Journal of Applied Psychology Copyright 1998 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

1998, Vol. 83, No. 6, 922-931 0021-9010/98/$3.00

The Role of Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Turnover:

Conceptualization and Preliminary Tests of Key Hypotheses

Xiao-Ping Chen Chun Hui and Douglas J. Sego

Indiana University Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

The authors conceptualized levels of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) perfor-

mance as a behavioral predictor of employee turnover and empirically examined the
strength of this relationship. Data were collected from 205 supervisor-subordinate dyads
across 11 companies in the People's Republic of China. The results provided considerable
support for the hypothesis that supervisor-rated OCB was a predictor of subordinates'
actual turnover. In particular, subordinates who were rated as exhibiting low levels of
OCB were found to be more likely to leave an organization than those who were rated
as exhibiting high levels of OCB. The authors also found that the self-report turnover
intention was a predictor of turnover, but this relationship did not hold for 2 companies.
The explanations and implications of these findings are discussed.

Employee turnover has received much theoretical and
empirical attention in organizational behavior and human
resource management studies for several decades (Dai-
ton & Todor, 1987; Horn & Griffeth, 1995; March &
Simon, 1958; McEvoy & Cascio, 1987; Mobley, 1977;
P. C. Smith, Kendall, & Hulin, 1969). Early research on
turnover focused on the identification of different anteced-
ents to turnover (Mobley, 1977; Muchinsky & Morrow,
1980; Steers & Mowday, 1981), and many conceptual
models have been proposed to describe the employee ter-
mination-decision process. For example, some models
emphasize the central role of job affects such as job satis-
faction and organizational commitment in determining
turnover intention and turnover (Mowday, Porter, &
Steers, 1982; Price & Mueller, 1986); some models em-
phasize the importance of cognitive processes, that is,
comparing the value of costs and benefits of the current
job to one's aspiration level in determining both job affect
and termination decisions (Hulin, Roznowski, & Hachiya,
Xiao-Ping Chen, Department of Management, Indiana Univer-
sity; Chun Hui and Douglas J. Sego, Department of Management
of Organizations, Hong Kong University of Science and Technol-
ogy, Hong Kong, China.
Binding for this project was provided by the Direct Allocation
Grant from the Hainan Institute at the Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology. We thank Orlando Behling, George
Milkovich, and William Mobley for their constructive comments
on a draft of this article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed
to Xiao-Ping Chen, Department of Management, Indiana Univer-
sity, 1309 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, Indiana 47405-1701.
Electronic mail may be sent to xpchen@indiana.edu.
1985; Rusbult & Farrell, 1983; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959).
At the same time, much of the empirical research on
turnover has focused on self-report of turnover intention
as a predictor of turnover (Horn & Griffeth, 1995).
Receiving much less theoretical and empirical attention
is the possible relationship between behavioral anteced-
ents and turnover. Behavioral antecedents are those avoid-
ance behaviors that reduce the inclusion of the individual
in the work role (Katz & Kahn, 1966, 1978), such as
lateness, tardiness, and absenteeism. Furthermore, the re-
search that has been conducted to investigate this relation-
ship has not proved to be very promising. Indeed, the
majority of the studies conducted have not shown lateness,
absenteeism, or tardiness to be good predictors of turnover
(Benson & Pond, 1987; Miller, 1981,1982; Rosse, 1988).
Perhaps the reason that these forms of avoidance-with-
drawal behavior are not good predictors of turnover is
that they are not discretionary; that is, they are constrained
by the organization, are part of the organizational reward
system, or both. However, if one expands the definition
of avoidance and withdrawal behaviors to include behav-
iors that are discretionary in nature and are not necessarily
expected as part of the employee's formal organizational
role, one may find much stronger relationships between
avoidance-withdrawal behaviors and turnover than pre-
viously demonstrated.
One form of discretionary behavior that employees
might decide to withhold when they become disillusioned
or dissatisfied with the organization is their extrarole be-
haviors or organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs).
Rosse and Miller (1984) have pointed out that dissatisfied
employees would experiment with avoidance responses

