Impetus for Action: A Cultural Analysis of Justice and Organizational Citizenship

Behavior in Chinese Society

Jiing-Lih Farh; P. Christopher Earley; Shu-Chi Lin
Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 3. (Sep., 1997), pp. 421-444.
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Impetus for Action:

A Cultural Analysis
of Justice and
Organizational
Citizenship Behavior in
Chinese Society
Jiing-Lih Farh
Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology

P. Christopher Earley
London Business School

Shu-Chi Lin
National Chengchi University

To understand variations i n citizenship behavior within a

culture, w e examine the relationship between citizenship
behaviors and organizational justice in t w o studies in a
Chinese context, using t w o cultural characteristics (traditionality and modernity) and one individual (gender)
characteristic. In Study 1, w e develop an indigenous
measure o f organizational citizenship behavior and explore the similarities and differences o f this measure
with its Western counterpart. In Study 2, w e use this citizenship behavior measure t o test its relationship t o justice. Results demonstrate that organizational justice (distributive and procedural) is most strongly related t o
citizenship behavior for individuals w h o endorse less traditional, or high modernity, values. In addition, w e found
the relationship between justice and citizenship behavior
t o be stronger for men than for women. The studies are
discussed i n terms of the generality o f citizenship behavior and its relation t o organizational justiqe and cultural
characteristics.*
Although an organization may increase its competitiveness
through a multitude of means, Western scholars have increasingly emphasized the importance of employee actions
that are not specifically designated in their formal job duties,
or organizational citizenship behavior. Organ (1988: 4) defined organizational citizenship behavior as "individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized
by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization"; it includes actions such as aiding one's coworkers, punctuality
and attendance that exceeds company norms, or voluntary
assumption of ad hoc duties (Van Dyne, Graham, and Dienesch, 1994).

0 1997 by Cornell University.

0001-8392/97/4203-0421/$I .OO.

We would like to thank Bor-Shiuan

Cheng, Dah-Hsian Seetoo, and Jing-Jyi
Wu for their valuable inputs in developing
the Chinese OCB scale. We also want to
thank Dennis Organ, Kenneth Law,
Catherine Tinsley, and ASQ's Associate
Editor Daniel Brass and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and
suggestions on earlier versions of this
paper. Financial assistance from Hong
Kong RGC Competitive Earmarked Grant
(HKUST485194H)made this research possible. Requests for reprints and other correspondence should be addressed to the
first author.

Except for studies devoted to the refinement of an organizational citizenship behavior measure (e.g., Podsakoff et al.,
1990; Van Dyne, Graham, and Dienesch, 1994), the extant
literature on citizenship behavior has focused primarily on
the various determinants of citizenship behavior and its relationship to variables in a nomological network. Despite the
voluminous and fruitful literature stemming from Organ's
(1988) seminal work in this area, w e know little about citizenship behavior in a global context. Our purpose in this paper is to begin to provide an understanding of citizenship behavior and its relevant correlates for people who vary in their
cultural values by exploring whether citizenship behavior has
an etic (universal) meaning in cultures in which expectations
for employees vary drastically.
Organizational justice appears to be a key determinant of
citizenship behavior and related outcomes such as satisfaction and commitment (Folger and Konovsky, 1989; Moorman, 1991), and it reflects both the fairness of outcomes as
well as procedures used in their allocation (Lind and Tyler,
1988). The citizenship behavior literature has focused on the
fairness of outcomes (e.g., pay) received by an employee
and the procedures used to determine those outcomes
(Moorman, 1991). Findings suggest that if both job satisfaction and organizational justice are used to predict citizenship
behavior, justice typically shows a stronger relationship to
421lAdministrative Science Quarterly, 42 (1997): 421-444

citizenship behavior than does satisfaction. Although it is not

known exactly how justice affects citizenship behavior, trust
appears to be an important mediating variable (Konovsky and
Pugh, 1994). Organizational justice enhances employee trust,
which in turn stimulates the display of citizenship behavior.
The importance of justice in the display of citizenship behavior can be seen in Konovsky and Pugh's (1994) empirical results on trust and Van Dyne, Graham, and Dienesch's (1994)
conceptual work concerning covenantal relationships. Van
Dyne, Graham, and Dienesch argued that a number of individual and contextual factors influence citizenship behavior
through the mediating role of a covenantal relationship-a
personal relationship resulting in action being performed
without expectations of reciprocity. Over time, the vitality of
the relationship itself becomes an important focus for those
who have covenantal ties, and citizenship behavior is a way
the relationship is maintained and strengthened. Fiske
(1991), Foa and Foa (1976), and Van Dyne, Graham, and
Dienesch (1994), among others, suggested that this form of
relationship is characteristic of people who have a common
family structure, shared history, closely linked outcomes, or
closely shared cultural perspectives.
Although organizational justice has proven to be an important
antecedent of citizenship behavior, the nature of this relationship may differ as a function of individual and contextual
attributes. Morrison (1994) found that the concepts of citizenship behavior varied across organizational ranks. What
appeared to be citizenship behavior for some supervisors
was defined and perceived differently by job incumbents,
suggesting that perceptions of citizenship behavior are subjective. If so, then differences in perceptions arising from
people's cultural values may have a profound impact on how
citizenship behavior is viewed and operates in relation to
other constructs.
Further, concepts of justice are known to vary according to
people's cultural values. For instance, Bond, Leung, and their
colleagues (e.g., Bond, Leung, and Wan, 1982; Leung and
Bond, 1984) have examined systematically the distributive
aspects of reward allocation in Chinese, Japanese, American, and Korean samples. They found that people from collectivistic cultures used different norms of equity and equality than people in individualistic cultures. Norms of
distributive justice appear to differ as a function of cultural
background. Similar concerns over the etic nature of procedural justice effects have been raised as well (Lind and Tyler,
1988).
What role, then, do individual differences in cultural values
play in determining what citizenship behavior is and how it
relates to organizational justice? In Western society, there is
an emphasis on individualism and universalism (Triandis,
1989; Markus and Kitayama, 1991) and contractual relationships (Blau, 1964; Williamson, 1975). Relationships are
viewed as mutable, and exchanges are regulated instrumentally by specific rules for transactions (Ouchi, 1980). The
structure of transactions and expectations of exchanges are
universal and not tied to role occupants in these transactions. An employee's background, in terms of race, sex, or
422/ASQ, September 1997

