Looking good or doing good? Motivations for organisational citizenship behaviour in Turkish versus South Korean collectivists

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explore potential motivations to perform organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in collectivistic Turkish and South Korean societies. Although collectivism has been proposed as a predictor of OCB, previous research has not fully explored the possibility that collectivistic individuals' OCB may result from their self-oriented motives (i.e. social desirability concerns) or their future-oriented motives (i.e. long-term orientation concerns). We predicted that OCB stems from social desirability concerns among Turkish collectivists, meaning it is used for maintaining a positive image within the organisation. However, for South Korean collectivists, we predicted that OCB stems from their long-term orientation concerns, meaning it is used to make the organisation better. The results were in line with our predictions, and the findings are discussed in terms of their implications for firms in collectivistic societies.