ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR IN INDIA:

DEVELOPMENT OF A SCALE
Kuldeep Kumar
Arti Bakhshi

ABSTRACT
There has been increasing research in the field of a class of discretionary and
spontaneous behaviors that are beyond explicit role requirements, but that are essential
for organizational effectiveness. Smith et al. (1983) conceptualized these contributions
as ‘Organizational Citizenship Behavior’.

Almost all the measures used for measuring OCB are developed in a western cultural
context. The aim of the present study is to develop such a measure for Indian culture.
The research design involves three broad stages: Item generation, scale development
and assessment of reliability and validity of the scale. Full-time employees of various
service organizations participated in the study. It is expected that the scale will serve as
a useful tool for researchers and practitioners in the field of organization behavior.

Keywords: organizational citizenship behavior; reliability; validity; India

INTRODUCTION
From the time when Katz (1964) introduced the concept of a class of discretionary and
spontaneous behaviors that are beyond explicit role requirements, but are essential for
organizational effectiveness, there has been augmented research exploring the nature of such
behavior. Smith et al. (1983), conceptualized these contributions as ‘Organizational
Citizenship Behavior’ (OCB), later defined by Organ 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’ (Organ 1988, p. 4).
Since then, several associated concepts of OCB have been proposed and examined, including
extra-role behavior (Van Dyne et al. 1995; Van Dyne & LePine 1998), civic citizenship
(Graham 1991; Van Dyne et al. 1994), prosocial behavior (Brief & Motowidlo 1986),
organizational spontaneity (George & Brief 1992), and contextual performance (Motowidlo et
al. 1997).

The concept, nature and measurement of OCB has been derived historically from three
sources (Farh et al. 1997). First, is the taxonomy offered by Katz (1964): The taxonomy is
cooperative activities with fellow members, actions protective of the system, creative ideas
for improvement, and self-training for increased individual responsibility. The second source
(Smith et al. 1983) is the dimensions found by interviewing the lower-level managers, which
yielded two major factors: altruism and compliance. The third source is the classic Greek
philosophy that suggests ‘loyalty’ and ‘boosterism’ as significant forms of OCB, but also
argues for the importance of principled dissent from organization practices and challenges to
the status quo (Graham 1991; Van Dyne et al. 1994). The alternative perspectives afforded by

Kuldeep Kumar is a UGC-Junior Research Fellow, P.G. Department of Psychology, University of Jammu, India
(email: kkmalhotra1@yahoo.co.in); Arti Bakhshi (email: artibakhshi@yahoo.com) is an Associate Professor,
P.G. Department of Psychology, University of Jammu, India

International Journal of Organisational Behaviour Volume 14 (1), 14-25 ISSN 1440-5377

© Kuldeep Kumar & Arti Bakhshi
International Journal of Organisational Behaviour Volume 13, No. 1

these sources have, not surprisingly, yielded overlapping but far-from identical categories and
measures of OCB (Farh et al. 2004).

It is worth noting that all of three sources or perspective mentioned above have emerged in
Western, usually North American, cultural context. Not much is known about the
meaningfulness and validity of OCB concepts and categories in other social and cultural
contexts. With the exception of Farh et al. (1997) and Kumar (2005), the current concept of
OCB and its related measures have all been developed in a Western socio-cultural context. It
is not known that the current dimensions of OCB as identified in the Western literature do
exist in other cultures as well. George and Jones (1997) note the importance of contextual
factors as shapers of OCB. Some potentially important contextual factors such as industry,
technology and job function, have been reviewed by Organ and Ryan (1995), but with
inconclusive findings. Such contexts might pervasively condition the nature, meaning, and
importance of various forms of OCB. We do not know whether OCB as we now think of it
would reflect the same dimensionality in a different societal culture or in a different system of
economic organization.

Van dyne et al. (1995) and Podsakof et al. (2000, p. 515) note that the existing literature has
mostly focused upon relationship of OCB with other constructs, rather than focusing upon the
nature of the construct and its measurements per se. Schwab (1980) illustrated that such an
imbalanced approach to research may generate a literature that turns out to be futile in the
long run. Van dyne et al. (1995) also express similar views. Thus, establishing construct
validity of OCB is an important research issue in itself.

Current status of OCB measurement

Various measures of beneficial non-task employee behavior have been used by the
researchers; however, the literature does not offer an extensive evaluation of such measures
(Kumar 2005). Table 1 below lists some of the measures developed in the recent years.

