Organizational citizenship behaviors in the era of changing employment patterns: The complementary roles of psychological contracts and protean and boundaryless careers

Purpose The increasing flexibility and discontinuity of labor relations have been associated with the development of new forms of psychological contracts as well as the development of more self-directed and mobile career attitudes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the forms of psychological contract and protean/boundaryless career attitudes on the one hand and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) on the other. Design/methodology/approach In total, 458 employees of three large Italian organizations were sampled through a self-report questionnaire. Zero-order correlations were carried out to examine the associations between study variables while dominance analysis, along with multiple linear regression, was used for evaluating their unique contribution with respect to OCB. Findings OCB were positively predicted by relational and balanced psychological contracts, protean career attitude and boundaryless mindset. Practical implications Organizations must pay particular attention to the content of the psychological contract and the career attitudes of their employees because they influence their willingness to carry out OCB. Originality/value The results add new evidence to the careers literature in terms of boundary conditions with regard to the effects of protean and boundaryless career attitudes as well as different forms of psychological contracts.