A Lack of Clarity, a Lack of OCB: The Detrimental Effects of Role Ambiguity, Through Procedural Injustice, and the Mitigating Roles of Relational Resources

ABSTRACT

If employees lack information about their job responsibilities, do they halt their voluntary work efforts, and if so, why and when? To answer these questions, this study attempts to unpack the relationship between employees’ role ambiguity and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and proposes both a mediating role of procedural injustice and a moderating role of relational resources (i.e. social interaction and goodwill trust). Survey data collected from employees who work for a services organization in Mozambique indicate that a critical reason that unclear role descriptions diminish extra-role work activities is that employees criticize their organization for maintaining unfair decision-making processes. The informality and trustworthiness of their peer relationships mitigate this detrimental effect. For employees who feel stressed by insufficient information about job responsibilities, this study indicates a risk that their organizational standing might become compromised because they respond by refraining from work-related voluntarism. Organizations need to encourage high-quality interpersonal exchanges to help reduce this risk.

KEYWORDS:

• Role ambiguity
• procedural injustice
• organizational citizenship behavior
• relational resources
• Mozambique

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A robustness check confirmed that the right-hand path of the theoretical framework was not significantly moderated by social interaction or goodwill trust.