Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
11-2023
Abstract
Under conditions of economic threat, such as during economic downturns, organizations can benefit from employees’ willingness to go beyond the call of duty and engage in organization-directed citizenship behavior (OCBO). Yet, such behavior is discretionary and competes for time with employees’ other interests and priorities. I integrate life history theory with the temporal dilemma perspective on organizational citizenship behavior to propose that childhood environments sensitize individuals to prioritize different goals in response to economic threat later in life. Consistent with strategies for responding to threat that are functional in their childhood environments, employees from wealthier backgrounds respond to economic threat by focusing on the future and allocating more time to OCBO, whereas employees from poorer backgrounds exhibit the opposite response. Two pre-registered multi-source field surveys found support for the theory and also showed that the effects of economic threat may lead to a reproduction of childhood inequalities by impacting employees’ promotion potential. A pre-registered experiment replicated the effects on future focus and OCBO and found that they can be attenuated through a future focus induction. I discuss implications for research on employee responses to economic threat, influences of early-life conditions on employee psychology and behavior later in life, and organizational dynamics as drivers of inequality.
Keywords
Economic threat, Organizational citizenship behavior, OCBO, Life history theory, Temporal dilemma
Discipline
Applied Behavior Analysis | Organizational Behavior and Theory
Research Areas
Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources
Publication
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Volume
179
First Page
1
Last Page
16
ISSN
0749-5978
Identifier
10.1016/j.obhdp.2023.104292
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
SIROLA, Nina.
Going beyond the call of duty under conditions of economic threat: Integrating life history and temporal dilemma perspectives. (2023). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 179, 1-16.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/7315
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2023.104292