Voice, Affective Commitment and Citizenship Behavior in Teams: The Moderating Role of Neuroticism and Intrinsic Motivation
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12146 |
| Published date | 01 January 2016 |
| Date | 01 January 2016 |
British Journal of Management, Vol. 27, 97–115 (2016)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12146
Voice, Aective Commitment
and Citizenship Behavior in Teams:
The Moderating Role of Neuroticism
and Intrinsic Motivation
Marc Ohana
Kedge Business School, CREG 680 avenue de la Lib´
eration, 33405 Talence cedex
Corresponding author email: marc.ohana@kedgebs.com
This paper provides an empirical examination of the eects of co-workers’ procedural
justice, defined as the individual’s perception of how procedural justice is displayed to-
wards him/her by the group. Drawing on the social exchange literature, it is confirmed
that team aective commitment mediates the relationship between team voice – a form
of co-workers’ procedural justice – and team citizenship behaviors. The study also tests
whether this positive indirect eect is moderatedby neuroticism and intrinsic motivation.
The results from a surveyof 154 dyads consisting of employees and their current supervi-
sor generally support the hypotheses. Team voice is a strong and consistent predictor of
team citizenship behaviors, and the eect is mediated by team aective commitment only
when intrinsic motivation is low and/or neuroticism is low. This study extends knowledge
of the dierent sources of justice. Specifically,it shows that team voice and the boundary
conditions of its eects are crucial to understanding attitudes and behaviors directed to-
wards the team. This finding highlights the necessity of carefully taking into account the
ability to express one’s opinion inside teams.
Introduction
Organizational justice, defined as the perception
of fairness inside the organization, has been one
of the most studied concepts in organizational be-
havior over the past decades. Numerous studies
show the importance of justice in aecting atti-
tudes and behaviors such as commitment, job sat-
isfaction, trust, turnover and citizenship behav-
iors (Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001; Colquitt
et al., 2001; van Dierendonck and Jacobs, 2012).
One explanation for these eects rests in the so-
cial exchange that takes place between parties
The author thanks Lynn Shore, David Patient, Florence
Stinglhamber, Marcello Russo, Christophe Faug`
ere, the
anonymous referees and the associate editor for their
helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.
Any errors are the authors’ responsibility.
(Beauregard, 2014; Colquitt et al., 2013; Cropan-
zano and Mitchell, 2005; Spoor and Hoye, 2014).
An employee who feels fairlytreated considers this
treatment to be a ‘gift’. He will therefore recipro-
cate by assuming a positive attitude and behav-
ior towards the party that acted fairly. If he feels
unfairly treated, he might be disposed to retali-
ate or to punish those responsible for the unjust
treatment (Andrews et al., 2008).
Most studies only take into account justice that
originates from the organization or supervisors
(Masterson et al., 2000). However, a few studies
address justice emanating from other employees,
called ‘co-workers’ justice’ in this paper. The re-
search on this topic has been performed mostly
at the theoretical level (Lavelle, Rupp and Brock-
ner,2007; Li and Cropanzano, 2009) and empirical
evidence is lacking (Fortin, 2008). Only Cropan-
zano and colleagues recently conducted several
© 2015 British Academy of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4
2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
98 M. Ohana
empirical studies showing a positive link be-
tween co-workers’justice and workplace outcomes
(Cropanzano, Li and Benson, 2011; Li, Cropan-
zano and Bagger, 2013). As several authors re-
cently called for research on justice that em-
anates from dierent sources, such as co-workers
(Li, Cropanzano and Bagger, 2013; Karriker and
Williams, 2009; Rupp et al., 2014), the first ob-
jective of this paper is to study the eects of co-
workers’ procedural justice.