Citizenship Behavior

ethnicity, for example, is not relevant in matters of compensation-an employer is expected to provide all employees
with a "fair day's wages" for a "fair day's work." In this circumstance, organizational justice, particularly based on a fair
distribution of goods, predicts citizenship behavior. Distributive justice based on an equity norm reinforces a person's
belief that he or she is being treated fairly. Over time, assuming consistent and fair treatment, this relationship may
shift from an instrumental to a relational agreement based
on trust and good faith, such as that found in a social exchange or covenantal relationship (Graham and Organ, 1993).
Procedural justice influences citizenship behavior similarly, in
that it enhances a person's trust in his or her supervisor and
organization, which in turn leads to the display of citizenship
behavior (Konovsky and Pugh, 1994). Thus, distributive and
procedural justice enhance the display of citizenship behavior
by creating an environment conducive to a covenantal relationship between an employee and his or her organizatio~.If
employees believe that procedures used in allocating organizational outcomes are fair and just, they will be satisfied and
more likely to engage in citizenship behavior (Brockner and
Adsit, 1986; Konovsky and Pugh, 1994).
Different predictions can be generated if alternative assumptions are made concerning what constitutes contractual relationships in a society. In societies emphasizing expressive,
or covenantal, ties among people, exchange is not always
based on a universalistic principle of an equitable distribution
of outcomes; rather, it is often based on a particularistic principle of need or social status distribution (Foa and Foa, 1976;
Fiske, 1991). For example, the behavior of traditional Chinese is situationally determined, and whether they feel they
have been treated fairly does not strongly affect their behavior, as evidenced by a story told in The Analects of Confucius. A regional governor told Confucius that in his community the rules of conduct reflected dedication of the
individual to the community above other relationships, and
he illustrated this by telling a story of a "righteous" son who
reported to the authorities that his father stole a sheep. Confucius replied that a righteous man in his community does
not behave this way-a father conceals the sins of his son
and the son conceals the sins of his father. In a traditional
Chinese context, .the particularistic conditions of a given relationship govern expectations of exchange and behavior.
Thus, social structure provides role relationships (e.g., father
to son) that are comparable to a covenantal relationship.
While market forces may govern an instrumental relationship, an expressive one is regulated through personal integrity and devotion to the good of the relationship, as in Van
Dyne, Graham, and Dienesch's covenantal relationship. In a
society dominated by role-based relationships, trust and faith
in one's superiors are built into the social structure of organizations, and w e would not expect any relationship between
justice and citizenship behavior, because employees' actions
would not need to be motivated by enhanced trust. Of
course, such an idyllic society is no more likely to exist than
a purely instrumental society; rather, societies differ according to the relative balance of these various forms of contracts. Thus, current thinking about justice and citizenship
423/ASQ, September 1997

behavior may be limited to a cultural context emphasizing

justice as a means of enhancing trust in forming relational
contracts. In this paper, w e test these boundaries by considering the effects of t w o cultural dimensions, or values, in
relation to citizenship behavior: traditionality and modernity.
Traditionality. In a culture characterized by traditionality,
there is an emphasis on expressive ties among people and
values such as respect for authority, filial piety, ancestor
worship, male-domination, fatalism, and a general sense of
powerlessness (Yang, Yu, and Yeh, 1989). For instance, traditional Chinese society is strongly based on the five fundamental relationships (called wu-lun) of Confucianism, namely,
emperor-subject, father-son, husband-wife, elder-younger,
and friend-friend. These relationships are not societal characteristics; rather, they indicate the relation of people to one
another within their social system. Yang (1993: 29-30) described wu-lun: "The formalistic aspect of interpersonal relationships is effectively consolidated, or even firmly fixed, by
transforming each relation into specific dyadic roles. . . . For
each dyadic wu-lun relationship, role prescriptions specify
what should and should not be done by the actors." We
chose to focus on respect for authority here as a key aspect
of traditionality, for a number of reasons. Most importantly,
the five cardinal relations (wu-lun), even those between
friends, are constructed in hierarchical patterns. In each
case, the senior member is accorded a wide range of prerogatives and authority with respect to the junior. Yang
(1993) has also pointed out that prescriptions for these relations are asymmetric, in that the behavior expectations of
the role with less power (e.g., the subject, the son, and the
wife) is specified in much more detail than those of the role
with greater power. Much more stringent requirements and
restrictions are imposed on the less powerful role, and as a
result, people in those roles are greatly underprivileged.
Moreover, the hierarchical orientation in wu-lun has been
generalized and extended to wider social contexts (Yang,
1993: 40).
The above description suggests that traditional Chinese will
engage in citizenship behavior according to their perceived
roles within their work organization, not according to
whether they feel they have been treated justly, and that
there are other forms of relational contracts than those
based on a Western equity principle of justice governing interaction in traditional Chinese society. Presumably, employees engage in citizenship behavior not merely because they
perceive the work environment as just; they do so in satisfying their self-derived obligations to their companies.
Modernity. As traditional Chinese societies underwent industrialization and modernized, they went through revolutionary changes in institutional patterns as well as in people's
values and attitudes. This social shift represents an alternative to traditional values and has been referred to as individual modernity (Inkeles and Smith, 1974). Modernity describes a society in terms of egalitarianism and openmindedness, optimism and assertiveness, affective
hedonism, sexual equality, and self-reliance (Yang, Yu, and
Yeh, 1989). We focused on egalitarianism and open-mindedness here in our use of this construct. Western society is
424/ASQ, September 1997

Citizenship Behavior

strongly dominated by modernity, as reflected by its emphasis on a principle that everyone has certain basic human
rights (Triandis, 1989; Erez and Earley, 1993), and everyone
has an equal right to receive rewards based on his or her
individual contributions. In a modern society, there is an emphasis on instrumental exchange based on underlying rules
of equity.
Traditionality and modernity, as conceptualized and tested by
Yang, Yu, and Yeh (1989), are not opposite ends of a unidimensional construct. Traditionality reflects the hierarchical
nature of Chinese society based on the principles of wu-lun,
while modernity reflects an orientation toward egalitarianism,
self-reliance, and openness. It is possible for a culture to be
both traditional and modern in this usage. Thai society is
characterized by a strong respect for hierarchy (i.e., traditional) with an emphasis on individuality and self-reliance
(i.e., modernity). Yang, Yu, and Yeh's (1989) empirical work
demonstrated the separation of these cultural orientations in
~aiwan.'
We hypothesized that the relationship of citizenship behavior
to an instrumentally based construct of organizational justice
(distributive and procedural) would interact with the cultural
values of traditionality and modernity:
Hypothesis l a : Traditionality will moderate the relationship between organizational justice (distributive and procedural) and citizenship behavior. For employees who hold less traditional values, the
relationship between justice and citizenship behavior will be stronger than for more traditional employees.

Traditionality and modernity are conceptually related to two of the cultural dimensions that Hofstede (1980) has posited as
fundamental to all societies. Traditionality.
with its emphasis on hierarchical relationships, is related to "power distance,"
which Hofstede used to characterize the
power distribution among individuals in a
society: a large discrepancy between
those who are powerful and those who
are powerless exists in a high power-distance culture (e.g., Malaysia). We expect
that Confucian-based cultures will generally exhibit a moderate to high power distance given the emphasis on the five,
hierarchically ordered relationships among
people. Modernity is related to the cultural value of individualism-collectivism.
which describes a relative tendency of an
actor to pursue self-interests (individualistic) versus those of his or her collective
(collectivistic). Hofstede posited that individualism is a conglomeration of values
concerning the relation of a person to his
or her collective or group. Modernity
overlaps with individualism-collectivism.
and, as Yang (1993) pointed out, individualism is the most important constituent
of individual modernity or modernism. In
modern societies there is an emphasis
on egalitarianism and freedom of expression, and in individualistic cultures people
are encouraged to "do their own thing"
and freely express their ideas and views
(Triandis, 1989).