922
 OCB AND TURNOVER
that have the fewest negative consequences. OCBs are
"the behaviors of a discretionary nature that are not part
of employees' formal requirements" (Organ, 1988, p. 4),
so exhibiting low levels of OCB will have no direct impact
on employees' monetary payoffs or living conditions.
Therefore, a person's lack of willingness to exhibit such
behaviors may indicate his or her withdrawal from the
organization. For example, although an employee who is
disengaging from the organization (for whatever reason)
might not reduce his or her in-role performance (because
these are not really discretionary), he or she might decide
to reduce the amount of "citizenship" behaviors they
perform (because they are discretionary in nature).
Although OCB is discretionary and not directly or ex-
plicitly recognized by the formal reward system, employ-
ees sometimes do exhibit this type of behavior. High levels
of OCB may be a result of job satisfaction, organizational
commitment, or both (for a review, see Organ & Ryan,
1995) because commitment can be viewed as "binding
to action" (Salancik, 1983); or they may be a result of
strong intention to obtain good performance evaluations,
because extrarole performance may influence employees'
overall performance evaluations (Podsakoff & MacKen-
zie, 1994; Podsakoff, McKenzie, & Hui, 1993) and deci-
sions about their promotion, training, and compensation
(Park & Sims, 1989). No matter what the underlying
reason is, it is conceivable then that low levels of OCB
indicate a low level of commitment (or involvement) in
the organization, and, moreover, for those who think of
exhibiting OCB as a "prepayment" for eventual good
treatment, low levels of OCB will be especially useful in
predicting their turnover because they will be loath to
"write o f f ' ' that investment if they do not have the inten-
tion to leave.
OCB has been studied extensively as a dependent vari-
able in examining its relationship with transformational
leadership (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Bommer, 1996),
job affect (Bateman & Organ, 1983), and dispositional
characteristics (Barrick & Mount, 1991). However, it has
not been integrated as an important component in research
on turnover. We attempted, in this study, to conceptualize
behavioral antecedents to turnover in terms of low levels
of OCB and then to examine its predictive power on em-
ployees' actual turnover. Specifically, we examined
whether employees who exhibit low levels of OCB are
more likely to leave an organization than those who ex-
hibit high levels of OCB.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Turnover
As mentioned earlier, we expect a stronger relationship
between OCB and turnover than between other with-
drawal behaviors and turnover because OCB is discretion-
923
ary. In addition, there are several other reasons why low
levels of OCB are better manifestations of behavioral
withdrawal than absenteeism, lateness, or tardiness. First,
OCB has a generalized value and significance that cuts
across different jobs and work organizations (Borman &
Motowidlo, 1993), whereas absenteeism, lateness, or tar-
diness are more likely to be constrained by limitations of
ability or by work processes that can vary from job to
job and from organization to organization. Second, OCB
represents a class of behaviors that relate to many aspects
of employees' work lives (Bateman & Organ, 1983),
whereas absenteeism, lateness, or tardiness stand as single
behaviors that may not represent a specific manifestation
of a more general underlying construct of withdrawal
(Hulin, 1991; Rosse & Hulin, 1985; Rosse & Miller,
1984). Finally, some aspects of OCB (e.g., conscientious-
ness) seem to be related to absenteeism, tardiness, or
lateness. Thus, it is also possible that OCB is a "better"
predictor of turnover because it includes absenteeism, tar-
diness, and lateness and other behaviors as well.
OCB has multifaceted manifestations. For example, one
type of OCB—altruism—is the act of helping others on
work-related matters. Another type of OCB is conscien-
tiousness, or the willingness to perform beyond the mini-
mal requirement in the areas of attendance, taking breaks,
and working overtime. These behaviors reflect employees'
willingness to be actively involved in, or to be part of,
the organization from different aspects. Therefore, levels
of OCB imply the distance an employee would like to
keep between himself or herself and the organization: The
lower the level of OCB, the larger the distance; conse-
quently, the lower the level of OCB, the higher the likeli-
hood of turnover.
The relationship between OCB and turnover has not
been well documented empirically. Although Rosse and
Hulin (1985) included a group of avoidance behaviors
(some of them appeared to be similar to OCBs) in their
study, they conceptualized these behaviors only as reac-
