Using a sample of supervisors from a Chilean retail
company, we studied the effects of employees’ role
perceptions on three types of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and on their motivation to
perform these behaviors. We recognized four types
of motives: extrinsic, intrinsic, altruistic, and institutional. Results showed that when employees are
externally motivated to perform OCB (by extrinsic
or institutional motives), their motivation increases
when they perceive the behaviors as in-role. However,
when employees are internally motivated to perform
OCB (by intrinsic or altruistic motives), their motivation is mostly independent of their role perceptions.