TABLE 1: Measures of OCB developed in recent years

Study Measure used Reliability Validity
reported reported
Van Dyne & Ang Measure developed by Van Dyne and Lepine (1998) Yes Yes
(1998)
Williams, Pitre & Modified version of measure developed by Podsakoff Yes Not stated
Zainuba (2002) And Mackenzie (1989)
Motowidlo & Van Special measure developed for this study by the authors Yes Not stated
Scotter (1994)
Chaitanya & Tripathi Special measure developed for this study by the authors Not stated Not stated
(2001)
Van Dyne & Lepine Adapted measure from Organ and Konovsky (1989), Yes Yes
(1998) Smith et al. (1983), Withey And Cooper (1989)
Van Scotter, Special measure developed for this study by the authors Yes Yes
Motowidlo & Cross
(2000)
Lambert (2000) Adapted measure from Organ and Konovsky (1989), Not stated Not stated
Smith et al. (1983)
Van Dyne, Graham Special measure developed for this study by the authors Yes Yes
& Dienesch (1994)
Kiker & Motowidlo Adapted from Van Scotter and Motowidlo (1996) Yes Not stated
(1999)
Kumar (2005) Special measure developed for this study by the author Yes Yes

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Kuldeep Kumar & Arti Bakhshi Organizational Citizenship Behavior in India:
Development of a Scale

Influence of National Culture on OCB

As discussed, almost all the measures used for measuring OCB are developed in western
cultural context, especially U.S., and culture does influence the conceptualization of specific
behavior that might be considered OCB. Conceptions of what constitutes extra role (or
citizenship) behavior vary across cultures. Lam, Hui and Law (1999) found that a five-factor
structure of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs)—altruism, conscientiousness, civic
virtue, courtesy, and sportsmanship—was replicated in Japan, Australia, and Hong Kong.
However, Japanese and Hong Kong employees were more likely to define some categories of
OCBs (e.g. courtesy, sportsmanship) as part of ‘in role’ performance as compared with
Australian and U.S. employees. Similarly, Farh, Earley and Lin (1997) developed an
indigenous OCB measure in Taiwan and found that although altruism, conscientiousness, and
identification qualified as etic dimensions of OCB, sportsmanship and courtesy were not
found to be part of the OCB construct in the Taiwanese sample. There were also etic
dimensions such as interpersonal harmony and protecting company resources that were not
previously identified in the West. Antecedents of OCBs also vary across cultures. Meyer et al.
(2002) found that normative commitment was more strongly associated with OCBs in non-
Western contexts, whereas affective commitment is particularly important for OCBs in the
United States. Organizational-based self-esteem has been found to mediate the effect of
collectivism on OCBs (Van Dyne et al. 2000). Studies have shown that commitment to one’s
supervisor is a more powerful predictor of OCBs than are organizational attitudes in the
Chinese context (Cheng et al. 2003). Research has also found that fulfilment of psychological
contracts predicts OCBs in non-Western cultures such as China (Hui, Lee & Rousseau 2004)
and Hong Kong (Kickul, Lester & Belgio 2004).

In India, the absence of commercial ground rules comparable to the U.S. economy means that
the organization is vulnerable to capricious enforcement of legal and regulatory codes
(Ahlstrom et al. 2000). The lack of a well-developed and tractable due process system means
that in order to protect itself from such capricious threats to its effectiveness, an organization
must develop external support for its practices and institutional presence. This involves not
only good personal relationships between its top managers and local government leaders, but
also a generalized sense in the community that it is a positive contributor to the welfare of the
locality. This can be done by involvement of the organizations’ employees in both formal and
informal activities benefiting the community. Therefore, we anticipate that an important
component of OCB in India would involve discretionary prosocial gestures by internal staff in
the surrounding community.

Contextual factors, such as organizational culture and job characteristics also impact decisions
to engage in OCBs (Fodchuk, 2007). It also appears that individuals in development focused
organizations might react more favourably to using OCBs than individuals in results-focused
organizations. Similarly, the national culture in which an organization is embedded
(collectivistic versus individualistic) could impact reactions (Gelfand, Erez & Aycan, 2007).