tions to job dissatisfaction and thus did not examine their
impact on turnover. Indirect evidence is found in a study
by Wells and Muchinsky (1985), in which they found
that supervisors rated employees who quit their organiza-
tions as less reliable and less dependable than those who
were promoted. Although Wells and Muchinsky did not
define the concepts of reliability and dependability, they
appear to be more like extrarole than in-role characteris-
tics. In fact, this concept is similar to one type of OCB—
conscientiousness. These findings suggest that OCB is
negatively related to actual turnover.
On the basis of the theoretical linkage and suggestive
empirical relationship between OCB and turnover, we hy-
pothesized that OCB is a direct predictor of turnover:
Employees who exhibit low levels of OCB are more likely
924 CHEN, HUI, AND SEGO
to leave an organization than those who exhibit high levels
of OCB.
Turnover Intention, Organizational Citizenship
Behavior, and Turnover
To examine the predictive power of OCB on turnover,
it is important to examine the relationship between OCB
and turnover intention, because turnover intention has
been assumed and found to be the only antecedent having
a direct effect on actual turnover (Coverdale & Terborg,
1980; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1974; Michaels & Spector, 1982;
Miller, Katerberg, & Hulin, 1979; Mobley, 1977; Mobley,
Homer, & Hollingsworth, 1978; Mowday, Koberg, &
McArthur, 1984). After reviewing the literature on em-
ployee turnover processes, Mobley, Griffeth, Hand, and
Meglino (1979) concluded that "behavioral intentions to
stay or leave are consistently related to turnover behav-
ior" (p. 505). Indeed, turnover intention has consistently
been demonstrated to have a significant and positive rela-
tionship with turnover, with the average coefficient being
+.38 (Carsten & Spector, 1987). On the other hand, such
a relationship has not been found between different types
of withdrawal behavior (such as lateness and voluntary
absence) and actual turnover (Miller, 1981, 1982). We
argue that the lack of such a relationship is due to the
fact that (a) these behaviors are constrained by the organi-
zational reward system or by the work process and (b)
they affect employees' monetary payoff. However, when
we use OCB as an index of measuring behavioral with-
drawal, these limitations will be removed. Moreover, lev-
els of OCB reflect employees' true willingness regarding
how much they want to be involved in, or how much they
like to be distant from, the organization. The lower the
levels of OCB, the stronger the indication of the unwilling-
ness of the employee to be part of the organization, and
thus the higher possibility that the employee would leave
the organization. If turnover intention is the attitudinal
indication of staying or leaving, OCB is the behavioral
indication. Therefore, we hypothesized that in addition to
turnover intention, OCB is a direct predictor of turnover.
Method
Sample
The sample for this study was composed of 205 leader-
subordinate dyads. Data were collected from middle-level man-
agers and technical workers in 11 companies in Hainan Prov-
ince, a southern province in the People's Republic of China that
has witnessed considerable economic growth in recent years.
These companies manufacture diversified products from con-
struction materials to computer diskettes to bottled mineral wa-
ter. Among them, 4 were joint ventures and 7 were locally owned
enterprises (none of them were state or government owned).
The sample was 51% male and had a mean age of approximately
28.7 years. Sixty-one percent of the sample were unmarried.
The average job tenure for the sample was 2 years. Short job
tenure is typical of the region because most of these firms had
just recently been established. In this sample, 7% had not com-
pleted high school, 43% had a high school degree, 7% had
attended some college, and the remaining 43% had received a
4-year undergraduate or more advanced degree. This sample
was deemed by the managers to be highly qualified educationally
for the region.
Procedure
Data collection involved one or two personal trips to each
data collection site. During the first trip, we interviewed vice
presidents, managers, and personnel officers of 7 of the 11 com-
panies in the sample to gain a better understanding of the compa-
nies in the study. This was to ensure that a questionnaire relevant
to the sample would be created. During the second trip, we
were there to collect the research data personally because we
had learned from previous experience that in collecting quality
research data in China, the presence of research professionals
is often important.
Questionnaires were distributed personally to each respon-
dent. To assure all respondents that their individual responses
would not be revealed to members of their working unit, we