Hypothesis Ib: Modernity will moderate the relationship between

organizational justice (distributive and procedural) to citizenship behavior. For employees who hold more modern values, the relationship between justice and citizenship behavior will be stronger than
for less modern employees.

For both cultural dimensions, w e hypothesize a basic relationship between justice and citizenship behavior predicated
on an instrumental relationship. People who are more traditional, or less modern, have expressive (covenantal) relationships with their organizations based on societal expectations
of roles. These relationships are an alternative to organizational justice as a means of encouraging employees to engage in citizenship behavior. Not only may citizenship behavior, as a construct, differ across cultural boundaries, its
relationship to other constructs such as organizational justice
may change as well.
To focus on traditionality and modernity, w e conducted our
study in a Chinese setting, Taiwan. Certainly while one
might question to what extent Taiwanese society represents
traditional versus modern values, because tremendous economic growth has occurred in the past two decades, as
have cultural shifts (Yang, Yu, and Yeh, 19891, there is evidence that these values generally hold sway and may even
dominate a particular demographic segment within Taiwanese society-women (see Bond and Hwang, 1987, for a review). Some researchers maintain that the traditional role of
women remains an unchanging core value in Taiwanese society (Chiang, 1982), and, therefore, w e expect that Chinese
women will view their relationships to their companies pre425/ASQ, September 1997

dominantly through expressive ties, whereas men will tend

to view them instrumentally.
Gender is not simply a proxy for traditionality or modernity.
Research on individual differences in justice behavior has
demonstrated that the equity norm is more salient for men
than women (Major and Deaux, 1982). Brockner and Adsit
(1986) showed that the equity-satisfaction relationship was
considerably more pronounced for men than for women and
was even stronger for men in a primarily male group and
weaker for women in an all-female group. Chang (1988)
demonstrated gender effects on individual performance under different reward distribution systems. Male Taiwanese
students were found to produce more under an equity-based
reward system than under an equality-based one, whereas
female students' productivity did not differ under the two
types of reward systems on certain tasks. To explore the
effect of gender, w e hypothesize that gender will significantly moderate the effects of justice on citizenship behavior:
Hypothesis 2: Gender will moderate the relationship between organizational justice (distributive and procedural) and citizenship behavior. For male Chinese employees, the relationship between organizational justice and citizenship behavior will be stronger than for
female Chinese employees.

We conducted two studies of citizenship behavior and justice in Taiwan. In the first study w e developed and assessed
a citizenship behavior measure. Our second study was a
field investigation of the relationship between citizenship behavior and organizational justice.
STUDY 1
We used three independent samples (two in Study 1 and a
third in Study 2) to develop the Chinese Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) scale. The first sample in Study 1
consisted of 109 Chinese students and employees enrolled
in the Master's of Business Administration (MBA) or Management Development programs at the National Chengchi
University in Taiwan. Sixty percent of the respondents had
more than five years of full-time work experience, and 41
percent were managers.
We presented respondents with a broad definition of organizational citizenship behavior and several examples. W e did
not inform them of the five dimensions of citizenship behavior identified in Western samples by Organ (1988). Each respondent was asked to draw on his or her work experience
to list 10 to 20 examples of citizenship behavior.
We obtained a total of 1,512 statements describing citizenship behavior, which w e then transcribed onto cards for a
three-stage sorting process. In the first stage, w e sorted the
items into 115 categories. Next, three assistants to the authors independently decided how these categories could be
combined and reached a consensus in collapsing the 115
categories into 60 general categories. Next, w e selected a
representative statement for each of the 60 categories, using the most frequently mentioned example item in a category. Since 40 percent of the 1,512 items concerned negative behaviors, w e used negative items to represent
426/ASQ, September 1997

Citizenship Behavior

categories in which the majority of the items were negative.

The 60 representative statements constituted our original
citizenship behavior scale. Consistent with Podsakoff et al.
(1990), each item was measured on a seven-point Likert
scale, ranging from 1 ("strongly disagree") to 7 ("strongly
agree").
We tested the 60-item citizenship behavior scale by obtaining an independent sample of 75 managers from 10 different
organizations, which included electronics, machinery, chemical, and food products firms, financial institutions, management consultants, and government agencies. To assess our
citizenship behavior scale, w e first calculated the item-total
score correlation. We deleted four items because of low
item-total score correlation (less than .40) and performed a
series of factor analyses on the remaining 56 items. These
analyses resulted in a five-factor solution with 6 to 19 items
loading on each dimension. To make the scale more manageable for subsequent research, w e constructed a 22-item
citizenship behavior scale (see table 1), by selecting four to
six items with the highest factor loadings from each factor.
W e used the 22-item citizenship behavior scale for the third
sample, which w e surveyed in Study 2. In that study, 227
supervisors completed citizenship behavior questionnaires.
To test if the five-factor structure of the Chinese citizenship
behavior scale was consistent with this third sample of respondents from Study 2, w e performed a confirmatory factor
analysis using LISREL 8 to analyze its covariance matrix. The
initial confirmatory factor analysis indicated that all of the
items used to assess the five factors of citizenship behavior
had significant and substantial loadings on their hypothesized
factors, but the overall fit of the five-factor model was not
optimal. After examining the modification index, w e found
that by dropping two items, the overall fit of the model could
be greatly improved.
Table 1 reports the results of the confirmatory factor analysis
of the final, 20-item Chinese citizenship behavior scale. The
overall fit of the five-factor model to the data was quite good
(TLI = .91), with a chi-square value of 346.23 (d. f. = 160;
p < .01). All of the items used to assess the five citizenship
behavior factors loaded significantly on their intended factors. We labeled these five factors identification with the
company, altruism toward colleagues, conscientiousness,
interpersonal harmony, and protecting company resources.
Etic and Emic Aspects o f Chinese Organizational
Citizenship Behavior
Table 2 presents a comparison of the five dimensions of the
Chinese citizenship behavior scale with those identified by
Organ (1988) and later operationalized by Podsakoff et al.
(1990) and reveals several similarities and differences. Our
dimensions of identification with the company, altruism toward colleagues, and conscientiousness are similar to dimensions reported by Organ and appear to be etic dimensions. While both scales include compliance with company
regulations and policies and better-than-expected attendance
records, the Chinese scale also comprises items that are
somewhat more proactive, such as "willing to take on chal427/ASQ, September 1997

Confirmatory Factor Analysis for the Chinese Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale ( N = 227)*

1. Identification with the company

a. Willing to stand up to protect the reputation of the company.
b. Eager to tell outsiders good news about the company and
clarify their misunderstandings.
c. Makes constructive suggestions that can improve the operation
of the company.
d. Actively attends company meetings.
2. Altruism toward colleagues
a. Willing to assist new colleagues to adjust to the work
environment.
b. Willing to help colleagues solve work-related problems.
c. Willing to cover work assignments for colleagues when
needed.
d. Willing to coordinate and communicate with colleagues.

