Helping Coworkers and Helping the Organization: The Role of Support Perceptions, Exchange Ideology, and Conscientiousness1

This study examined 2 types of organizational citizenship behaviors: those that benefit the organization, and those that benefit one's coworkers. Parallel hypotheses were developed that predicted that support perceptions (both organizational and individual) would predict their respective type of citizenship behavior, and that exchange ideology (also both organizational and individual) would moderate this relation. The contributions of conscientiousness and empathy were also explored for their potential incremental value. Existing measures of perceived organizational support and exchange ideology were used to develop two new measures to assess perceived coworker support and individual exchange ideology. Results from a diverse sample support the importance of support perceptions as well as the moderating role of organizational exchange ideology. With respect to the 2 personality variables, conscientiousness played a significant role, but empathy did not. Implications for citizenship research and practice are discussed.