An important form of OCB in U.S. would involve initiatives taken by members to change the
organization. Change initiatives almost invariably invite resistance and conflict. However,
interpersonal conflict is generally not seen as purely negative in the United States. In a highly
collectivist culture such as India, organizational members relate more readily to an in-group
based on extended family, place of origin, or networks of other ties and interests, thus, a
conflict between individual or small groups will escalate to a level that threatens the viability
of the whole organization. Even instances of petty disagreement can, and often do, develop

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into bitter conflict at a major level between in-groups and out-groups, affecting not only
organizational affairs, but also spilling over into the community. Escalation of conflict
presents serious risks. Thus, in India the initiative taken to change the status quo is less likely
to be considered as OCB.

Another implication of cultural collectivism has to do with the more personal forms of OCB.
In North America, the OCB ‘altruism’ or ‘helping’ is defined as assistance given to co-
workers for job related matters—i.e., the help is given to the co-worker because the co-worker
is just that, a colleague defined by work roles. In India, the co-worker is also considered a
friend, neighbour, comrade, and fellow community member and, thus, OCB might well
include assistance on a purely personal level, e.g., helping co-workers with family problems
or dwelling repairs, or ministering to them when they are ill.

Markoczy (2004) argued for the need to distinguish active positive contributions from
avoiding doing harm to others within the concept of organizational citizenship behavior
(OCB). The usefulness of this distinction is demonstrated by showing that avoidance of
harmful behaviors plays a major role in national differences in what is considered to be OCB.

Need for a culturally specific measure

Farh, Earley and Lin (1997) developed an OCB scale for China. However, replication of such
attempts for different cultures/nationalities is needed. Farh et al. (1997) claimed that there are
etic (universal) and emic (culture specific) dimensions of OCB. Lam et al. (1999) found
support for etic/emic distinctions; they report that U.S. and Australian did not differ from their
counterparts in Japan and Hong Kong while rating if etic OCB items formed their expected
role requirements. Paine and Organ (2000) also suggest that different cultures/nations may
interpret or evaluate the OCB differently. They identify individualism-collectivism and power
distance as potential sources of variations in the research findings obtained in US context.
Farh et al. also found that two dimensions of OCB, courtesy and sportsmanship, did not match
with any of the five dimensions of the Chinese OCB developed by them. Studies also indicate
that some measures of OCB developed in North America behave differently in other
countries. In a cross-cultural study, Kwantes (2003, p. 16) reports that published factor
loading pattern (for 19 item OCB scale developed by Moorman & Blakely, 1995) and
obtained loading pattern got significantly correlated for US sample (r = 0.55, p< 0.05), but not
in the case of Indian sample (r= 0.34, p> 0.05).

Only two studies (Chaitanya & Tripathi, 2001; Kumar, 2005) have attempted to develop a
scale for Indian context. Besides the five OCB dimensions suggested by Organ (1988),
Chaitanya and Tripathi (2002, p. 221) suggested an additional dimension ‘display of
voluntary behavior’ distinct from ‘altruism’ dimension of Organ. They argued that all
altruistic behaviors are voluntary, but the converse is not true. The above considerations
strongly suggest that a new OCB measure should be developed for Indian context.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
According to Schwab (1980) there are four stages in the process of scale development.

a) Defining the theoretical construct to be measured

b) Item generation: this stage involves creating items (item writing and item editing) that
are to be used to measure the construct.

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Kuldeep Kumar & Arti Bakhshi Organizational Citizenship Behavior in India:
Development of a Scale

c) Scale development: In this step the response format of the items, as well as the manner
in which the items are combined to form the scale, is decided. Scale development
consists of collecting data with the use of a preliminary form and analysing the data in
order to select items for a more final form.
d) Scale evaluation: in this stage the psychometric properties (reliability and validity) of
the scale is tested.

Defining OCB
The definition of OCB as proposed by Organ (1988) was used for the present study. He
defined OCB 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’ (Organ 1988, p. 4).

Item generation
To develop items to measure OCB, several specific examples of such behaviors were
generated taking cues from existing scales and literature of OCB and OCP. Skilful
interviewing can elicit a wide range of statements about the variable in question (Dawis,
1987). Thus, five managers (commercial banks), four doctors (medical college), two
principals (college), nine employees (three from each organization) participated in several
group discussions to generate items for the purpose of developing scale for measuring OCB.
The items generated by these practitioners were combined with those generated from review
of literature and existing scales. While editing the items, the utmost care was taken to avoid
double-barrelled questions, non-monotonic questions and question using any vague words or
phrases. The combined pool thus generated consisted of 140 items. Out of these 140 items 80
were developed by the practitioners and the remaining 60 were developed from the existing
scales and the review of literature.

