How ethnic dissimilarity influences perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behaviors?

Abstract

Purpose

This study examines the mediating effect of self-efficacy between perceived organizational support (POS) and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) organization (OCBO); and POS and OCB individual (OCBI) in a cross-cultural context.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 207 full-time academics from the private universities in Malaysia and Mainland China using a questionnaire survey.

Findings

The results indicate that self-efficacy is a salient mediator linking POS with OCBI and OCBO. Additionally, ethnic dissimilarity is found to have a contextual influence on the research model as the results reveal that self-efficacy only mediates the relationship between POS and OCBO but not between POS and OCBI in a heterogeneous society. In contrast, self-efficacy is found to mediate the relationships between POS and OCBO and between POS and OCBI in a homogeneous society.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the literature by being one of the first studies that examine the relationship between self-efficacy and two dimensions of OCB in two different cultural contexts.

Citation

Tan, L.P., Choong, Y.O., Yap, C.S., Choe, K.L., Rungruang, P. and Li, Z. (2022), "How ethnic dissimilarity influences perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behaviors?", Journal of Economic and Administrative Sciences, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEAS-08-2021-0145