What motivates organizational citizenship behaviours? Exploring the role of regulatory focus theory

We develop a theoretical rationale and research propositions describing the relationship between employee self-regulation and the likelihood of performing organizational citizenship behaviours. Regulatory Focus Theory is used to describe the underlying motivation for the exhibition of these behaviours. Specifically, we contend that the exhibition of organizational citizenship behaviours is influenced by the employee's regulatory state, the type of behaviour being considered, and the match or lack thereof between employee regulatory focus and how the behaviour is perceived (i.e., whether or not regulatory focus is consistent with employee perceptions of the behaviour). We close by considering several implications of Regulatory Focus Theory for future research on organizational citizenship behaviours.