Assessment of content validity

To asses the content validity of the combined pool of items generated, these items were
presented to 10 judges (consisting of supervisors, employees, faculty members and Ph.D.
students in advance stages of their research) along with the definition of OCB. These judges
were, therefore, requested to rate the items on the following scale depending on the degree to
which they believe that the given item belongs to the construct of Organizational Citizenship
Behavior:
• Completely disagree (CDA)—If the item does not at all belong to the construct of
Organizational Citizenship Behavior.
• Slightly agree (SLA)—If the item seems to belong to the construct of Organizational
Citizenship Behavior but the agreement is weak.
• Moderately agree (MA)—If the item seems to belong to the construct of
Organizational Citizenship Behavior but the agreement is somewhat stronger.
• Strongly agree (STA)—If you strongly agree that the item belong to the construct of
Organizational Citizenship Behavior.
• Totally agree (TA)—If the item totally belongs to the construct of Organizational
Citizenship Behavior.

On the basis of the above responses, the items receiving more than three complete
disagreements were discarded. It means only those items were included in which 70% of the
judges (7 out of 10) were of the opinion that the item belonged to the construct of OCB to
some degree. Using these criteria top 43 items were retained after validation.

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Scale Format
In choosing a scale format, the general rule might be to choose the simpler format. However,
there are other considerations: More complex formats might make the task of filling out the
scale more interesting for the more experienced or knowledgeable respondent. When rating
response formats are used, more scale points are better than fewer, because once the data are
in, one can always combine scale points to reduce their number, but one cannot increase that
number after the fact (Dawis, 1987). Also, more scale points can generate more variability in
response, a desirable scale characteristic if the response is reliable. Considering the above
arguments, the response choices of the scale used in this study consisted of five points:

Never Rarely Sometimes Frequently Always

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Scale Development
Scale development consists of collecting data with the use of a preliminary form and
analyzing the data in order to select items for a more final form. (‘More final’ is intended to
indicate that the process might have to undergo one or more iterations depending on the
results of the evaluation stage.) It is always useful to conduct a small N pilot study before the
main data collection effort. So the scale was administered to 20 doctors to check out such nuts
and-bolts points as how easily the scale instructions are followed, how well the scale format
functions, how long the scale takes to complete, and especially, how appropriate the scale
items are for the target respondent population. As a rule, the development sample should be
representative of the target respondent population. There can be exceptions, however; for
example, in developing stimulus-centred scales, one could use a sample that is more
homogeneous than samples from the target population. After this first administration of the
test, minor modifications were made in the scale. Only five items were reworded to make
their meaning more clear.

Participants
To collect the data, we recruited the help of four research scholars to distribute the OCB
survey in various organizations. The participants were selected randomly and the final sample
consisted of 98 Indian participants in varied job functions from various sectors such as
banking, medical, education, telecommunication and other private enterprises. Participants
were recruited across organizations, rather than from within one organization, because of
evidence demonstrating that OCB can be a group-level phenomenon (Ehrhart, 2004).
Therefore, choosing all participants from one organization may have resulted in more
similarity in their responses, making the results specific to that organization, rather than
generalizable across organizations.

Their mean age was 34.8 years (SD= 5.4). Among them, 68% were male, 45% were in
supervisory positions, and 54% had at least an undergraduate education. Thus, our sample
was highly diverse, and given the fact that the average number of respondents from each
organization was about fifteen, it is unlikely that any particular industry, technology, or job
function exerted disproportionate weight on the responses of the items generated to measure
OCB.

The organizational citizenship behavior items were randomized so that no particular pattern
within them could exist. As selected items were expected to evoke socially desirable response

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Kuldeep Kumar & Arti Bakhshi Organizational Citizenship Behavior in India:
Development of a Scale

pattern, and the survey was based on self report, checking for socially desirable response
pattern became necessary. In addition to assessment of demographic variables, Short Social
Desirability Scale developed by Crowne and Marlowe was administered with the 43 items
Organizational Citizenship Behavior Inventory (OCBI).

Correlation with Social Desirability Scale

If there is a significant correlation between the responses to a particular item and the
respondents’ total score on social desirability, it indicates the presence of a socially desirable
response pattern for that particular item. 7 items (out of 43) correlated significantly with the
total score of short social desirability scale and these 7 items were excluded from further
analysis. Thus 36 items were retained for further examination of item-total correlation.