3. Conscientiousness
a. Complies with company rules and procedures even when
nobody watches and no evidence can be traced.
b. Takes one's job seriously and rarely makes mistakes.
c. Does not mind taking on new or challenging assignments.
d. Tries hard to self-study to increase the quality of work outputs.
e. Often arrives early and starts to work immediately.
4. Interpersonal harmony
a. Uses illicit tactics to seek personal influence and gain with
harmful effect on interpersonal harmony in the organization. (R)
b. Uses position power to pursue selfish personal gain. (R)
c. Takes credits, avoids blames, and fights fiercely for personal
gain. (R)
d. Often speaks ill of the supervisor or colleagues behind their
backs. (R)

5. Protecting company resources

a. Conducts personal business on company time (e.g., trading
stocks, shopping, going to barber shops). (R)
b. Uses company resources to do personal business (e.g.,
company phones, copy machines, computers, and cars). (R)
c. Views sick leave as benefit and makes excuse for taking sick
leave. (R)
Reliability (Cronbach's alpha)
--

* Note' Tucker-Lew~sFit Index (TLI) =

91, Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) = .87; Conf~rmatoryFit Index (CFI) = .92. Chi
square w ~ t h160 degrees of freedom = 346.23. (R) denotes Items that have been reverse coded

lenging assignments" and "willing to self-study to improve

one's work performance."
Sportsmanship and courtesy, two dimensions in the Podsakoff scale, were not present in our citizenship behavior
scale, while interpersonal harmony and protecting company
resources do not appear in Podsakoff's scale. The presence
of interpersonal harmony and protecting company resources
in the Chinese citizenship behavior scale can be attributed to
their cultural roots. As noted by many writers (e.g., Bond
and Hwang, 1987; Yang, 1993), one of the most distinctive
features of Chinese societies is their family orientation. The
influence of the family is so strong in Chinese society that it
has an undeniable predominance over its members in almost
all domains of life. The submerging of one's self or individuality into his or her family is a special type of in-group collec428/ASQ, September 1997

Citizenship Behavior
Table 2

Comparison of Western and Chinese OCB Scales*

Western OCB scale

Chinese OCB scale

Etic dimensions
-

Civic virtue
Discretionary behavior that indicates that one
responsibly participates in, is involved in, or is
concerned about the life of the organization, e.g.,
attending important but nonmandatory meeting;
keeping abreast of changes in the organizations,
reading company memos and announcements and
performing functions that help company image.

Identification with company

Very similar to civic virtue in definition. Items here also
emphasize the willingness on the part of the
employees to spread positive company news to
outsiders; defend company reputation; make
suggestions for improvement.

Altrusim
Discretionary behavior that has the effect of helping
others around him or her (mostly peers, clients,
supervisors) with an organizationally relevant task or
problem.

Altrusim toward colleagues

Identical to Western altruism in definition; very similar
item contents.

Conscientiousness
Discretionary behaviors by an employee that go well
beyond the minimum role requirements of the
organization in the areas of attendance, obeying rules
and regulations, taking breaks, working hard, and so
forth.

Conscientiousness
Identical to Western Conscientiousness; very similar
item contents.

Emic dimensions
Sportsmanship
Willingness of an employee to tolerate less than ideal
circumstances without complaining; to avoid
complaining petty grievances, and railing against real
or imagined slights.
Courtesy
Discretionary behavior by an employee aimed at
preventing work-related problems with others from
occurring; mindful of the effects of one's behavior on
others; not abusing others' rights; preventing
problems with other people.
Interpersonal harmony
Discretionary behavior by an employee to avoid pursuing
personal power and gain with detrimental effects on
others and the organization.
Protecting company resources
Discretionary behavior by an employee to avoid negative
behaviors that abuse company policies and resources
for personal use.

* The definition and sample items for this scale were taken from Podsakoff et al. (1990) and Podsakoff, MacKenzie, and
Hui (1993).

tivism called familistic collectivism, which can be distinguished from universal collectivism (Schwartz, 1990). One of
the natural consequences of familistic collectivism is ingroup favoritism, which may manifest itself in organizational
life in the form of using one's position to benefit oneself or
one's family members (e.g., nepotism). This is especially
true when an employee is working in a business that is not
related to his or her family. Because such abuses by employees interfere with economic efficiency, it is a common challenge for Chinese organizations to devise strategies to guard
against such behavior. The emergence of protecting com429/ASO, September 1997

pany resources as a major form of citizenship behavior in

Chinese societies is a manifestation of such concern. The
cultural root of interpersonal harmony in the Chinese citizenship behavior scale is a cherished cultural value of interpersonal harmony found in Chinese societies (Yang, 1993). For
example, it is a common practice in traditional Chinese societies for anyone who first violates interpersonal harmony, for
whatever reason, to take a much larger share of the blame,
no matter whether his or her behavior is justifiable. Interpersonal harmony is so stressed by Chinese people that it appears to outsiders that they pursue harmony for harmony's
sake.
Protecting company resources and interpersonal harmony
appear to be negatively oriented citizenship behavior dimensions, which may explain their apparent emic nature. These
dimensions may have separated out from the others as an
artifact of their negative orientation. There are two reasons
why w e do not think that is the case. First, it is common in
the Chinese language for positive attributes to be expressed
using a negation of a negative. For example, someone who
performs "well" is said to perform "bu cuo," or literally, "did
not do the wrong things," and someone who performs "extremely well" is said to perform "hen bu cuo," or literally,
"did not do the wrong things at all," which is consistent
with a culture stressing personal modesty. The use of negative phrasing is connotatively different in Chinese than it is in
English in many cases. It is therefore not surprising that
when subjects were asked to describe citizenship behaviors,
instead of identifying all positive behaviors, they also identified negative behaviors that one should not do to represent
good behavior. The fact that negative items were heavily
used to describe harmony and resources suggests that they
are indeed emic. Second, if the factor analyses were shaped
by a negative rather than a positive wording, w e would not
expect to see two independent "negative" dimensions produced. Rather, these t w o dimensions should have loaded on
a common factor reflecting a "negative" wording. Based on
these analyses and our tracing of these t w o dimensions to
Chinese culture, w e think that these t w o dimensions are
emic dimensions and not simply a methodological artifact.
STUDY 2
Our purpose in conducting Study 2 was to test the hypotheses with our indigenous measure of citizenship behavior.
Method
Sample. The sample for this study consisted of employees
drawn from eight companies in the electronics industry of
Taiwan. All eight companies were locally owned and were
members of the 500 largest companies in Taiwan. Thirty to
forty matching questionnaires were distributed to supervisors and subordinates in each company. The sample consisted mainly of low- to mid-level managers, engineers,
salespersons, and clerical staff. The sample of subordinates
had slightly more men (55.6 percent) than women, was relatively young (76 percent between the ages of 26 and 351,
and 70 percent of the respondents had completed vocational
college or university education. Forty-five percent of the respondents were clerical and other staff, 26 percent engi430/ASO, September 1997

Citizenship Behavior

neers, 17 percent management, and 12 percent sales personnel.

