What is Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs)

Organizations benefit from innovation development through new or improved products, processes, and systems that enable growth, superior performance, and higher adaptability to change in their external environment. This chapter introduces a study that examines organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) as voluntary acts with potential to support or limit innovation development processes such as idea generation, transformation, and knowledge sharing. The dynamic between organizational contexts, OCBs, and their role in fostering or inhibiting innovation development has been examined using a systematic review of evidence with a realist theoretical framework. Results show that dependent on various contextual characteristics, OCBs act as facilitators or inhibitors of processes that lead to innovative outcomes. Even when a growth strategy based on innovation is not actively pursued, some OCBs can enhance leaders' efforts to adapt their organizations to the external environment as long as they maintain a climate in which ideas can be voiced and transformed into innovative solutions.