collected questionnaires immediately after completion. Respon-
dents were asked to identify, to the researchers, who their imme-
diate supervisors were. Researchers then approached these su-
pervisors for the OCB part of the assessment. The supervisors
were also informed that their evaluations would be kept confi-
dential. Three (and 10) months after the survey, each company
was contacted to identify the workers who had left the
organization.
Measures
Responses regarding turnover intention and other perceptions
such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction, job re-
wards, costs, and job alternatives were obtained from partici-
pants. Immediate supervisors of these participants were asked
to evaluate their subordinates' levels of OCB.
All data collection instruments used in the present study were
written in Chinese. To ensure equivalence of the measures in the
Chinese and the English versions, back-translation from Chinese
into English was first performed (Brislin, 1980). The two trans-
lations revealed no substantive differences in the meanings of the
items. Two Chinese judges then personally reviewed all Chinese
translated items to ensure that they would be meaningful to
Chinese participants. Finally, a version of the questionnaire was
sent to the personnel office of the development corporation to
be examined by a local expert. All items were modified to fit
into the 5-point Likert-scale format (1 = extremely disagree, 2
= slightly disagree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree, 4 = slightly
agree, and 5 = extremely agree).
Turnover intention. The 3-item scale from Camman, Fich-
man, Jenkins, and Klesh (1979) was used to measure turnover
intention: (a) "1 often think of leaving the organization," (b)
 OCB AND TURNOVER
"It is very possible that I will look for a new job next year,"
and (c) "If I may choose again, I will choose to work for the
current organization" (reverse coded). The internal consistency
coefficient (a) for this scale was .78.
OCB measures. Low levels of OCB were used as a proxy
for behavioral withdrawal in the present study. We adopted three
of the five OCBs: (a) altruism—discretionary behaviors that
have the effect of helping a specific other person with an organi-
zationally relevant task or problem; (b) conscientiousness—
discretionary behaviors on the part of the employee in the areas
of attendance, obeying rules and regulations, taking breaks, and
so forth; and (c) sportsmanship—willingness of the employee
to tolerate less than ideal circumstances without complaining.
We chose these three types of OCB because, first, altruism
and conscientiousness have been central categories of OCB, as
evidenced by their inclusion in early OCB studies (C. A. Smith,
Organ, & Near, 1983) and by the later demonstration of their
validity in other cross-cultural settings (Farh, Barley, & Lin,
1997), and second, from the discussion we had with some of
the managers and scholars who were familiar with Chinese man-
agement, we found that altruism and conscientiousness, together
with sportsmanship, were deemed as most relevant to the sample
under study.
The items for these three scales were developed by Podsa-
koff, MacKenzie, Moorman, and Fetter (1990). We used their
scale with minor modifications. Specifically, altruism was
measured with three items: (a) helps orient new employees
even though it is not required as part of his or her job, (b)
always is ready to help or to lend a helping hand to those
around him or her, and (c) willingly gives of his or her time
to help others who have work-related problems. Conscien-
tiousness was also measured with three items: (a) is one of
my most conscientious employees, (b) believes in giving an
honest day's work for an honest day's pay, and (c) takes
fewer breaks at work than other employees. Sportsmanship
was measured with five items (all reverse coded): (a) con-
sumes a lot of time complaining about trivial matters, (b)
always finds fault with what the company is doing, (c) is the
classic "squeaky wheel" that always needs greasing, (d)
tends to make "mountains out of molehills," and (e) always
focuses on what's wrong with his or her situation, rather than
the opposite. The internal consistency coefficients (a) for
these three scales were .87, .75, and .69, respectively.
Actual turnover. Actual turnover data (voluntary turnover)
were obtained from company records 3 and 10 months after
the questionnaire survey was completed. The average overall
turnover rate for the 11 organizations included in this study was
7.5% after 3 months and 18% after 10 months.
Control variables. We included age, sex, and job tenure as
biographical control variables in the present study because stud-
ies have shown that these variables are related to turnover (Ar-
nold & Feldman, 1982; Marsh & Mannari, 1977; Rhodes, 1983;
