A meta-analytic comparison of self-reported and other-reported organizational citizenship behavior

Given the common use of self-ratings and other-ratings (e.g., supervisor or coworker) of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), the purpose of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the extent to which these rating sources provide comparable information. The current study's results provided three important lines of evidence supporting the use and construct-related validity of self-rated OCB. The meta-analysis of mean differences demonstrated that the mean difference in OCB ratings is actually quite small between self- and other-raters. Importantly, the difference between self- and other-raters was influenced by neither the response scale (i.e., agreement vs. frequency) nor the use of antithetical/reverse-worded items on OCB scales. The meta-analysis of correlations showed that self- and other-ratings are moderately correlated but that self-other convergence is higher when antithetical items are not used and when agreement response scales are used. In addition, self-ratings and supervisor-ratings showed significantly more convergence than self-ratings and coworker-ratings. Finally, an evaluation of self-rated and other-rated OCB nomological networks showed that although self-rated and other-rated OCBs have similar patterns of relationships with common correlates, other-rated OCB generally contributed negligible incremental variance to correlates and only contributed appreciable incremental variance to other-rated behavioral variables (e.g., task performance and counterproductive work behavior). Implications and future research directions are discussed, particularly regarding the need to establish a nomological network for other-rated OCB.