Citizenship pressure and job performance: roles of citizenship fatigue and continuance commitment

This study investigates the relationship between employees' experience of citizenship pressure and job performance, as well as the mediating role of citizenship fatigue and moderating role of continuance commitment. Multisource, time-lagged data from employees and their supervisors in Pakistan reveal that employees' beliefs that they have no other choice than to take on allegedly voluntary activities undermine their job performance, due to energy depletion evoked as citizenship fatigue. Their continuance commitment buffers this process; the indirect relationship between citizenship pressure and job performance, through citizenship fatigue, is weaker when employees believe they have limited employment alternatives, because they may perceive expectations of their citizenship as opportunities instead of threats in this case. Human resource managers thus should recognize that excessive organizational pressures for citizenship behaviors can undermine job performance, but less so among employees for whom leaving the organization appears costly.

Automated summary

This study explores the relationship between employees' experience of citizenship pressure and job performance, mediated by citizenship fatigue and moderated by continuance commitment. The findings suggest that organizational pressures for citizenship behaviors can undermine job performance, but this effect is weaker among employees who perceive leaving the organization as costly.