Millennials and organizational citizenship behavior: The role of job crafting and career anchor on service

Author(s)

Baiyun Gong, Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow
Regina A. Greenwood, Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow
David S. Hoyte, Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow
Arlene Ramkissoon, Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow
Xin He, University of Central FloridaFollow

ORCID

Baiyun Gong0000-0001-6842-0720

Regina A. Greenwood0000-0002-5577-499X

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Management Research Review

ISSN

2040-8269

Publication Date

2018

Abstract/Excerpt

Purpose: Growing up in the technology era and heavily invested in longer full-time education, the millennial workforce holds unique characteristics that may influence important job outcomes. Building on the recent research on workforce generations, this paper aims to investigate not only the overall effect of the millennial generation on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) but also the nuanced effect of how workforce generations may interact with two factors in career development (i.e. job crafting and career anchor) in predicting OCB.

Design/methodology/approach: An online survey was conducted among full-time workers in the USA, 321 (64 per cent) of whom were millennials. Hierarchical regression was used to test the hypotheses.

Findings: Results indicated that millennials appeared to be less interested in OCB compared to earlier generations in the workforce. Nevertheless, some dimensions of OCB increased when millennials conducted resource-related job crafting or when they held a career anchor on service. In addition, both of these career development factors were positively correlated with OCB.

Research limitations/implications: This study offers important implications to researchers as well as practitioners and highlights the significance of career development factors in motivating millennials toward desired job outcomes.

Originality/value: This research is among the initial attempts to assess the impact of job design and career factors on OCB among millennial workers. The findings highlight millennials' unique perspectives toward OCB and how job crafting and career anchor may play influencing roles on OCB. With millennials becoming the largest generation in the workforce, such knowledge is critical.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1108/MRR-05-2016-0121

Volume

41

Issue

7

First Page

774

Last Page

788

NSUWorks Citation

Gong, Baiyun; Greenwood, Regina A.; Hoyte, David S.; Ramkissoon, Arlene; and He, Xin, "Millennials and organizational citizenship behavior: The role of job crafting and career anchor on service" (2018). HCBE Faculty Articles. 1083.
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/hcbe_facarticles/1083