Int. J. Human Resources Development and Management, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2005 85 Copyright © 2005 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Influence of learned optimism and organisational ethos on organisational citizenship behaviour: a study on Indian corporations Phalgu Niranjana and Biswajeet Pattanayak* IBAT School of Management, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Deemed University, KIIT Campus 1, Bhubaneshwar 751024, India Fax: 91 674 2741465 E-mail: director@ibat.ac.in *Corresponding author Abstract: This study attempts • to study the dynamics of organisational citizenship behaviour, learned optimism, and organisational ethos across types of organisations (service and manufacturing), hierarchical positions (executive and non-executive), and gender (male and female) of the employees • to examine the functional relationship among organisational citizenship behaviour, learned optimism and organisational ethos • to ascertain the relative importance of learned optimism, organisational ethos and its eight dimensions in determining organisational citizenship behaviour. It follows a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design with 600 respondents. Three standardised questionnaires are used. There is a significant difference among the independent variables, i.e., types of organisations, hierarchical positions and gender of the employees, on organisational citizenship behaviour, organisational ethos and learned optimism. Further, the result shows that learned optimism, confrontation and pro-action influence organisational citizenship behaviour significantly. Based on the findings, organisational development and behavioural development interventions are suggested to increase the performance in the organisation. Keywords: organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB); learned optimism; organisational ethos. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Niranjana, P. and Pattanayak, B. (2005) ‘Influence of learned optimism and organisational ethos on organisational citizenship behaviour: a study on Indian corporations’, Int. J. Human Resources Development and Management, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp.85–98. Biographical notes: Dr. Phalgu Niranjana is Assistant Professor in the area of Organisational Behaviour in IBAT. She is MA and MPhil in Psychology and PhD in Management from Utkal University. She has sixteen national and international publications to her credit. She is a coauthor of the book Creating Performing Organisations: International Perspective for Indian Management published by Response Books, Sage Publications. Her specific areas of interest are organisational citizenship behaviour, learned optimism, stress management, and emotional intelligence.