HOW DO COWORKERS MATTER? EXAMINING INFLUENCES ON PEERS’ ROLE DEFINITIONS, ATTITUDES, OCBs, AND PERFORMANCE
Open Access
- Author:
- Chiaburu, Dan S.
- Graduate Program:
- Business Administration
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 15, 2009
- Committee Members:
- David Harrison, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
David Harrison, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Linda K Trevino, Committee Member
Kelly A Klinger, Committee Member
Jeanette N Cleveland, Committee Member - Keywords:
- performance
coworkers
OCBs - Abstract:
- I examined how coworker actions, conceptualized based on their content (affective and instrumental) and valence (positive and negative), influence their peers’ role perceptions, attitudes and intentions, and behavioral outcomes. First, I found support for a typology of coworker behaviors, described as facilitation (instrumental) and boosting (affective) on the positive behavior side and obstruction (instrumental) and belligerence (affective) as negative behaviors using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Empirical data based on 314 employees in a medical organization were used to connect these coworker actions with their colleagues’ role perceptions (role ambiguity and role conflict), work attitudes and intentions (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to quit), and individual work behaviors (knowledge-sharing, task and contextual performance). Based on empirical tests using relative weights (indices), negative coworker behaviors (obstruction and belligerence) predicted colleagues’ attitudes (job satisfaction and commitment) and behaviors (task performance, knowledge-sharing, and individual-directed organizational citizenship behaviors). Positive behaviors of an affective nature (coworker boosting) were the main drivers of intention to quit and organization-directed citizenship behaviors. Contextual factors (task interdependence and status disadvantage) did not modify the direct relationships between coworker actions and their peers’ outcomes. Conversely, individual differences in colleagues’ agreeableness and self-efficacy acted as moderators. Agreeableness buffered the negative influence of coworker obstruction on colleagues’ job satisfaction and intention to quit. Self-efficacy attenuated the negative relationship between coworker negative actions and task performance, between coworker obstruction and colleagues’ job satisfaction and their individual-directed citizenship behaviors, and between coworker boosting and organization-directed citizenship.