Organizational citizenship behavior in healthcare: The roles of autonomous motivation, affective commitment and learning orientation

Drawing on self-determination theory (SDT), the aim of this study is the understanding of the mechanisms underlying organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and employee-organization relationship. Participants to the research were 554 nurses of two Italian hospitals. SEM procedure was used for testing our hypotheses. The results showed that autonomous motivation was related to both OCB-I (towards individuals) and OCB-O (towards the organization). Learning orientation and affective commitment fully mediated the relationship between autonomous motivation and both OCB-I and OCB-O. In conclusion, this study shows that OCB are activated by nurses who are identified with their organization and learning-oriented, which in turn are promoted by autonomous motivation. Practical implications for hospitals are discussed