Procedure. Questionnaires, coded to ensure confidentiality,
were distributed to a total of 65 supervisors and 265 subordinates and were returned through the coordinators designated for each company. W e obtained usable matching
questionnaires from 227 dyads, for a response rate of 87.3
percent.
Measures

With the exception of citizenship behavior, which was measured by the supervisor survey, all variables were measured
by the subordinate survey. Unless otherwise noted, all multiitem scales were measured on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly
disagree, 7 = strongly agree). Additionally, all materials were
presented in Chinese, either in indigenous form (citizenship
behavior, traditionality, modernity) or back-translated from
English where needed (justice and control variables). We assessed justice in terms of the distributive and procedural justice associated with compensation.
Distributive justice. Distributive justice was measured by
nine items adapted from Balkin and Gomez-Mejia (1990). W e
made a number of wording adjustments to the original items
to reflect compensation issues in Taiwan. Sample items included: "Relative to similar jobs in other organizations, the
pay I received is fair"; "The pay differential in my company
does not reflect the differences in job responsibilities and
difficulties involved in the job" (reverse scored); and "lndividual performance is the most important factor driving salary adjustment." Results of factor analysis of this scale suggested that a single dominant factor accounted for 45.4
percent of the total variance. The Cronbach alpha for this
scale was .84.
Procedural justice. Consistent with Moorman (1991) and others, the measure for procedural justice consisted of formal
procedures and interactional justice. The former refers to the
degree to which the formal procedures were at least present
in the organization. The latter refers to the degree to which
the behavior of the supervisor enacted the formal procedures fairly. W e investigated two aspects of formal procedures in this study: participation and appeal mechanism. Participation refers to the extent to which employees are
allowed to have input in pay and related performance appraisal decisions. It was measured by four items adapted
from Balkin and Gomez-Mejia (1990): "Managers at all levels
participate in pay and performance appraisal decisions";
"Through various channels, my company tries to understand
employees' opinions regarding pay and performance appraisal policies and decisions"; "Pay decisions are made exclusively by top management in my company; others are excluded from this process" (reverse scored); and "My
company does not take employees' opinions into account in
designing pay and performance appraisal policies" (reverse
scored). The Cronbach alpha for this scale was .71. Appeal
mechanism refers to the extent to which formal appeal procedures were present and followed in the organization. It
was measured by three items adapted from Spencer (1986):
"The company has a formal appeal channel"; "The company
431/ASQ, September 1997

imposes a time limit within which the responsible parties

must respond to the employee's appeal"; and "Employees'
questions concerning pay or performance appraisal are usually answered promptly and satisfactorily." The Cronbach
alpha for this scale was .81.
Interactional justice. Perceptions of procedural justice were
also influenced by the interpersonal behavior of the supervisor. Several studies found that the actions taken by managers as they enacted procedures and explained the decisions
were instrumental in determining if procedural justice existed (Bies, 1987; Tyler and Bies, 1990). We adapted five
items from Folger and Konovsky (1989) to measure the interpersonal behavior of the supervisor in performance appraisal
and pay decisions: "My supervisor is thoroughly familiar with
my job performance"; "My supervisor allows me to tell my
side of the story in performance evaluation"; "My supervisor
lets me know my appraisal outcomes and provides justification"; "My supervisor lets m e know my pay raise and annual
bonus and provides justification"; and "My supervisor reviews m y performance with me and discusses plans or objectives to improve m y performance." The Cronbach alpha
for this scale was .88.

To test if the 12-item procedural justice scale could be accounted for by the three hypothesized factors, w e performed a confirmatory factor analysis using LISREL 8 to analyze the covariance matrix. The overall fit of the three-factor
model to the data was excellent (TLI = .94), with a chisquare value of 106.4 (d. f . = 51; p < .01). All of the items
used to assess procedural justice factors loaded significantly
on their intended factors with factor loadings ranging from
.42 to .95.
Traditionality. This construct was measured by five items
taken from the Chinese Individual Traditionality Scale, an indigenous scale developed by K. S. Yang and associates
(Yang, Yu, and Yeh, 1989). According to Yang, respect for
authority is a key aspect of individual traditionality for Chinese people in Taiwan. The original scale for respect for authority has 15 items. W e took the five highest loading items:
"The chief government official is like the head of a household. The citizen should obey his decisions on all state matters"; "The best way to avoid mistakes is to follow the instructions of senior persons"; "Before marriage, a woman
should subordinate herself t o her father. After marriage, t o
her husband"; "When people are in dispute, they should ask
the most senior person to decide who is right"; and "Those
who are respected by parents should be respected by their
children." The Cronbach alpha for this scale was .76.
Modernity. This construct was measured by five items taken
from the Chinese Individual Modernity Scale, an indigenous
scale also developed by K. S. Yang and associates (1989).
According to Yang, egalitarianismlopen-mindedness is a key
aspect of modernity. The original scale for egalitarianism1
open-mindedness has 12 items. W e took the five highest
loading items: "If the chief government official makes a mistake, the citizen may criticize him openly"; "If the teacher
makes a mistake, the student can argue with him by reason"; "People who seek political reforms should have the
432/ASQ, September 1997

Citizenship Behavior

right to make a speech in public places"; "To pursue advanced study or better employment opportunity, it is okay
for someone to leave his home and family"; and "The sexual
scenes in a TV program should not be censored if they are
an integral part of the script." The Cronbach alpha for this
scale was .72.
Organizational citizenship behavior. Subordinates' citizenship
behavior was measured by the 20-item scale described in
Study 1.
Demographic and control variables. Subordinates' surveys
provided four demographic attributes that are used as controls in this study. Age was measured by eight categories
(i.e., 1 = under 20, 2 = 21-25, 3 = 26-30, 4 = 31-35, 5 = 3640, 6 = 41-45, 7 = 46-50, 8 = above 50). Gender was coded
with 1 designating men and 0 designating women. Education was measured by five categories (i.e., 1 = middle school
or under, 2 = high school, 3 = vocational school, 4 = univer-,
sity, 5 = graduate school). Tenure was measured in years.
Pay satisfaction and organizational commitment were included as control variables because they have been shown
to be significant correlates of citizenship behavior (Organ and
Ryan, 1995).

