Promoting organizational citizenship behavior: effects of online self-disclosure in the context of employee selection and virtual leadership

Jan Sauer
2016
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) describes employee behavior which supports the social environment in organizations (e.g., conscientiousness, helping, and loyalty behavior) and which has a positive impact on organizational performance and success. Even though researchers have been identifying several important OCB-antecedents, there are almost no contemporary practical approaches utilizing these research findings for the promotion of OCBs in the workplace. In order to partly fill this
more » ... ap in practical research, the present dissertation applied a social media technology approach based on the growing phenomenon of online self-disclosure on social networking sites (SNS). Two study series investigated the assumed OCB-promoting effects of utilized online self-disclosure in the organizational contexts of employee selection (Study Series 1) and virtual leadership (Study Series 2). Employee selection research claims the importance of both examining the predictive validity of selection criteria and examining their effects on recruiters' decision-making processes. While previous research has provided preliminary evidence for the validity of OCB-related information on SNS-profiles, its effect on recruiters' selection decisions has not been systematically investigated yet. Study Series 1 addressed this research gap for the screening phase of employee selection and examined the influence of applicants' OCB-related online self-disclosure on recruiters' impression formations and screening decisions in the course of five experiments. Taken together, the experimental findings suggest that (1) recruiters are naturally sensitive to information about applicants' OCB-propensities (sensitivity), (2) conscientiousness and helping behaviors, but not loyalty behaviors, are taken into account when making screening decisions (selectivity), and (3) applicants with adverse OCB-propensities are more likely to be rejected whereas applicants with high OCB-propensities are not more likely to be chosen (negativity). Trust towards their l [...]
doi:10.5283/epub.33375 fatcat:hbrblivjangnxdgnd3n2dkq4qm