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Work behavior that is in some way beyond the reach of traditional measures of job performance but holds promise for long-term organizational success is receiving increasing theoretical attention as the challenge of global competition highlights the importance of organizational innovation, flexibility, productivity, and responsiveness to changing external conditions. In the last decade, many terms have been used to describe such behavior, including organizational citizenship behavior (Graham, 1991; Organ, 1988, 1990; Schnake, 1991), prosocial organizational behavior (Brief & Motowidlo, 1986), extra-role behavior (Van Dyne & Cummings, 1990), organizational spontaneity (George & Brief, 1992), and even counter-role behavior (Staw & Boettger, 1990). In addition and not surprising, researchers have employed diverse operational definitions of the new concept (e.g., Bateman & Organ, 1983; George, 1991; Graham & Verma, 1991; MacKenzie, Podsakoff, & Fetter, 1991; Moorman, 1991; Motowidlo, 1984; Motowidlo, Brief, Atieh, & Ashworth, 1987; O'Reilly & Chatman, 1986; Organ & Konovsky, 1989; Pierce, Gardner, Cummings, & Dunham, 1989; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, & Fetter, 1990; Puffer, 1987; Scholl, Cooper, & McKenna, 1987; Scholl & McKenna, 983; Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983; Williams & Anderson, 1991; Williams, Podsakoff, & Huber, 1986).
A common theme of these diverse conceptualizations is an attempt to identify work behavior that contributes, at least in the long run, to organizational effectiveness, but which is sometimes overlooked by the traditional definitions and measures researchers use to assess job performance. Graham (1991) identified two fundamentally different approaches to conceptualizing these sometimes overlooked behaviors. The first approach proposes that organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and traditional conceptualizations of job performance are separate constructs. Early OCB researchers defined citizenship behavior as separate from in-role job performance and emphasized that OCB should be viewed as both extra-role and organizationally functional (Bateman & Organ, 1983: Smith et al., 1983). Graham (1991) argued that these criteria put researchers in the awkward position of determining what is in-role and what is extra-role, an inconstant distinction that varies across persons, jobs, and organizations and over time and with circumstances for individual job incumbents. To avoid this difficulty, Graham proposed a second approach based on the theoretical heritage of civic citizenship research in philosophy, political science, and social history. From that perspective, civic citizenship is viewed as including all positive community-relevant behaviors of individual citizens. By...