Abstract—The paper shows how the perceptions of five organizational virtuousness dimensions (optimism, trust, compassion, integrity, and forgiveness) explain organizational citizenship behaviors (altruism, sportsmanship, courtesy, conscientiousness, and civic virtue). A sample comprising 216 individuals from 14 industrial organizations was collected. Individuals reported their perceptions of organizational virtuousness, their organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) being reported by their supervisors. The main findings are the following: (a) the perceptions of trust predict altruism; (b) the perceptions of integrity predict civic virtue. Keywords—OCB, organizational virtuousness, psychological climate. I. INTRODUCTION OSITIVE associations between virtues and individual performance have received an increasing amount of support in the positive organizational studies literature [1]- [4]. [1] speculated that “a good organization can inspire its members to be more than they are”. When organization members perceive compassion, optimism and joy in their organizations they improve helping behaviors, truth-telling and altruism which, in turn, create upward spirals of positive feelings [2]. [5] suggested that positive organizational features (e.g., organization prestige, strengths, and virtues) increase organizational identification, leading individuals to experience positive feelings and these, in turn, induce OCB (e.g., altruism, sportsmanship, conscientiousness, courtesy, and civic virtue). This paper shows how the perceptions of organizational virtuousness predict OCB. Although the studies about OCB and virtuous organizational features (e.g., trust) are not really new in the organizational psychology literature, studies focusing on the organizational virtuousness construct as antecedent of OCB carried are scarce. Studying OCB is an important endeavor because they foster social capital, enhance organizational functioning [6], and effectiveness [7],[8]. Studying organizational virtuousness is also a valuable endeavor because it predicts organizational performance [2],[9] and sustains organizational health [10], [11]. N. Ribeiro is with Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão, Instituto Politécnico de Leiria, Morro do Lena – Alto do Vieiro 2411-901 Leiria – Portugal (e-mail: neuza@estg.ipleiria.pt) A. Rego is with the Universidade de Aveiro, Departamento de Economia, Gestão e Engenharia Industrial, Campus de Santiago 3810-193 Aveiro- Portugal (e-mail: armenio.rego@ua.pt) The focus of this study is on psychological climates [12] without aggregating the individual’s perceptions at the organizational level of analysis. Psychological climates are the “individual’s psychologically meaningful representations of proximal organizational structures, processes, and events” [13]. With this in mind, the paper was structured as follows. Each construct is defined and their respective dimensions are explained. Next, the arguments are presented to show how the perceptions of organizational virtuousness predict OCB. After that, the method and results are presented. Then, the discussion and conclusions are offered, followed at the end by limitations of the study and avenues for further research. II. CONSTRUCTS DEFINITION AND DIMENSIONS A. Organizational virtuousness Organizational virtuousness refers to transcendent, elevating behavior of the organization’s members. According to [2], “virtuousness in and through organizations can be manifest as single individuals’ activities or as collective action, and characteristics of an organizations’ culture or processes may enable or disable virtuous deeds”. Three key definitional attributes are associated with virtuousness: human impact (virtuousness is associated with human beings with flourishing and moral character, human strength, self-control, resilience, meaningful purpose, and transcendent principles), moral goodness (representing what is “good, right and worthy of cultivation”), and social betterment (virtuousness extends beyond mere self-interested benefit, creating social value that transcends the instrumental desires). [9] developed and validated an instrument for measuring the perceptions of organizational virtuousness. They found a five-factor model comprising organizational forgiveness, trust, integrity, optimism, and compassion. They also found statistically significant relationships between perceived virtuousness and organizational performance. B. Organizational citizenship behavior [14] defined OCB as “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization”. Although the definition has been criticized and other definitions have been proposed, the term denotes organizationally beneficial behaviors and gestures that are not explicitly enforced on the basis of formal role obligations, nor elicited by the formal Does Perceived Organizational Virtuousness Explain Organizational Citizenship Behaviors? Neuza Ribeiro, Arménio Rego P World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Psychological and Behavioral Sciences Vol:3, No:6, 2009 1103 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 3(6) 2009 scholar.waset.org/1307-6892/3212 International Science Index, Psychological and Behavioral Sciences Vol:3, No:6, 2009 waset.org/Publication/3212