Werbel & Bedeian, 1989). We also included job satisfaction,
organizational commitment, job rewards, job investments, and
job alternatives as another set of control variables because they
have been identified as two types of antecedents (attitudinal
antecedents that include job satisfaction and organizational com-
mitment and calculative antecedents that include job rewards,
925
job investments, and job alternatives) that are related to turnover
(cf. Horn & Griffeth, 1995). Moreover, we treated all of these
variables as control variables because we attempted to test the
effectiveness of OCB in predicting actual turnover, in addition
to the effects these variables may have on employees' turnover
behaviors.
Job satisfaction. In general, there are two types of job satis-
faction measures: facet and overall. To simplify the question-
naire, we used an overall measure in the form of a single item:
"All things considered, I am satisfied with my current job."
Prior research has shown that the validity of this 1-item general
job satisfaction measure is comparable to that of facet measures
involving multiple items such as the Minnesota Satisfaction
Questionnaire (MSQ; e.g., Scarpello & Campbell, 1983).
Organizational commitment. Organizational commitment
was measured by adapting the 18-item scale developed by Porter,
Steers, Mowday, and Boulian (1974). The three items on inten-
tions to leave were excluded because we had a separate measure
for turnover intention. This scale was designed to assess an
employee's identification with, and involvement in, an organiza-
tion. Previous research (e.g., Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1979)
has demonstrated that this scale possesses adequate psychomet-
ric properties, and the data pertaining to its reliability and valid-
ity are generally positive. The internal consistency coefficient
(a) for this scale was .87.
Job rewards. Job rewards refer to the positives and negatives
associated with a job. hi the present study, this variable was mea-
sured with three items adopted from the Rusbult and Farrell (1983)
study. These three items were (a) "AH things considered, there
are many good thing associated with my job," (b) "hi general,
my job is very rewarding," and (c) "This job has more positive
aspects than most people have at their places of employment."
The internal consistency coefficient (a) for this scale was .60.
Job investment. Job investment refers to an employee's in-
put into the job and was operationalized using very general
terms. It was measured with two items adopted from Rusbult
and Farrell (1983): (a) "In general, I put a lot into my job"
and (b) "In general, I have invested a lot into my job." The
internal consistency coefficient (a) for this scale was .69.
Job alternative. Job alternative refers to the assessment of
the ease of movement and the favorability of job alternatives.
Although many researchers treat ease of movement (job mobil-
ity) and perceived job alternative as two separate concepts, our
factor analysis revealed that both loaded on the same factor.
Thus, job alternative was measured with six items adapted from
Rusbult and Farrell (1983) to fit the local context: (a) "If I
want, it will be easy for me to find another job near my present
employer"; (b) "If I want, it will be easy for me to find a job
anywhere on Hainan Island"; (c) "If I want, it will be easy
for me to find a job anywhere in mainland China"; (d) "In
general, my alternatives are much better compared to my current
job"; (e) "All things considered, my alternatives to this job
are excellent"; and ( f ) "My alternatives are much better com-
pared to my ideal way of occupying my time." The internal
consistency coefficient (a) for this scale was .70.
Results
The first step in the analyses was to examine the psy-
chometric properties of the scales used in the present
926 CHEN, HUI, AND SEGO
study. Second, we created an aggregate variable of OCB
because we wanted to examine the effects of overall OCB
on actual turnover. This summed scale was developed by
aggregating the three types of OCB into one single index,
which was accomplished by averaging the scores of altru-
ism, conscientiousness, and sportsmanship. In addition,
the three types of OCB were treated discretely in separate
analyses to tease out their differential impact.
Table 1 presents the mean, standard deviation, reliabil-
ity coefficient, and correlations of all the variables used
in the present study. An examination of this table indicates
that the reliability for the scales ranged from a low of
around .60 to a high, for most scales, above .70. Because
the results of the turnover data after 3 and 10 months
were almost identical in our analysis, we used the turnover
data after 10 months as the actual turnover index. An
examination of the zero-order correlations indicated that
(a) overall OCB was negatively related to actual turnover
