Role Breadth - a Higher Order Construct Identifying the Good Soldier

Ever since early works (Barnard, 1938; Katz & Kahn, 1966) first exalted the importance to the organization of spontaneous behaviors exceeding formal expectations, a large volume of role research has emerged, most of which has focused on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). The organizational behavior literature is replete with studies of individual roles in organizations, focusing almost exclusively on extra role behaviors and even more so, on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). With a near singular focus on substantive validity, research on OCB exploring its relationship with important constructs such as organizational commitment and performance has had a significant impact not only in organizational behavior (OB) but in diverse fields including human resource management, strategy and international business (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine & Bachrach, 2000). Evolving beyond the identification of antecedents to also include important organizational outcomes, arguably among the most significant contribution of OCB research has been the empirical confirmation of Organ’s original assumption that OCBS, aggregated over time and people, enhances organizational performance (Podsakoff et al., 2000).