Item-total correlation
It is a broader question since it is based on how one item relates to other items that are
expected to be measuring a common construct by finding the correlation of an item to a score
(sum) of the other items. Low correlations mean the item is not a coherent part of a set of
similar questions. Selection of closely knit or highly correlated items with the total score
ensures better reliability for the proposed scale. The item-total correlation found using SPSS
12 showed that three items do not correlate significantly with the total score, thus these three
items were excluded—thus leaving a total of 33 items for further evaluation.

Exploratory factor analysis

To explore the latent dimensions underlying the remaining 33 items these items were factor
analyzed using principal component method. Since the initial factor structure was not clean,
the factors were rotated using orthogonal rotation (Varimax). Six factors having Eigen value
of more than 1 emerged explaining 58.04 of the total variance. The rotated factor matrix is
shown in the table 2 above.

TABLE 2: Rotated Component Matrix

Items I II III IV V VI Communality(h2)

OCB1 0.626 -0.287 0.103 -0.278 -0.169 0.132 0.608123
OCB 2 0.148 -0.114 0.214 -0.756 -0.101 -0.155 0.686458
OCB 3 -0.001 0.223 -0.878 0.011 0.189 0.007 0.856505
OCB 4 -0.394 0.632 0.212 -0.279 0.079 -0.007 0.683735
OCB 5 0.166 0.113 0.029 0.635 -0.055 -0.155 0.471441
OCB 6 0.003 -0.074 -0.674 -0.315 0.275 0.121 0.649252
OCB 8 -0.425 0.234 0.026 0.148 -0.148 0.004 0.279881
OCB 9 -0.1 0.629 -0.099 0.298 -0.259 -0.269 0.707488
OCB 10 0.025 0.106 0.121 .463 0.168 0.073 0.07568
OCB 11 0.643 0.232 0.153 0.289 0.166 0.027 0.602488
OCB 12 0.12 0.197 -0.092 0.782 -0.172 0.115 0.716006
OCB 14 0.027 0.271 0.059 0.223 -0.604 -0.208 0.53546
OCB 15 0.547 -0.123 -0.264 -0.213 -0.389 -0.246 0.64124
OCB 16 0.121 0.133 0.113 0.217 -0.523 0.164 0.392613
OCB 17 -0.054 0.468 0.141 0.229 0.527 -0.178 0.603675
OCB 18 -0.115 0.604 -0.153 0.362 0.125 0.371 0.68576

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Items I II III IV V VI Communality(h2)

OCB 19 0.871 0.163 0.003 0.232 0.219 0.29 0.971104
OCB 20 -0.006 0.744 0.082 -0.026 0.272 0.048 0.63726
OCB 23 0.81 0.189 0.101 0.117 0.198 -0.019 0.755276
OCB 25 0.742 0.264 0.076 0.212 -0.203 0.014 0.712385
OCB 26 0.593 0.036 0.23 0.351 0.258 0.021 0.596051
OCB 27 0.016 0.177 -0.16 0.241 -0.68 0.089 0.585587
OCB 28 0.153 0.657 -0.04 -0.157 0.228 -0.248 0.594795
OCB 29 0.104 0.112 -0.532 0.141 0.205 -0.129 0.384931
OCB 30 0.162 0.165 0.251 0.416 0.023 0.317 0.390544
OCB 31 0.292 0.138 0.082 0.283 -0.109 0.223 0.252731
OCB 32 -0.135 0.189 -0.001 0.289 -0.84 -0.211 0.887589
OCB 33 0.143 0.063 -0.752 0.178 -0.296 0.265 0.779447
OCB 35 0.043 0.856 -0.04 -0.262 -0.226 0.099 0.865706
OCB 37 -0.103 0.174 -0.758 0.107 -0.003 0.072 0.632091
OCB 38 0.105 0.117 0.119 0.029 0.039 0.036 0.042533
OCB 39 0.066 0.241 -0.646 0.125 0.049 0.054 0.699439
OCB 43 0.126 0.124 0.126 0.154 0.244 0.206 0.172816
Variance
(%) 12.40 11.84 10.78 10.31 9.58 3.14 58.04

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser
Normalization.

