What is the Self-regulation Theory?

Bolino et al. (2012) argued that SET cannot sufficiently explain the cognitive, affective and unconscious processes that underlie the dynamic nature of OCB. To encounter this, Bolino et al. (2012) developed a theoretical framework with an explicit focus on the intraindividual development in OCB.

They conceptualized engagement in OCB as an ongoing process that is highly influenced by employees’ self-concept orientations. Self-concepts refers to schemas containing individual’s perceptions about their attributes, social roles, and goals.

These self-concepts can vary in their orientation, as individuals tend to think of themselves as autonomous individuals (i.e., individual 7 orientation), in relationships with others (i.e., relational orientation) or as a part of a larger group (i.e., collectivistic orientation).

These orientations can be more or less trait-like (i.e., chronic orientation) or triggered by situational cues (i.e., working orientation). Chronic orientations can be seen as relatively stable, with a gradual development over time, while working orientations can be seen as temporally activated self-concepts, causing fluctuating changes in the individual’s motivation to engage OCB.

Bolino et al. (2012) argue that self-concept orientations implicitly affect individual development in OCB, as they highly affect what types of citizenship behaviors individuals engage in, when they decide to perform them and when they decide to modify their behavior.

For example, they propose that employees with an individual self-concept orientation (i.e., either working or chronic) will be motivated to engage in OCB because of impression management motives, using OCB as a form of leverage to get what they want. Employees with a relational self-concept orientation will be more motivated by prosocial motives and will, therefore, engage more in OCB directed at other individuals in the organization.

Based on feedback from their organizational environment, choices are made, planned, executed and evaluated in cycles over days, months or even years. These cycles will lead to both short-term fluctuations and long-term development in self-concept orientations, and thus also cause a development in the motivation for and engagement in OCB (Bolino et al., 2012).

The benefit of the self-regulation approach to OCB is that it explicitly focus on intraindividual development (i.e., chronic and working self-concepts) and why individuals might vary in this development (i.e., different self-orientations). However, considering the lack of longitudinal studies, the empirical grounding for these assumptions is scarce.