The influence of collectivism and rater error on organizational citizenship and impression management behaviors

Although the employer may not necessarily recognize this, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) enhances organizational performance. However, most contemporary appraisal measures fail to distinguish between OCB and other types of employee behaviors such as impression management behavior (IMB) and in-role behavior (IRB), all of which employees could display in order to gain higher performance ratings. In this paper we distinguish empirically between OCB, IMB, and IRB, and examine their selection factors. Our regression results showed that an employee’s collectivism was positively associated with his/her OCBs. Contrary to our prediction, however, collectivism was also positively related to IMBs. In the context of human resource management, an employee’s perception of rater error had a negative effect on OCBs and IRBs. Implications for management and future research are discussed.