Gender roles and customer organisational citizenship behaviour in emerging markets

Purpose: Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) entails employees’ voluntary commitment to an organisation beyond their contractual responsibilities and has been found to be contributing to an organisation’s success. While the roles of gender and OCB exhibited by employees (as internal stakeholders) are documented, the role of gender in OCB by customers (as external stakeholders) of an organisation, especially within the context of emerging markets, is not found, therefore necessitating further studies. This research aims at bridging this research gap.

Design/methodology/approach: In total, 203 male and 194 female customers representing the young working professionals segment rated their level of satisfaction with the relationship that they had with their banking website. They also indicated their willingness to participate in different dimensions of OCB.

Findings: Generally, both men and women, who are satisfied with the relationship that they have with the organisation, indicated their willingness to contribute to the organisation by displaying OCB. Contrary to past studies, where women at workplace were reported to be more likely to participate in OCB, the findings from the customer’s perspective revealed that men are more likely to engage in OCB.

Research limitations/implications: The results indicated that OCB is not limited to internal customers (employees) but could also be expanded to external customers. The stereotypes causing females to be perceived as stronger OCB contributors may not remain constant in all types of circumstances.

Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this appears to be the first study to establish the gender role in OCB from the customer’s perspective in the context of an emerging market.