Pay satisfaction. Participants were asked to indicate their

degree of satisfaction on a seven-point Likert scale
(1 = strongly dissatisfied, 7 = strongly satisfied) with regard
to four key aspects of pay: current salary, most recent pay
raise, annual bonus, and overall level of pay. Annual bonus
was included because it constituted a significant portion of
the take-home pay in Taiwan, and all large firms in Taiwan
paid annual bonuses to their workers (Farh, 1995). The Cronbach alpha for this four-item scale was .82.
Organizational commitment. A subordinate's commitment to
the employer was measured by a 15-item scale taken from
Mowday, Steers, and Porter (1979). The original English
scale has been translated into Chinese and has been used in
prior behavioral research in Taiwan. We used the existing,
translated version validated in prior work. Despite its Western origin, the scale has been found to perform satisfactorily
in terms of reliability and validity (e.g., Yang and Cheng,
1987). The Cronbach alpha for this scale was .85.
Results

The means, standard deviations, reliabilities, and intercorrelations of all of the variables used in the study are reported in
table 3. This table indicates that the internal consistency reliabilities for all of the multi-item scales were reasonable.
Gender, modernity, and traditionality were significantly but
not highly correlated (r's = -.34 to .34). As expected, men
tended to be higher in modernity and lower in traditionality
than women, and modern and traditional value orientations
were negatively correlated. Both distributive and procedural
justice variables were positively correlated with citizenship
behavior dimensions, with the strongest correlations associated with distributive and interactional justice.
Effects of justice on citizenship behavior. We examined
the individual effects of organizational justice variables on
433/ASQ, September 1997

Means, Standard Deviations, Reliabilities, and Intercorrelations of Demographic, Organizational Justice, and
Outcome Variables ( N = 206)
Variable

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.

S.D.

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

.85
.I0
.07
.08
.20"
.04
.09

NA
.21"
.I3
.37"
.02
-.01

NA
.27"
-,02
.34"
-.19"

NA
-.19**
.21"
-.19"

NA
-.07
.02

.72
-.34"

.76

Identification
Altruism
Conscientious
Harmony
Resources
Distributive justice
Participation
Interaction
Appeal mechanism
Pay satisfaction
Commitment
Age
Gender
Education
Tenure
Modernity
Traditionality

Variable

9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.

Mean

Appeal mechanism
Pay satisfaction
Commitment
Age
Gender
Education
Tenure
Modernity
Traditionality

.p < .05; 0.p

.81
.30"
.35"
.OO
.18"
.01
-.02
-.02
.09

.82
.35"
-.01
.04
-.09
-.01
-.04
.02

< .01; two-tailed tests.

citizenship behavior by regressing citizenship behavior on the

four justice variables along with subordinates' demographics,
traditionality, modernity, pay satisfaction, and commitment.
This analysis permits us to examine the unique effects of
each individual justice variable while controlling for other variables. Table 4 presents the regression results.
Table 4 indicates that demographic variables and individual
characteristics of traditionality and modernity had little impact on citizenship behavior. In general, the emic types of
OCB were more strongly related to justice than were the
etic types of OCB. Only three of the combinations were significant (i.e., education on altruism; age and tenure on protecting company resources). Pay satisfaction also had no independent effect on any of the outcome variables. In
contrast, one or more organizational justice variables had a
significant impact on four of the citizenship behavior dimensions. Details of the main effects model are presented in
table 4.
After controlling for individual demographics, values, pay satisfaction, and commitment, organizational justice still had
significant impact on four of the five citizenship behavior dimensions. Among the four justice predictors, distributive and
interactional justice were clearly the most consistent predictors of citizenship behavior, whereas participation and appeal
mechanism were less consistent predictors, having no sig434/ASQ, September 1997

Citizenship Behavior

Table 4
Regression Analysis of Effects of Organizational Justice on Subordinate Outcomes, Controlling for lndividual
Characteristics, Pay Satisfaction, and Commitment ( N = 206)"

Etic OCB
Variable

Identification

Altruism

Emic OCB
Conscientiousness

Harmony

Protect resources

Individual demographics
Age
Gender
Education
Tenure
Unique R2
Control variables
Pay satisfaction
Organizational commitment
Unique R2
Individual values
Modernity
Traditionality
Unique R2
Organizational justice
Distributive justive
Participation
Interaction
Appeal
Unique R2
Overall R2
Overall model F

'p < .05; " p < .O1 (two-tailed tests).

* Betas are reported. Unique R2 is the unique variance attributable to a set of variables independent of all other sets of
variables in a given equation.
nificant independent effects on any dimensions of citizenship
behavior.
Moderating effects of traditionality, modernity, and gender. W e tested the moderating effects of traditionality
modernity, and gender on each of the justice-outcome
relationships separately by hierarchical regression using a
three-step procedure in each analysis. For example, in
examining the moderating effect of gender on the distributive justice and altruism relationship, w e first regressed
altruism on five demographic and control variables (age, tenure, education, pay satisfaction, and organizational commitment). The main effects of gender and distributive justice
were then added to the regression equation in step 2. In the
final step of the analysis, the interaction term of gender and
distributive justice was loaded into the equation. W e tested
the moderating effect by examining the change in R2 attributable to the interaction term. If the interaction term added
to the final stage of the regression analysis produced a
significant R~ (i.e., significantly increased the amount of
variance explained in the criterion variable, altruism), then
gender could be said to be a moderator of the relationship
between distributive justice and altruism. If the interaction
term was significant, w e divided the sample into t w o
groups (male and female for gender; high versus low, using
a mean split for traditionality and modernity) to aid in interpreting the interaction term. Because w e hypothesized a
specific pattern of interaction in testing each moderating effect, and key variables (i.e., pay satisfaction and commitment) were included as controls in the equation to render
435/ASQ, September 1997

the tests conservative, w e used one-tailed tests in significance testing.

Table 5 summarizes the results of moderated regression
analyses. Each entry in the table has two numbers: the upper one shows the beta coefficient for the interaction term
along with its level of statistical significance, and the lower
one shows the percent of R~ change in the outcome variable
due to the interaction term. For example, the first entry under gender in the table reports a significant moderating effect of gender on the relationship between distributive justice and identification with the company. The beta coefficient
for the interaction term (gender x distributive justice) was
significant (beta = 1.26, p < .01), and this interaction, when
added to the equation, accounted for 5 percent of additional
variance in identification. The pattern of the interaction can
be interpreted using the sign of the beta coefficient. Because male gender was coded as 1 and female as 0, the
positive sign of the beta coefficient indicates that the relationship between distributive justice and identification was
stronger and more positive for men than for women. Figures
1-3 present plots of distributive justice and conscientiousness citizenship behavior for traditionality, modernity, and
Table 5
Summary of Moderated Regression Analyses of Traditionality, Modernity, and Gender with Organizational
Justice on Organizational Citizenship Behavior ( N = 206)*
Identification

Altruism

Conscientious

Harmony

Resources

.86"
.02"
.53'
.02'
.56'
.02'
.26
.01

.45
.01
.77"
.03"
.87"
.05"
.30
.01

Traditionality

Distributive justice

P
A R2

Interaction

A R2

Participation

A R2
Appeal mechanism

A R2

- .98'
.02'
-.77'
.02'
-.44
.01
-.50
.01

-.SO'
.02'
-.77'
.02'
-.84'
.02'
-.70
.02'
Modernity

Distributive justice

P
A R2

Interaction

P
A R2

Participation

A R2
Appeal mechanism

A R2

1.25'
.02'
1.02'
.02'
.77'
.ole
.97'
.02'
Gendert

Distributive justice

P
A R2

Interaction

A R2
Participation

A R2
Appeal mechanism

A R2

1.26"
.05"
.51'
.01'
.47'
.01'
.23
.01

.67'
.01'
.79"
.04"
.I7
.OO
.44'
.02'

' p < .05; " p < .01; one-tailed tests.