It has become customary in factor analysis literature for a loading of 0.33 to be the minimum
absolute value to be interpreted. The portion of a variables’ variance accounted for by this
minimum loading is approximately 10%. This criterion, though arbitrary, is being used more
or less by way of convention and, as such, must be kept in view while one reads and interprets
the multivariate research results. However, considering the sample size of 98, a loading of
0.50 was considered significant. All the significant factor loadings are shown in bold
underlined figures. Also the communality for each item is shown in table 3. It can be seen that
three items (31, 38, and 43) do not load significantly on any of the factors, so these items
were deleted from the scale. Nunnally (1967) suggests that a factor should be dropped if none
of the item loads highly (more than 0.70) on it. He argued that in such cases no item
meaningfully represents the factor. Although six factors emerged after rotation the factor VI
was not retained as none of the items loaded significantly (> 0.50) on this factor. The items
loading significantly on their respective factors are shown in table 3.

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Kuldeep Kumar & Arti Bakhshi Organizational Citizenship Behavior in India:
Development of a Scale

TABLE 3: Items loading significantly on their respective factors

Factors Items loading Factor explanation

significantly
I 1,8,11,15,19,23, 25,26 To work beyond the minimum role requirements of the
organization
II 4,9,18,20,28,35 Preventing work-related problems with others
III 3,6,29,33,37,39 Willingness of employees to tolerate less than ideal circumstances
without complaining
IV 2,5,12,30,10 Helping specific other person with an organizationally relevant
task or problem
V 14,16,17,27,32 Participating in group activities
VI None

Using an inductive approach to explore the content domain of OCB in India, we identified
five major OCB dimensions—conscientiousness, helping co-workers, group activity
participation, sportsmanship and courtesy which are similar to those that have been
empirically investigated in the Western OCB literature. This suggests that these five
dimensions have broad applicability across cultures. However, the specific behaviors that
constitute the construct domain of these dimensions are far from identical. For example,
helping co-workers in India includes non-work helping, which is typically not considered part
of altruism in the United States.

Reliability analysis
The reliability of the whole scale was found out to be 0.82. Table 4 provides the reliability
(Chronbach alpha) of the various subscales developed.

TABLE 4: Reliability of various subscales

Subscale Label Reliability

F1 Conscientiousness 0.71
F2 courtesy 0.75
F3 Sportsmanship 0.81
F4 Helping co-worker 0.91
F5 Group activity participation 0.79

Limitations and implications

A number of limitations to this study can be identified. First the issue of common method
variance needs to be considered given the cross-sectional design of the study based on self
report. Meta-analytic studies of these constructs (Meyer et al. 2002; Organ & Ryan 1995)
suggest that studies relying only on self-report may either inflate correlations or, in a cross-
sectional design, might introduce problems of instability in correlations due to situational
moderators. For the assessment of OCB future research should aim at gaining independent
assessments (Bentein et al. 2002; Chen & Francesco 2003) such as the use of either supervisor
rating or direct observation of OCB. Supervisor ratings may similarly suffer from the problem
of a cultural tendency not to criticize, however direct observation would require awareness of
group norms of behavior.

Clearly, the study does not present a direct cultural comparison of Indian and western
interpretations of OCB, however, the solution to this is perhaps not as straightforward as it

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may seem at first sight. Vandenberghe (2003) neatly outlines the difficulties between, on the
one hand, designing appropriately ‘emic’ scales that tap into local construction of the self, and
on the other using ‘etic’ scales that facilitate direct comparison between different groups.
Wasti (1998, 2003) took the route of developing integrated emic-etic measures, which limit
cross-cultural comparison, while the majority of other authors focus on translating original
scales, which may not capture local meaning. This study combines the two approaches; most
of the data are derived from direct translations of original scales, but the construction of OCB
in India was addressed through the initial interviews and amendments made in direct response
to local mores. That the study demonstrates considerable similarities in the structures of OCB,
and their relationships with North American data, but with differences that are understandable
within the local context, suggests that the prevailing models describe generic constructs that
can be specifically interpreted. Thus, our findings are exploratory in nature and need to be
confirmed in future research before broad generalizations can be made.

To summarize, the factor structure of OCB obtained in the analysis is appealing. First, the
study demonstrates that the concepts of organizational citizenship behavior translate to the
Indian context, with suitable (and predictable) amendments. Second, the correlated structure
of the components of OCB is confirmed. The findings imply that the concept of OCB is
applicable for the study of individual’s behaviors in a very different cultural context using a
large sample across a variety of industries.

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