Ratings of Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Does the Source Make a Difference?

This study compared multiple ratings of the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of managers obtained from three different sources: self, superiors, and subordinates. The results examining convergence across sources demonstrated that there were stronger correlations between ratings made by others (subordinates and superiors) than between ratings made by self and others. The results also indicated that there were mean level differences in ratings across sources. Specifically, ratings made by self and superiors were higher than were ratings made by subordinates. The results examining convergence within sources suggested that the reliability of OCB ratings based on a single rater were quite low; however, reliability increased considerably when aggregating raters. Future research and implications are discussed.