Examining the Citizenship Performance of Restaurant Servers

Abstract

Job performance is commonly represented with the two dimensions of task performance and organizational citizenship (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993; Organ, 1997). This study investigates organizational citizenship, which represents employee efforts that go above and beyond specific role responsibilities and augment the social-psychological environment in which task duties are performed (Organ, Podsakoff, and MacKenzie, 2006). The current literature on citizenship can be organized into the benefits versus the drawbacks of engaging in these behaviors. As research in this area proceeds, it will be important to consider how citizenship operates within specific industry settings. In line with this premise, the present study investigated the citizenship performance of restaurant servers specifically within the casual dining industry. Perceived organizational support (POS; Eisenberger & Hutchinson, 1986), citizenship pressure (Bolino, Turnley, Gilstrap, & Suazo, 2010), citizenship fatigue (Bolino, Hsiung, Harvey, & LePine, 2014), and sales performance were measured to assess their relationship to citizenship performance. Hypotheses were partially supported. Tenure emerged as an important variable in the study. Implications for practice and theory are discussed.