* A p indicates the change in R2 due to the interaction term
t Gender was coded as female = 0, male = 1.

436/ASQ, September 1997

.83'
.02'
.75"
.03"
.33
.01
.I3
.OO

Citizenship Behavior

gender to illustrate the general pattern of results for the various moderator variables identified in our analyses.
Traditionality. As table 5 shows, traditionality significantly
moderated 12 of the 20 relationships between justice and
citizenship behavior. The strongest effect was found for distributive and interactional justice, in which w e found significant moderating effects of traditionality for four out of the
five citizenship behavior dimensions. The signs for the significant beta coefficients were all negative, indicating consistently that the lower the score on traditionality, the stronger
the relationship between justice and citizenship behavior. To
interpret the findings, w e divided the sample into high and
low traditionality groups, based on a mean split, and plotted
the relationship between distributive justice and citizenship
behavior accordingly. Figure 1 depicts a typical significant
interaction effect. The relationship between distributive justice and conscientiousness citizenship behavior was stronger
for the low traditionality group ( r = .30, p < .01) than for the,
high traditionality group ( r = .06, n. s.). These results are consistent with hypothesis I a.
Figure 1. Distributive justice and conscientiousness relationship by
traditionality.

4.6

}
2.74

3.47
Distributive Justice

4.2

Modernity. Modernity significantly moderated 1 1 of the 20

relationships between justice and citizenship behavior. The
signs for the significant beta coefficients were all positive,
indicating a consistent pattern that the higher the score on
individual modernity, the stronger the justice to outcome relationships. To interpret the findings, w e divided the sample
into high and low modernity groups, based on a mean split,
and plotted the justice-outcome relationships accordingly.
Figure 2 depicts a typical significant interaction effect. The
relationship between distributive justice and conscientiousness was stronger for the high modernity group ( r = .36,
p < .Ol) than for the low modernity group ( r = -.13, n. s.).
These results are consistent with hypothesis I b.
Gender. Consistent with hypothesis 2, gender significantly
moderated 13 of the 20 relationships between organizational
justice and citizenship behavior. The strongest effect was
found on interactional justice. This pattern is presented in
figure 3, which depicts the relationship between distributive
justice and conscientiousness for men and women. The result showed a significant positive relationship for men
437/ASQ, September 1997

Figure 2. Distributive justice and conscientiousness relationship by

modernity.

2.74

3.47
Distributive Justice

4.2

( r = .33, p < ,01) and a negative, nonsignificant one for

women ( r = -.05, n.s.).
Usefulness analysis o f traditionality, modernity, and gender as moderators. Because traditionality, modernity, and
gender were significantly interrelated and sometimes moderated the same justice-citizenship-behavior relationship (e.g.,
the distributive-justice-identification relationship), it was unclear which ones were associated with unique variance in
the tests for moderation. We therefore conducted, a usefulness analysis. For each justice-dimension relationship with
citizenship behavior reported in table 5, w e included all three
moderator effects in the same equation, to see which one
could add uniquely significant variance, using a three-step
process. For example, in the first step in assessing the impact of distributive justice (DJ) on identification with the
company, w e entered all five demographic and control variables (i.e., age, education, tenure, pay satisfaction, and commitment). In the second step, w e entered the main effect
(i.e., distributive justice) and the three moderators (i.e., traditionality, modernity, and gender). In the third step, w e entered three interaction effects, DJ x traditionality,
DJ x modernity, and DJ x gender, and examined the significance of the interaction terms. Table 6 lists the significant
moderators for each combination of the justice dimensions
Figure 3. Distributive justice and conscientiousness relationship by
gender.

-.-

2.74

438/ASQ, September 1997

3.47
Distributive Justice

4.2

Citizenship Behavior

Table 6
Usefulness Analysis of Traditionality, Modernity, and Gender as Moderators on Organizational Justice and
Organizational Citizenship Behavior Relationship ( N = 206)*
Identification

Distributive justice
Interaction

Gender
(I .I I")
Traditionality
(-.70')

Participation

Appeal mechanism

Altruism

Conscientiousness

Gender
(.75')
Traditionality
(-.85")
Gender
(.71")
Traditionality
(-.74')
Traditionality
(-.74')
Gender
(.37')

Traditionality
(-.73')
Gender
(.62')
Traditionality
(-.70')
Modernity
(.81)
Traditionality
(-.65')

Harmony

Protecting resources

Gender
(. 99"'
Traditionality
(-.64')
Gender
(. 53')
Gender
(.52')

Traditi9pality
(-1.10 )
Gender
(.99")
Gender
(.80")

'p < .05; *'p < . O l ; one-tailed tests.

* Significant moderators are listed in the respective cell entry. The number in parentheses is the beta coefficient for the significant
interaction terms listed in the cell. The modernity interaction was significant for the supervisor interaction-protecting resources relationship, but its sign was the opposite of the predicted effect, suggesting a suppresser effect.

and citizenship behavior. Blank cell entries indicate that none

of the interactions were significant.
Table 6 reveals that out of the 20 relationships between justice and citizenship behavior, traditionality was a significant
moderator for nine cases, gender for ten cases, and modernity for only one case. Clearly, traditionality and gender were
unique moderators, but modernity was not.

DISCUSSION
The organizational citizenship behavior scale w e developed in
our first study produced some striking results when w e used
it to survey supervisors and subordinates in our second
study. The measures of distributive and interactional justice
were consistently related to the various dimensions of citizenship behavior. Results showed a significant relationship
for low traditionality or male employees and a weak or nonsignificant relationship for high traditionality or female employees. These results suggest that employees who perceive their interactions within an organization as recognized
and legitimate are more likely to engage in citizenship behavior. This finding is consistent with Van Dyne, Graham, and
Dienesch's (1994) argument that if a covenantal (or what w e
refer to as an expressive) relationship exists, citizenship behavior is more likely to occur. For less traditional, or male,
Chinese, justice perceptions likely stimulate citizenship behavior through the formation of a covenantal relationship of
employee to organization. Traditionalists, or women, however, are likely to have an expressive tie to their organization
based on role expectations in society. These preexisting
roles exist, in part, because of wu-lun, or the values people
have come to endorse through socialization concerning their
role in society. An expressive tie leading to citizenship behavior is not dependent on justice perceptions for traditionalists or women; rather, the tie flows from prior socialization
and role expectations. If expressive ties do not already exist
by virtue of cultural values, social structure, or gender-based
439/ASO, September 1997

