What makes a group of good citizens? The role of perceived group-level fit and critical psychological states in organizational teams

Abstract

Recent studies have expanded the construct of organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) to the group level and demonstrated its significance in predicting group performance. In this study, we have further expanded this growing stream of research regarding group-level OCB (GOCB), by identifying distinct group characteristics that predict GOCB. Specifically, we have isolated perceived group-organization (G-O) fit and group-task (G-T) fit as meaningful antecedents of GOCB. We further propose that the perceived G-O and G-T fit influence GOCB by shaping two intermediate psychological states of group members: cohesion and group efficacy. Our findings, which were based on multi-source data collected from 43 organizational teams, demonstrated that cohesion completely mediated the effect of perceived G-O fit on GOCB. Group efficacy, however, proved not to be a significant mediator of the relationship between perceived G-T fit and GOCB. Instead, G-T fit had a significant direct effect on GOCB. This study highlights the significance of group-level conceptualization of group-environment interaction as a potential driver of various group processes and outcomes.