Short and long-term effects of relational ambivalence with managers on employee citizenship behavior

Ambivalence is thought to exist in nearly all types of relationships (Coser, 1966), yet its existence within employee-manager relationships has never been recognized. Indeed, studies examining relationships with managers have primarily theorized about those of the high quality or low quality sort and have ignored ambivalent relationships altogether. This paper provides one of the first attempts to include the concept of ambivalence within employee-manager relationships. In doing so, it attempts to improve our understanding of the employee-manager relationship by utilizing theories developed by attitude research as well as cognitive psychology (e.g., Kaplan, 1972; Thompson et al., 1995; Fincham & Linfield, 1997; Carver & Scheier, 1998). By use of a 10-day diary study and a 6-week longitudinal design, I demonstrate that relational ambivalence is a distinct relational framework and uncover differences in its short-term and long-term impact on employee organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). More specifically, relational ambivalence was positively related to OCBs in the short-term and negatively related to OCBs in the long-term. In addition, I reveal how job control increases the chance for ambivalent employees to withdraw OCBs specifically directed toward managers in the long-term