The culture heritage on OCB - a life case study between China and Sweden

Abstract: The thesis is devoted to explore the different performance of OCB by Chinese and Swedish employees caused by the difference of national culture. It tries to answer three questions 1). Is OCB a feasible concept to evaluate a good employee? 2). Are there any OCB differences in China and Sweden, and what are they? and 3). Does national culture has impact on OCB, and how? This thesis used an in-depth interview method to collect the raw materials of ten interviewees from the same transnational company, five in each country, to see how people perceive the concept of OCB and national culture. The major discoveries of this study are 1). People from different country have different expectations on "good employee" and also have different ideas of OCB so that the connotation of OCB varies in different countries and . 2).National culture of China and Sweden is very different. The analysis between the expectation on "good employee" and OCB shows that some OCB dimensions are suitable in both countries but some items need to change for adaptation. Also the different national culture affects people's mindset and behaviors so that indirectly affect OCB performances in workplace. The high power distance and individualism along with the masculinity of Chinese national culture make Chinese employees perform less good on Society and Group level of OCB. Therefore knowing the different on OCB in different country, managers could know what to expect from their employees and knowing the national culture's effect on employees' performance of OCB, managers could try to enforce certain behaviors of OCB by creating a stronger corporate culture to compensate the national one.