Harnessing positivity at workplace from perception to action

Abstract

This paper looks into the competitive organizational edge that organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB) create and attempts to answer why some organizations are high performers and others are not. Inspired by the positive psychology movement [1] the study explores the psychological processes that lead to OCBs by developing a conceptual framework of progressive stages of employee-organization relationship shaped by employees’ perceptions of organizational support, evaluation of organizational self-worth, development of positive psychological resources, positive in-role behavior and finally organizational citizenship behaviors. The study observes OCB as a higher order organizational behavior which is proposed to be the concluding stage in the conceptual framework and occurs only after the successful fulfillment of the prerequisites of the lesser order organizational behaviors. The extent literature has been searched and case studies of high performing fortune 100 firms were examined viewing the employeeorganization connection as a progressive multistage relationship. The framework is backed up by three supporting theories- Social Exchange Theory, Organizational support Theory, and Broaden and Build Theory. Both theory and empirical research affirms that OCB is potentially a higher order behavior and signals concluding stage of employee positive organizational experiences. It is also affirmed that positivity has a spillover effect and can be harnessed by understanding the dynamics of psychological processes that shape employees’ perceptions and actions. Additionally it supports the proposition that positive self-evaluation and positive organizational behaviors have diminishing effects on counterproductive employee behaviors.