Abstract:

The negative effects of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) have drawn increasing attention from both scholars of organizational science and practitioners of management. Our work focuses on the negative effects of OCB taken from the perspective of Too-Much-of-a-Good-Thing. On the one hand, this perspective can help us better explore reasons regarding “too much” and “Too-Much-of-a-Good-Thing” in OCB; on the other hand, it can help us better analyze the impact mechanism of “Too-Much-of-a-Good- Thing” specific to OCB. Furthermore, based on limitations and problems seen in the current literature, we proposed a dynamic model perspective of negative effects on OCB with an emphasis on factors at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. In addition, we suggest that future studies should use longitudinal designs to better understand the causal effects of OCB on organizations and individuals as this deeper understanding will allow us to better manage and use the “double-edged sword” of OCB.

Key words: organizational citizenship behavior, Too-much-of-a-good-thing effect, resource allocation, moderating effect