Creating Organizational Citizens: How and When Supervisor- Versus Peer-Led Role Interventions Change Organizational Citizenship Behavior

We generate and test new theory on how organizations can use role interventions to increase employees' organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) such as helping and voice. In particular, we examine how interventions that employ supervisors and peers as change agents can independently and jointly motivate employees to engage in OCB by encouraging them to view their work roles more broadly. We propose that the effects of these interventions become apparent over two distinct temporal phases of change. In the early phase of the change process, when there is higher flux and uncertainty, supervisor-led interventions have relatively stronger positive influences on OCB change and peer-led interventions have limited effects. By contrast, during the later phase of the change process, as greater clarity about behavioral expectations emerges, peer-led interventions have a positive impact and work synergistically with supervisor-led interventions to increase OCB. Using a mixed methods approach, we found support for our theory in a longitudinal quasifield experiment-which tested when supervisor- and peer-led interventions induced changes in OCB-and we explored the processes and challenges underlying such changes in a qualitative follow-up investigation.