رهبری تحول گرا به عنوان یک سابقه از رفتار شهروندی سازمانی تغییر گرا

This study draws on a general framework of proactive motivation to propose and test a model that evaluates the influence of the individualized consideration dimension of transformational leadership and organizational climate on change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. In this model, individuals' cognitive emotional states (role breadth self-efficacy and felt responsibility for constructive change) act as mediating variables. For the first time in the literature, this paper develops a model of leadership and organizational climate antecedents of organizational citizenship behavior. Using a sample of 602 Spanish employees with higher education, the structural equation modeling indicates that the proposed model fits reasonably well to the data. Research results show that all hypotheses are significant, thus confirming the results of previous research that finds mediated relations between transformational leadership and other dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior.

In the last three decades, researchers have paid a great amount of attention to the concept of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, & Bachrach, 2000). Currently, researchers consider that OCB is a multidimensional construct, covering different facets of discretionary behavior not directly related with job content behaviors (Podsakoff et al., 2000). Such behaviors can fall into two broad groups: affiliative and challenging OCB (Bettencourt, 2004 and Williams and Nadin, 2012). The affiliative dimensions of OCB are behaviors that promote group cohesion, maintaining existing working relationships or arrangements. According to Choi (2007), these affiliative dimensions are helping behavior, sportsmanship, organizational loyalty, civic virtue, and self-development. The challenging OCB encompasses “voluntary act[s] of creativity and innovation designed to improve one's task or the organization's performance” (Podsakoff et al., 2000: 524), thus fostering organizational change. An ongoing stream of literature, mostly grounded in social exchange theory, examines the antecedents of the affiliative OCB. The results of empirical research show that affiliative OCB relates with organizational leadership (Kwan et al., 2011 and Wang et al., 2005), supervisor trust building (Deluga, 1994) and procedural justice (Karriker and Williams, 2009 and Williams and Gurtoo, 2012). Organizational-member and leader–member exchanges are two elements that act as mediators of the relationship between these constructs and OCB. Only a few pieces of research examine the antecedents of challenging OCB (for example, Choi, 2007), and in particular change-oriented OCB. Considering LePine and Van Dyne's (2001:326) definition of voice, conceptualized as “constructive change-oriented communication intended to improve the situation” and Morrison and Phelps (1999: 403) definition of taking charge, which refers to those “voluntary and constructive efforts to affect organizationally functional change”, Choi (2007) re-elaborates the change-oriented OCB definition offered by Bettencourt (2004). According to Choi, change-oriented OCB refers to the “constructive efforts by individuals to identify and implement changes with respect to work methods, policies, and procedures to improve the situation and performance” (Choi, 2007: 469). Extant research on OCB focuses mainly on the affiliative dimensions of the construct (Bettencourt, 2004). In spite of their potential as drivers of organizational change, the challenging dimensions of OCB receive little attention by researchers in works published to date (Ashworth, 2012, Choi, 2007 and Datta, 2012). In this regard, and noting that few authors establish some of the possible antecedents of change-oriented OCB (e.g. Bettencourt, 2004 and Choi, 2007), this research aims at examining proactive behaviors in the field of organizational citizenship behavior. More specifically, this research is one of the first attempts to propose and test a model centered on transformational leadership and organizational climate as mediated antecedents of change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior, through their direct impact upon individuals' cognitive–emotional states. This model draws upon Parker, Bindl, and Strauss (2010) model of proactive motivation and the extant research that recognizes the importance of transformational leadership and innovative organizational climate upon this type of behavior (e.g., Bettencourt, 2004, Choi, 2007, Scott and Bruce, 1994 and Waikayi et al., 2012).

This research proposes a model that explores the antecedents of change-oriented organizational citizenship behaviors. Several authors (e.g. Podsakoff et al., 2000) stress the need to identify each of the underlying components of the organizational citizenship behavior construct, and especially those of change-oriented OCB, which to date, receives relatively limited attention in the literature. The proposed model analyzes two dimensions of individualized consideration (supportive leadership and developmental leadership respectively) and innovative organizational climate as mediated antecedents of change-oriented OCB. Role breadth self-efficacy and felt responsibility for constructive change mediate the relations between change-oriented OCB and its antecedents. The proposed hypotheses indicate which type of leadership allows for inducing change-oriented OCB. Research results reveal that leadership centered on followers' professional development (developmental leadership) is more effective in promoting change-oriented OCB than leadership based on taking into consideration the followers' needs when making decisions (supportive leadership). Role breadth self-efficacy also mediates the relationship between developmental leadership and change-oriented OCB. The organizational context in which leaders and followers interact, and more specifically the innovative climate associated with resource availability and support to innovation, act differently in promoting change-oriented OCB: resource availability affects change-oriented OCB through an individual's felt responsibility for constructive change, while developmental leadership enhances individual role breadth self-efficacy, which in turn positively affects change-oriented behavior. These results are consistent with previous research findings that confirmed mediating relationships between leadership and affiliative OCB (e. g., Wang et al., 2005), with data coming from Chinese informants. The research on organizational citizenship behavior shows a significant increase in volume over the last decade. However, this rapid growth in research leads to the emergence of several problems, including the need for a better understanding of the conceptual similarities and differences between the various forms of citizenship behavior, as well as their antecedents and consequences (Podsakoff et al., 2000). In this study, the authors develop and test empirically, for the first time in extant literature, a model of leadership and organizational climate antecedents of change-oriented OCB. Authors hope that this work will help to accelerate progress in this field, by highlighting several key issues that deserve further research. The present study has several limitations. First, cross-sectional design does not permit conclusions regarding causality among variables. Therefore, future research drawing on longitudinal designs is encouraged. These longitudinal studies can assess, for instance, if exogenous events such as a downturn in company's finances or the loss of key resources drive organizational members to increase their responsibility and to engage in challenging OCB. Secondly, the data of this study comes from self-reported measures, which can lead respondents to some biases due to the social desirability effect. Future research efforts should consider including third-party measures. The data from this research comes from Spanish informants. An interesting avenue for future research would be to examine the potential impact that the different cultural and national contexts have on challenging OCB, articulating and examining the effects of cultural differences in the relationships between the change-oriented OCB and its antecedents. Finally, future research could consider expanded versions of the proposed conceptual model, that can include other constructs such as other subdimensions of transformational leadership (Rafferty & Griffin, 2004), personality characteristics included in the Big Five Model, or proactive personality as a moderator of these relationships, since individuals with a proactive personality may respond more positively to developmental leadership and an innovative climate.