Abstract:
Although number of scholars attempted to show the gender differences in many
organizationally relevant areas over the past decades, treatment and
expectations of female and male at their workplace are still observed as
differentiated. Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is the behavior that
employees engage in actions that are organizationally significant and not
prescribed in their formal job description. OCB has been related to number of
positive consequences at both individual and organizational level. Therefore,
scholars have paid their attention in studying this growing area. The amount of
engagement in OCB may vary based on the gender differences. The objective
of this study was to examine the gender differences in engagement of OCB. A
sample of 160 employees (N=180, 80 Males and 80 Females) was drawn from
public service sector in Sri Lanka. Validated questionnaire was used to collect
the data. Five dimensions of OCB namely conscientiousness, sportsmanship,
civic virtue, helping behavior, and courtesy have been used to test the
differences. The findings revealed significant gender differences on three
dimensions of OCB. While conscientiousness and helping behavior have shown
female on the higher side, sportsmanship has shown male on the higher side.
But, in terms of other dimensions civic virtue and courtesy the differences were
insignificant falling far away from the probability level of .05. However,
analysis on overall OCB shown negligible gender differences suggest that
males and females are both almost equal in engaging in OCB. Nevertheless, the
results supporting in case of the dimensions of helping behavior females are on
the higher side suggesting that female are generally more empathic or
sympathetic than male and therefore, they are more helpfulness, kindness, and
compassion than male. However, in case of dimension of sportsmanship male
are on the higher side suggesting that males are willing to tolerate
inconveniences without complaining petty grievances. This is consistent with
the previous findings that male possess certain characteristics such as happily
taking risk, stillness in a crisis situation, and the ability to work under pressure.
Findings of this study have number of implications and have shown new
avenues for future research.
