Exploring Antecedents of Citizenship Behaviors in a Swedish Energy Company: A Mixed Methods Approach

Abstract: This thesis was aimed to explore the occurrence and antecedents to two types of citizenship behaviors, Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and Office Housework (OH), within a Swedish energy company. We adopted a mixed method design, with an initial qualitative study (focus groups) exploring the participants’ perceptions of citizenship behavior within the organization. A thematic analysis of the transcripts provided insights into the organizational culture, which was described as progressive, positive and gender equal. The results revealed citizenship behaviors aligning with both OCB and OH, and provided notions for gender, personality, organizational tenure, recognition from leaders, recognition and community building between coworkers, and role clarity, as important factors for engaging in citizenship behaviors. In the second step, we related the initial findings from the focus groups to previous research and formulated a quantitative study (survey) that further explored the relationships in a larger sample in the organization. The results from the second study showed individual characteristics to be the most important factors for engaging in OCB, whilst individual characteristics combined with workgroups factors were most important for engaging in OH. Overall, the personality trait of extroversion had the strongest impact across models and measurements. Taken together we found important differences in antecedents to OCB and OH. In addition, we provided a better understanding of citizenship behaviors in the specific context and added to preexisting literature.