Psychological Contract and Organizational Citizenship Behavior Among Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Volunteers: The Mediating Role of Psychological Capital

Background: Volunteers are essential to large-scale sporting events, yet the processes linking their perceived obligations to their discretionary contributions remain poorly understood. Objective: Drawing on social exchange theory and conservation of resources theory, this study tested whether psychological capital (PsyCap) mediates the association between psychological contract (PC) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics volunteers. Methods: Convenience sampling yielded 818 questionnaires from volunteers across the Beijing and Zhangjiakou zones; confirmatory factor analysis, hierarchical regression and bootstrapping mediation were performed. Results: PC was positively associated with OCB and with PsyCap, and PsyCap with OCB, supporting all four hypotheses; PsyCap partially mediated the PC–OCB association, and the indirect path accounted for 13.0% of the total. At the dimension level, self-efficacy carried most of the unique association with both OCB dimensions, hope and optimism added smaller increments, and resilience added none. PC and OCB were distinguishable in the measurement model, although they remained substantially correlated. Conclusions: The findings extend psychological contract research to unpaid, temporary work and identify PsyCap as one real but partial mechanism. Practical Implications: Organizers should specify and monitor the commitments they make, direct training toward task confidence, and treat confidence-building as a supplement to, not a substitute for, delivery.