(r - — .28, p < .01), (b) turnover intention was positively
related to turnover ( r = . 1 5 , p < . 0 5 ) , and (c) turnover
intention was negatively related to OCB (r = -.17, p
< .05). In sum, zero-order correlations provide general
support for our hypotheses that OCB and turnover inten-
tion are both related to actual turnover.
To examine the relationship between overall OCB and
actual turnover more rigorously, we conducted a logistic
regression analysis, with actual turnover as the dependent
variable, and turnover intention, overall OCB, and all of
the control variables as the independent variables. Results
of the analysis are reported in Table 2. A closer examina-
tion of the beta coefficients indicates that the three vari-
ables—job tenure, turnover intention, and OCB—had
significant effects on actual turnover. Specifically, em-
ployees who worked longer in the organizations were
more likely to leave1 (ft - .36, p < .05), employees who
had stronger intentions to leave were more likely to quit
(ft = 1.07, p < .05), and employees who exhibited low
levels of OCB were more likely to leave the organization
(/? = -2.36, p < .001). These results provide support
for our hypothesis that turnover intention, as well as OCB,
are predictors of actual employee turnover.
To observe the patterns of the three types of OCB exhib-
ited by employees who stayed and by those who left, we
examined supervisors' ratings of their subordinates by
dividing them into two categories: turnover versus no turn-
over. We performed a multivariate analysis of covariance,
with turnover versus no turnover as the independent vari-
able, all of the control variables and turnover intention as
covariates, and the three types of OCB as the dependent
variables. This analysis was not to show a causal relation-
ship between turnover and OCB; rather, it was to reveal
the patterns of the three types of OCB in the turnover
and no turnover conditions. The Bartlett-Box tests for the
homogeneity of variance for the three types of OCB across
turnover and no turnover conditions were all insignifi-
cant, indicating that the variance of these OCBs did not
differ significantly across turnover versus no turnover
conditions.
Results of the analysis showed that the multivariate test
of the effects was significant across all indices (i.e., the
Pillais test, Hotelling's T, Wilks's A, and Roy's test).
For example, Hotelling's T, a commonly used multivariate
statistic, had the value of F(3, 177) = 8.25, p < .001.
Separate univariate tests indicated that the levels of all
three types of OCB differed significantly between the
turnover and no turnover conditions. Specifically, the level
of altruism was higher in the no turnover (M = 3.69)
than in the turnover condition (M = 2.94), F(l, 179) =
10.93, p < .001; the level of conscientiousness was higher
among those who stayed (M = 3.80) than among those
who left (M = 3.36), F(l, 179) - 4.84, p < .001; and
the level of sportsmanship was higher for the nonquitters
(M = 3.82) than for the quitters (M = 3.40), F(1, 179)
= 7.47, p < .01. These results further support our hypoth-
esis that employees who exhibit low levels of OCB are
more likely to leave an organization than those who ex-
hibit high levels of OCB.
Because the 205 subordinate-supervisor dyads were
from 11 companies, we created 10 dummy variables to
retest the effects to control for unmeasured differences
among organizations that may impact the dependent vari-
ables. First, a logistic regression analysis was conducted on
actual turnover using the 10 dummy variables, all of the
control variables, and the two variables—turnover intention
and OCB—as the independent variables. The results indi-
cate that OCB was a significant predictor of actual turnover
(ft = —2.64, p < .001), but turnover intention was no
longer a significant predictor (ft = 0.67, ns). A further
examination of the results indicates that the lack of signifi-
cance of turnover intention on actual turnover was due to
two dummy variables (two companies).
Then we conducted a multivariate analysis of covari-
ance using the 10 dummy variables, turnover intention,
and all of the other control variables as the covariates,
turnover versus no turnover as the independent variable,
and the three types of OCB as the dependent variables.
The results were identical to what we obtained without
1
This result may be explained by the fact that the sample we
surveyed was relatively young (the average age was 28.66, with
an average job tenure of 1.85 years). To these people, a few
years of working experience may have given them more confi-
dence about their own knowledge and skills so that they would
like to take the risk of quitting their current job (in the hope of
finding a better one) as the Chinese economy makes the transi-
tion from government control to being market oriented.
 OCB AND TURNOVER 927

