Organizational Citizenship Behavior Across Cultures: Are Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scales Transferable Across Cultures?

摘要

Background: Despite the cultural sensitivity of organizational citizenship behavior measures, researchers have been using them across cultures. This study filled this gap by properly re-validating a measure developed in Nigeria but not properly validated. It also established that the measure explained work outcomes better than measures developed in other cultures. Materials and Methods: The sample came from employees in three organizations in Lagos, Nigeria. The measure developed in Nigeria and that from advanced countries were administered on the same sample. In this way, the effectiveness of each measure was ascertained. Three statistical methodologies were used. They are principal factor analysis, multiple regression analysis and structural equation modeling technique. Two separate samples were used for the principal factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Results: A 2-factor model for organizational citizenship behavior fully explained the enactment of citizenship behavior in Nigerian context. The measure developed in Nigeria, explained additional variance in outcome variables when the measures from other culture were controlled. Conclusion: The re-validation exercise showed that a 2-factor model of organizational citizenship behavior fully captured the enactment of the behavior by Nigerian sample. The measure also explained outcome variables better than other measures from other cultures. The implication is that since there are cultural effects on the measurement of the behavior, using measure from other culture will under-estimate the level of the behavior in Nigeria and policy developed from such result will be inaccurate. The current study re-validated a measure developed in Nigeria using proper statistical methodology. The use of two separate samples for the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, ensures that accurate factor structure was developed for the Nigerian measure. By administering the Nigerian and foreign measures on the same participants, the study established empirically that the Nigerian measures are more effective in the Nigerian context, hence policies based on the results will be more accurate and representative of what is happening locally. This result will encourage future researchers to seek to take seriously the cultural effect of any measure before using in their culture.