical concepts — such as deontological decision-making — in concrete organizational contexts, making theory accessible and applied.
- Uses a single, well-chosen scholarly source purposefully throughout, building a coherent argument rather than surveying literature superficially.
- Identifies a genuine tension (profit vs. ethics) and resolves it with a nuanced convergence argument, avoiding oversimplification.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper models how to extend a single theoretical framework (OCB) across multiple analytical dimensions — ethical theory, diversity, employee trust, and organizational outcomes — without losing argumentative focus. Each paragraph advances the central claim that values-based management outperforms transactional approaches, linking organizational citizenship to both ethical philosophy and practical business benefit.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by establishing the core management tension between oversight and autonomy, introduces OCB as the conceptual response, and then moves through four thematic applications: the challenge to shareholder-primacy thinking, the role of demographic inclusivity, the connection to deontological ethics, and a concluding synthesis arguing that ethical behavior and profitability increasingly reinforce each other. The structure is linear and cumulative, with each section building on the last.
Introduction: Balancing Oversight and Employee Autonomy
Organizations must tread a careful balance between not demanding that employees perform tasks that go above and beyond their job description while still encouraging employees to take a vital and engaged role in giving back to the organization. They must also navigate the tension between micro-managing employees to ensure ethical compliance and demonstrating trust that employees will follow ethical guidelines using their own discretion. As noted by Singh, Pathardikar, and Bandyopadhyay (2012), most organizations trust employees in a manner that is not "readily monitored or enforced" (p. 26). The authors describe this model as Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) — an important component of enhancing organizational performance that remains at the discretion of the individual employee. Employees are encouraged to become good organizational citizens, or "good soldiers," who go above and beyond their personal tasks in ways that add organizational value without placing undue burdens on individuals (Singh, Pathardikar, and Bandyopadhyay, 2012, p. 26). Employees must also be sufficiently aware of organizational values and needs so that they are able to act autonomously.
OCB and the Shareholder Profit Model
The OCB model runs counter to the conventional view of the firm — that its sole ethical consideration is to provide shareholders with a profit. The concept of OCB suggests that employee conduct, both within the organization and outwardly, must uphold certain standards and obligations to the community. Furthermore, it argues that the types of behaviors reinforced in the model are beneficial for the organization's overall health, particularly in a newly globalized era where serving a diverse range of consumers and employees is essential. It is also important that employees are able to interact with a wide range of individuals for the organization to function smoothly.
Values-Based Leadership and Demographic Inclusivity
Influencing positive organizational behavior in a values-based fashion has been shown to have a strong, positive effect in encouraging OCB, as opposed to transactional carrot-and-stick methods. In general, factors such as "demographic factors, gender, employment category, and the level of education had significant impact on OCB," and employees who believed that the organization was strongly supportive of individuals with their demographic or personal characteristics demonstrated higher levels of OCB (Singh, Pathardikar, and Bandyopadhyay, 2012, p. 30). This underlines the fact that, both for the good of the organization and the well-being of employees, organizations must seek to embrace a diverse system of values that honors the contributions of all employees. An inclusive organizational culture is not only ethically sound but also improves overall organizational morale.
References
Singh, V., Pathardikar, A., & Bandyopadhyay, R. (2012). Influences of ethics and values on organizational citizenship behavior: A review. Journal of Management Value & Ethics, 2(3), 25–36.
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