the 10 dummy variables: The levels of all three types of

OCB—altruism, conscientiousness, and sportsman-
ship—were significantly lower in the turnover than in the
no turnover situation, F(l, 169) = 5.42, p < .05; F(l,
169) = 15.81,p< .001;andF(l, 169) = 9.67, p < .01,
respectively.
These results again provide support for our hypothesis
that OCB is a valid predictor of employee turnover. More-
over, the results suggest that OCB is an even better pre-
dictor than turnover intention.

Discussion and Conclusions

00 OO OO \D M

The results of the present study provide support for

our hypothesis that OCB has predictive utility regarding
employee turnover. Our results clearly show that employ-
ees who exhibit low levels of OCB are more likely to
leave an organization than those who exhibit high levels
of OCB. The results also show that this relationship held
across the 11 companies investigated, suggesting that
OCB is a valid predictor of employee turnover.
Turnover intention was found to be a predictor of turn-
®_ U-> — O -H 3 00 Q
„ p I-H -H q p 25
over in general, that is, employees who had stronger inten-
tions to leave were more likely to leave than those who
had weaker intentions, which replicated the findings from
most of the other turnover studies (Horn & Hulin, 1981;
Mobley et al., 1978; Mowday et al., 1979). However,
this relationship did not hold for two companies. Further
investigation of the two companies revealed that there
was tension between the management and the workforce
in one company (a joint venture) and in the other com-
pany, some data were collected by the company's repre-
sentative because we could not stay long enough to see
all respondents finish. We suspect that employees in both
SS8S2SSSSSS companies might have been afraid to reveal their true
- - -
intentions either because they chose to give false informa-
)*C'-'^
tion in case this information would be available to the
top management or because they were trying to avoid
possible negative outcomes that would be associated with
people who had such intentions. Another plausible expla-
nation for the inconsistency between turnover intention
and turnover is that the social norm in these two compa-
nies may be contradictory to the "express yourself freely
and honestly" rule assumed by researchers (for a review,
1 see C. F. Yang & Chiu, 1987) and that Chinese behavior

I is more often influenced by situational and relational fac-

tors than internal factors (K. S. Yang, 1981).
The strengths of the present study are threefold. First,
the conceptualization of OCB as a form of employee be-
havioral withdrawal provides a new perspective from
which to study the turnover problem. As discussed earliei;
previous models of turnover have not paid much attention
to the role of behavioral withdrawal, and those few that
928 CHEN, HUI, AND SEGO

