Factors Influencing Organisational Citizenship Behaviour Among Generations: A Conceptual Review and Integrative Framework

Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) refers to discretionary employee actions that support colleagues, teams, and organisations beyond formal job requirements. As contemporary workplaces increasingly bring together Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z, an important question is whether established antecedents of OCB operate in the same way across generational cohorts. This conceptual review aims to integrate major individual, leadership, and organisational antecedents of OCB with a theoretically cautious generational cohort perspective. The paper synthesises foundational and recent literature on OCB, perceived organisational support, transformational leadership, work engagement, job satisfaction, organisational commitment, organisational culture, and generational diversity. Social Exchange Theory is used as the principal explanatory lens, while generational cohort is treated as a boundary condition rather than a direct determinant of citizenship behaviour. The review identifies six workplace antecedents that are consistently associated with OCB: perceived organisational support, transformational leadership, work engagement, job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and supportive organisational culture. It further proposes that the strength or pattern of these relationships may differ across generations because employees can interpret organisational support, leadership practices, recognition, flexibility, developmental opportunities, and cultural signals differently. Seven hypotheses are developed, including six positive antecedent-OCB relationships and one non-directional moderation hypothesis for generational cohort. The resulting integrative framework therefore distinguishes between whether a workplace condition generally promotes OCB and whether employees from different cohort contexts respond similarly to that condition. The paper concludes that organisations should foster supportive and fair exchange relationships while avoiding generational stereotypes and preserving the voluntary nature of OCB. Future research should empirically test the framework while controlling for age, tenure, career stage, occupation, work arrangement, and national context.

Human Resource Management

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