An Overview of Antecedents of OCB and Recommendations for Improving It in Post-pandemic Work

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the national economies impacting all nations resulting in restructuring processes related to work, downsizing, and merging of companies. In India, except for a few industries like IT or education, where working remotely was possible, the lockdowns impacted all employment sectors both negatively and positively. On the negative side, e.g. employees experienced job insecurity and adaptation to newer work processes; on the positive side, many organizations took ample efforts through workplace safety management practices to support employees grappling with health issues giving way to positive workplace behaviour by employees such as organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). Such positive behaviours by employees are an amalgamation of organizational and personal aspects, which promisingly leads to a better working environment, ultimately boosting the overall employee work performance. The aim of this chapter is to emphasize on the antecedents of OCB and suggest initiatives that managers/supervisors and organizations could implement to enhance OCBs. The chapter delves deeper into the individual correlates such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction and work–life balance along with work correlates namely task (job) characteristics, leadership behaviours and group cohesiveness. The chapter ends with some pertinent recommendations to enhance such positive behaviours for a healthy work environment.