Table 2 MacKenzie (1997), Podsakoff and MacKenzie (1997),

Results of the Logistic Regression Analyses and Walz and Niehoff (1996) that demonstrate that OCBs
Actual turnover
are related to organizational effectiveness, especially be-
cause turnover is related to organizational performance
Independent variable SE and effectiveness (cf. Horn & Griffeth, 1995). In addition,
Age -0.04 .05 .00
these findings suggest that future research should examine
Sex -0.08 .47 .00 the effects of OCB on other important organizational out-
Job tenure 0.36* .17 .13 come variables such as improved quality and efficiency,
Job satisfaction 0.42 .32 .00
Org. commitment -0.75
reduced costs, and increased productivity.
.55 .00
Job reward 0.73 .45 .07 Finally, the finding that OCB is a critical determinant
Job investment 0.41 .36 .00 of turnover has practical value for managers in organiza-
Job alternative -0.23 .45 .00
Turnover intention 1.07* .51 .12
tions. On the one hand, managers can observe employees'
OCB -2.36*** .53 -.34 levels of OCB to predict the likelihood of their turnover,
which is easier than knowing their turnover intention; on
Note, n = 190. Org. = organizational; OCB = organizational citizen-
ship behavior.
the other hand, it will be worthwhile for managers to focus
* p < . 0 5 . ***p<.001. on helping to increase subordinates' levels of OCB to get
them involved in organizational activities and subse-
quently to decrease turnover. This practice will be effec-
did pay attention to such withdrawal treated it mainly as tive because according to the cognitive dissonance theory
a reaction to job affect (Hulin, 1991; Rosse & Hulin, (Festinger, 1957), once one is engaged in OCB, one has
1985) or focused on a narrow range of behaviors such as to admit to having positive attitudes toward the organiza-
absenteeism and lateness (Beehr & Gupta, 1978; Herz- tion; and once one has positive attitudes toward the orga-
berg et al., 1957). Our results show that employees' level nization, one will be less willing to leave the organization.
of OCB is a valid predictor of turnover. Second, reports This theory (or reasoning) can find support from the find-
of the three critical components of the study—turnover ings in the behavior-attitude literature ( Aronson & Mills,
intention, OCB, and actual turnover—were all from dif- 1959; Axsom, 1989; Lawler, Kuleck, Rhode, & Sorensen,
ferent sources, thus the results do not suffer from common 1975) and from studies on the relationship between job
method variance problems (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). altitudes and turnover (Horn & Griffeth, 1991; Mowday,
In particular, turnover intention was based on employee Porter, & Steers, 1982).
self-report data, OCB measures were obtained from em- We recognize, however, that there are alternative expla-
ployees' immediate supervisors, and the actual turnover nations for our findings. One alternative explanation is that
data were collected from each company's records after the the different levels of OCB may be caused by individual
survey. The fact that the variance explained by turnover differences. For example, people who score high on the
intention on OCB and the variance explained by OCB on conscientiousness dimension of the Big Five (see Costa &
actual turnover were not from a common method variance MaCrae, 1985) may present higher levels of the conscien-
gives us more confidence about the reliability and validity tiousness OCB. Indeed, some studies have shown that
of our findings. dispositional variables (e.g., affectivity or optimism) in-
Third, these results have significant implications for fluence levels of OCB (Mount, Barrick, & Strauss, 1994),
future research in organizations. The present study exam- although other studies have not demonstrated such effects
ined die relationship between OCB and turnover at the (Organ & Ryan, 1995). Because we did not measure these
individual level. That is, it examined the relationship be- personality variables in this study, the alternative explana-
tween OCB and turnover by the individuals who exhibit tion cannot be excluded entirely. However, the Big Five
these OCBs. However, another interesting question to ex- measures personality whereas OCB measures behaviors;
amine is the relationship between OCB and turnover at hence, even though they are related, these two concepts
the group or organizational level. For example, we may are rooted in different domains.
expect that groups (or organizations) that have higher Another point worth discussing is the sample used in
levels of OCB will have lower levels of turnover because this study. People may argue that these findings are subject
interactions among employees who exhibit high levels of to cultural factors and thus are not likely to be generalized.
OCB are likely to foster group attractiveness and cohesive- Virtually any study conducted in a specific setting has
ness and subsequently to decrease voluntary turnover. this problem. For example, findings from a sample of
Moreover, the finding that OCB is related to turnover nurses may be difficult to generalize to a sample of steel
appears to complement the recent research findings re- workers, and findings from North American organizations
ported by Karambayya (1989), Podsakoff, Ahearne, and may be difficult to generalize to Southern Chinese organi-
 OCB AND TURNOVER
zations. We contend, however; that this should not under-
mine the theoretical contribution and practical implication
of our findings, although, at the same time, we suggest a
test of the boundary conditions of our findings because
we believe that generalizability of findings from one cul-
ture to another is important in application, especially as
organizations are becoming less and less constrained by
national or geographical boundaries.
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