Assessment and prediction of client-targeted citizenship behaviors among civil servants

Abstract

Despite the rich body of empirical research on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and job attitude, little is known about citizenship targeted at clients and its attitudinal predictors. Drawing on customer-oriented behaviors (COBs) and conventional citizenship directed at individuals (OCB-I), this article first elaborates on the idea of client-targeted citizenship behaviors (CTCBs) among civil servants and proposes their assessment. Using holistic contexts in terms of organizational climate, the article then tests the relative effects of job attitudes on client-targeted citizenship (CTCBs), contrasting the results with the prior literature on conventional OCB. Data were collected from 84 of the 198 (42.4%) civil servants of a Spanish Social Security agency. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) results suggested two factors of client-targeted citizenship (CTCBs) and five of organizational climate. Unable to be considered discretionary citizenship, one of the two CTCB factors was instead interpreted as =in-role behavior providing an outstanding service.' SEM results supported 'leader, facilitation and support' and =job variety, challenge and autonomy' as significant climate factors for predicting client-targeted citizenship (CTCBs), and they showed that predictors of CTCBs and =in-role behavior providing outstanding service' differ considerably. The findings appear to suggest that managerial patterns to successfully foster conventional OCB, service quality and CTCBs are different, and they propose the creation of the best attitudinal profile for promoting CTCBs at work that can be made available to managers.