A study of organizational citizenship behaviors in a retail setting Anna-Lena Ackfeldt a , Leonard V. Coote b, * a Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK b Business School, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia Received 15 July 2002; received in revised form 26 November 2002; accepted 7 April 2003 Abstract This study investigates the potential antecedents of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) in a retail setting. Much remains unknown about the factors affecting OCBs in retail settings. Several characteristics of retail jobs, as compared with other organizational behavior contexts, suggest the need to examine antecedents of OCBs. Job attitudes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment) are proposed as direct predictors of OCBs. Leadership support, professional development, and empowerment are posited as indirect predictors of OCBs and direct predictors of job attitudes. The possible moderating impacts of employee demographics and job types on the modeled relationships are also examined. The research hypotheses are tested using data collected from 211 frontline employees who work in a retail setting. The employees have customer-contact roles in the upscale food and grocery retailer that participated in the study. The pattern of results is more complex than hypothesized. Job attitudes are related to OCBs but the mediating role of job attitudes is not supported. The relationships between leadership support, professional development, and empowerment, and OCBs and job attitudes differ systematically. Evidence of how employee demographics can alter the modeled relationships is also presented. The findings have significant implications for the theory and practice of managing frontline employees. Limitations of the study are discussed and a program of further research is sketched. D 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Organizational citizenship behaviors; Retail; Job attitudes 1. Introduction The topic of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) continues to stimulate interest among researchers and prac- titioners. This interest is not surprising given the argument and emerging evidence that willingness to perform OCBs is associated with individual and organizational performance (Netemeyer et al., 1997; Organ, 1988; Podsakoff et al., 1996). Empirical evidence of links between OCBs and measures of individual and organizational performance is gathering in the management and marketing literatures (Barksdale and Werner, 2001; MacKenzie et al., 1993; Podsakoff and MacKenzie, 1994). Many studies have ex- amined the relationships between personal characteristics and job attitudes, and employees’ willingness to perform citizenship behaviors (Podsakoff et al., 2000; Williams and Anderson, 1991). By contrast, few comprehensive studies of the possible antecedents of OCBs in marketing and retail contexts are reported in the literature. Exceptions include recent studies by MacKenzie et al. (1998) and Netemeyer et al. (1997) on the performance of citizenship behaviors in sales contexts. OCBs should also be of interest to the managers of retail businesses. However, the antecedents of OCBs in retail settings are not well documented and represent a significant gap in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential antecedents of OCBs in a retail setting. Several character- istics of retail jobs, as compared with other organizational behavior settings, suggest the need to examine OCBs in this context. Retail employees (1) are often boundary spanners with multiple roles to fulfill, (2) are evaluated on the productivity and quality of their performance, and (3) are typically young and inexperienced workers. Given these differing roles and characteristics, testing antecedents of OCBs in a retail setting seems needed. The conceptual foundations for the study and the research hypotheses are developed in the next section (see the model of Fig. 1). Job attitudes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment) are proposed as a direct predictor of OCBs. Leadership 0148-2963/$ – see front matter D 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0148-2963(03)00110-3 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +61-7-3365-9721; fax: +61-7-3365- 6788, +61-7-3365-6988. E-mail address: l.coote@business.uq.edu.au (L.V. Coote). Journal of Business Research 58 (2005) 151 – 159