socialization, justice perceptions will be related to citizenship

behavior to the extent that they create an attachment between the employee and the organization (Lind and Tyler,
1988).
Results were less powerful for the cultural value of modernity. Modernity moderated the relationship between citizenship behavior and the participative facet of procedural justice
and distributive justice, as predicted, but few other consistencies were observed. This may have occurred for several
reasons, including an improper specification of the cultural
moderator or insufficient variation associated with this construct. The variances reported in table 4 suggest that restricted range is not a likely problem, given that the standard
deviation for both cultural variables was roughly the same.
Still, the strength of modernity as a moderator might be generally weak, in which case more cross-culturally divergent
sampling might have produced a stronger, and more consistent, set of results. Another possibility is that the theory is
misspecified. Modernity and its emphasis on egalitarianism
and open-mindedness is not strongly related to expressive
relationships. An emphasis on equality among people does
not necessarily mean that an instrumental rather than an expressive form of relationship is likely to occur. Perhaps other
aspects of modernity (e.g., self-reliance) might have proven
to be more useful moderating variables.
These results suggest there is an important limitation to the
mediating role of a covenantal tie in the relationship between citizenship behavior and organizational and individual
factors, namely, that the nature of social ties within a society
influences the display of extra-role employee behavior. Some
researchers have argued that organizational influences (e.g.,
perceptions of a just pay system) affect citizenship behavior
by creating covenantal ties between employee and employer
(Organ, 1990; Van Dyne, Graham, and Dienesch, 1994). If
this were the case, w e would expect that the general level
of citizenship behavior engaged in by both traditionalists and
nontraditionalists would be related to their perceptions of
organizational justice. Our findings do not necessarily contradict Van Dyne, Graham, and Dienesch's model, because traditionalists, and Taiwanese women, may already have a covenantal form of relationship with their organization, and, so,
distributive and procedural justice does not predict engagement in citizenship behavior. But it is also possible that the
existing role identities within a traditional Chinese context
are a substitute for an expressive or covenantal relationship.
Based on their social roles and norms for behavior, they do
not need a covenantal relationship to engage in citizenship
behavior.
An additional finding on procedural justice is that procedural
justice in the form of supervisor behavior (interactional justice) is more important than the more formal aspects of justice, such as appeal mechanism and the opportunity to participate. These findings are consistent with the Chinese
tradition of personalism (also referred to as particularism),
which describes the tendency to use personal criteria and
relationships as a basis for decision making and action. Personalism is much stronger in Taiwan than it is in most Western countries. When this aspect of culture manifests itself in
440/ASO, September 1997

Citizenship Behavior

procedural justice, it is not surprising that interaction

emerges as a central component of justice.

A complementary interpretation of these results involves distinguishing between low and high fairness. Under conditions
of high fairness, traditionality and modernity appear to have
little discriminating capacity for the amount of citizenship behavior a person engages in (see figures 1 and 2, above). This
is not the case for conditions of low fairness, when levels of
traditionality or modernity discriminate the amount of citizenship behavior displayed. In this sense, a covenantal relationship, characteristic of people who endorse high traditionality
or low modernity, may buffer people from low fairness so
that they continue to display citizenship behaviors.
Our studies make at least t w o important methodological
contributions. First, w e used an iterative procedure of item
generation and testing to develop an indigenous scale of citizenship behavior that yielded several context-specific (emic)
dimensions focused on smoothing interpersonal relationships. In Chinese society, there is an emphasis on relationships and on avoiding confrontations, as well as devotion to
one's in-group and organization (Bond and Hwang, 1987).
This emphasis is captured by several of our citizenship behavior dimensions. In addition, although the Chinese sample
w e surveyed had several of the citizenship behavior dimensions found in the U. S., this does not mean that organizational citizenship behavior is an "etic," or universal construct
(Brett et al., 1997). For the sample w e studied, the emic dimensions were also significant and accounted for a larger
proportion of variance than the universal dimensions.
Second, our studies represent a new style of conducting
"cross-cultural" research. Many researchers equate crosscultural with cross-national, or comparative, methods (e.g.,
Hofstede, 1980). For example, it is common for researchers
to measure cultural values using individuals' responses,
which are then aggregated according to criteria such as nationality (e.g., Thai versus Canadian) or another diversity
characteristic (e.g., black versus white). Obviously, this type
of categorization does not require direct interaction among
members of the culture (Rohner, 1984). What is presumed
by this approach is that people exposed to a common environmental setting (e.g., being raised in the United States or
Germany) develop a shared understanding of the world
around them, share specific values, and can be distinguished
from others who do not share these values. This style of
study is illustrated in a recent paper by Wagner (1995), who
used a single-nation sample (U. S.) to explore variations in
the cultural dimension of individualism-collectivism. Thus, the
term "cross-cultural" has been used to depict differences in
individuals' values about cultural dimensions, regardless of
whether they are co-acting or have a common nationality.
What is critical to our perspective are the views that people
have about the world around them. A researcher can compare people who endorse a given cultural value or belief with
those holding contrasting values or beliefs to establish crosscultural comparisons. In our study, w e assessed two cultural
dimensions at an individual-level of analysis using their natural variability within Taiwan. As described by Earley and Mosakowski (1995), this procedure has the advantage of di441/ASQ, September 1997

rectly connecting the hypothesized, cultural moderators to

other constructs in the nomological network because it measures the relative degree of value endorsement (extent of
sharedness). By contrast, a simple aggregation method presumes that all cultural members share a given perspective
equally and identically. Analyses conducted at an individual
level treat cultural dimensions as quasi-individual-difference
characteristics and thus capture variations among people.
Our research is also cross-cultural in the more traditional
sense, in that w e contrast our findings with Western research in a number of ways, and there is an underlying, implicit cross-cultural comparison throughout our study of
Western and Chinese organizational citizenship behavior.
In traditional societies, such as might be found in developing
countries within the Pacific Rim (e.g., Indonesia, Vietnam),
citizenship behavior will not necessarily be enhanced by introducing more "just" human resource practices. More fundamental in these cultures are employees' basic relationships with their organizations and their expectations of their
organizations. We are not suggesting that these relationships
cannot be improved through the provision of procedurally
just human resource practices, but, as Van Dyne, Graham,
and Dienesch (1994) and others have recently argued, what
matters is the nature of relationships and ties in a culture,
not simply the enactment of specific organizational practices.
What remains unclear is how the continuing evolution of
these societies, many undergoing radical economic transformations, may influence these relationships in the future.
With industrialization and economic growth will employeeorganization relationships inevitably shift from a culturally
covenantal form to a market form? The extent to which
these forms of ties will change as a function of the surrounding economic conditions is not fully understood. Without question, changes in these societies will induce changes
in people's relationships with their organizations, and these
changes will reflect themselves in new and different styles
of work behavior based on citizenship principles. W e will understand these changes better if w e understand the complex relationships that govern behavior now.
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