Literature Review on Personal Costs of Citizenship Behavior and Counterproductive Work Behaviors

Running Head: LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature Review
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1LITERATURE REVIEW
Discussion of the first article - The Personal Costs of Citizenship Behavior: The
Relationship Between Individual Initiative and Role Overload, Job Stress, and Work-
Family Conflict
Summary
This article examines the relationship between individual initiative, role overload, job
stress and work- family conflict. The concept of organizational citizenship behavior deals with
the actions and behaviors that are beyond the requirement (Bolino and Turnley 2005). It has been
found that most of the employees understand and consider work to be their primary duty. They
take the initiative all by themselves and deliver work that proves highly beneficial to the
organization. There are so many upsides of organizational citizenship behaviors such as it gives
the employees a sense of purpose and importance within the organization say Matthews, Wayne
and Ford (2014). It reduces the sense of burnouts when the sense of vigor is increased. High job
performance with heightened productivity is another advantages of OCB (organizational
citizenship behavior) (Kelly et al.2014). However, there are many disadvantages too of
maintaining organizational citizenship behavior. The individual initiative may result in employee
stress and strain. A greater priority to OCB can affect the work –family life balance of the
employees as argued by Deery and Jago (2015).
The article surveys whether these factors actually affect the personal lives of the
individuals or not. The study is based on two surveys of 622 alumni of a medium sized, private
university situated in the Midwestern United States (Bolino and Turnley 2005). The study
indicates that the race of satisfying the job commitments can have negative implications on the
employees. It can increase the levels of turnover and pose difficulty in attracting new employees.

2LITERATURE REVIEW
The article concludes with the suggestion of taking proper actions to alleviate the stress and
strain linked with being a perfect OCB.
Discussion
The article gives a detailed description of the job-holder roles, organizational –member
roles and family roles. It says that roles affect employee behavior in different ways. Bolino and
Turnley (2005) argues that the individuals who are displaying extra initiative are burdening
themselves with additional roles, which can impose negative effects on their personal
relationships and well beings. The article next goes on to define and describe the concepts of role
overload, job stress and work-family conflicts individually. According to the authors of the
article, employees enact two kinds of work roles in the organization. The first is job holder role
and another is organizational –member role. Since, OCB is something about going beyond the
formally prescribed job duties, employees try hard to stand up on the expectations by bringing
the work home, working on weekends, staying with work all the time sacrificing the personal life
as suggested by Bolino and Turnley (2005). Therefore, it can be assumed that role overload is
closely associated with individual initiative.
Regarding job stress the article says that it is an unpleasant experience connected with the
feelings of fear, anxiety, annoyance, irritation, grief, sadness and depression. The role overload
initiates job stress supports Nelson and Burke (2018). Allen and Finkelstein (2014) support the
idea that the struggle to maintain their organizational member roles by displaying extra initiative
causes them to find difficulty in managing simple job-holder roles. Therefore, it can be deduced
that individual initiative is also positively associated with job stress. The work-family conflict
occurs when an individual gets confused between incompatible demands of work and family
roles. According to Nohe et al. (2015) it makes the participation in both the roles extremely

3LITERATURE REVIEW
difficult and thus conflict at the work –life interface emerges. The organizations and the
individuals must understand the implications of work-family conflict and because occupational
burnouts, deterioration in health and job performance are highly related with such conflicts as
suggested by Folger, Poole and Stutman (2017).
All the suggestions and conclusion of the article is based on the survey samples which
enable better understanding of the issues. The research is based on the primary survey method by
surveying 622 alumni of a medium sized, private university situated in the Midwestern United
States Bolino and Turnley (2005). One of the surveys were completed by the alumni and the
other set of surveys were completed by their spouse or close family members. 170 alumni
responded properly but 29 of them did not have a spouse or any family member. Ultimately 98
couples fulfilled the surveys.85% of them were employed at that time and were facing job stress,
work-family related issues Bolino and Turnley (2005). All the respondents were measured under
the individual initiative, role overload, job stress and work-family related parameters. As
predicted, the results proved that individual initiatives were highly connected with work-family
conflicts and role overload. The surveys also indicated that relationship values are stronger
among women than among men.
Critical Evaluation
The findings of the study are helpful as they pave way for further research on the rewards
of high level organizational citizenship. The study has well elaborated the potential costs of the
individual initiative. It indicates that whereas employees get exhausted by work overload, stress
and work-family conflict, they can also avail the benefits such as the performance appraisals,
rapid advancements or greater job accomplishments. The article covers most of the essential
aspects of the topic. The primary data collection method makes the study more authentic and