In addition, a better understanding is needed
of why individuals react dierently to appar-
ently similar situations involving justice (Scott
and Colquitt, 2007). For example, Wiesenfeld
et al. (2007) show that perceptions of justice pro-
duce no eect on commitment among people
with low self-esteem. In another study, Scott and
Colquitt (2007) demonstrate that organizational
justice eects are bounded by individual concep-
tions regarding exchange. It thus appears to be
imperative to explore the boundary conditions
of the justice–outcomes relationship in order to
understand fully the phenomenon (Ambrose and
Schminke, 2003; Karriker and Williams, 2009).
Because knowledge regarding the moderators of
the justice–commitment relationship is specifically
lacking (Andrews et al., 2008; Li, Cropanzano and
Bagger,2013), the second objective is to investigate
the potential moderators of that relationship.
Toaddress these gaps in the literature (i.e.the co-
workers source of justice and the boundary con-
ditions of its eects), this study builds on a par-
ticular form of co-workers’ justice, in this paper
called team voice. Team voice represents the op-
portunity to express one’s opinion with respect to
team decisions. This studyaims to measure the im-
portance of team voice on team citizenship behav-
iors, i.e. extra-role behaviors considered to be dis-
cretionary,spontaneous or less constrained by role
requirements (Chiaburu et al., 2011). This type of
justice emanating from co-workers may aect citi-
zenship behaviors inside of teams, such as helping
co-workers (Lavelle, Rupp and Brockner, 2007).
More precisely, this study examines team aec-
tive commitment (i.e. employees’ emotional con-
nection with their team) as a mediator of the re-
lationship between team voice and team citizen-
ship behavior (Becker, Ullrich and van Dick, 2013;
Riketta and van Dick, 2005). Studies have shown
that organizational aective commitment is a me-
diator of the organizational justice–organizational
citizenship behaviors relationship (Lavelle, Rupp
and Brockner, 2007). The same eect is shown
when the supervisor is responsible for justice and
the beneficiary of both aective commitment and
citizenship behaviors (Vandenberghe, Bentein and
Stinglhamber, 2004). The present paper extends
this research to the team by examining team aec-
tive commitment as a mediator betweenteam voice
and team citizenship behaviors.
Moreover, this study investigates whether high
levels of neuroticism and intrinsic motivation
weaken the assumed positive and indirect eect of
team voice on team citizenship behaviors through
team aective commitment. Several authors note
the need to account for moderating eects in
justice research (Ambrose and Schminke, 2003).
Studying the moderators of procedural justice ef-
fects as voice eects is important because most
prior studies explore the moderation of distribu-
tive justice eects (Colquitt et al., 2006), although
procedural justice is the justice dimension the most
correlated with attitudes and behaviors (Burnett,
Williamson and Bartol, 2009).
Both personal and situational conditions can
alter the eects of justice (Colquitt et al., 2006).
For example, personality may weaken the justice–
outcomes relationship (Burnett, Williamson and
Bartol, 2009; Scott and Colquitt, 2007). How-
ever, some authors did not find evidence that the
Big Five personality traits moderate the justice–
outcomes relationships (Colquitt et al., 2006).
This study investigates the neuroticism trait (also
known as emotional stability), which is one of the
most widely studied personality traits in psychol-
ogy (Judge et al., 2002). In addition,a limited num-
ber of studies have shown the potential moderat-
ing influence of the interest embedded in the job
itself (Dysvik, Kuvaas and Buch, 2010; Maurer,
Weiss and Barbeite, 2003; Zapata-Phelan et al.,
2009). People with high levels of intrinsic motiva-
tion might be less inclined to react to justice, be-
cause they are focusing on the job itself (Dysvik,
Kuvaas and Buch, 2010).
The model is displayed in Figure1. I n the model,
team voice is positively related to team aective
commitment, and team aective commitment is,
in turn, positively related to team citizenship be-
havior. Team aective commitment mediates the
relationship between team voice and team citizen-
ship behavior (positive indirect eect). Finally, it
is proposed that neuroticism and intrinsic motiva-
tion moderate the eect of team voice on team af-
fective commitment such that the positive indirect
© 2015 British Academy of Management.
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