Employee Ownership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: High Performance Ownership Systems and the Mediating Role of Psychological Ownership

This paper investigated the effect of employee share ownership, mediated through psychological ownership, on organizational citizenship behavior. The analysis included the possible complementary role of High Performance Ownership systems. This paper investigated these relationships by analyzing employee survey data from a Dutch organization that has implemented employee share ownership. We used PLS, a variance-based structural equation model to test the hypotheses. The results showed a direct influence of employee ownership on organizational citizenship behavior, but the relationship was not mediated by psychological ownership. Unexpectedly, the results show that a High Performance Work System bundle without employee ownership generates psychological ownership, but this does not influence organizational citizenship behavior. This research could not confirm the comprehensive model in which employee ownership, HRM system, and psychological ownership are positively related to each other. We choose a deliberate set of HR practices on theoretical grounds, but future research could investigate other sets of HR practices that may produce the expected effects. This research showed that employee ownership has a positive influence on organizational citizenship behavior. Organizations are therefore advised to consider implementing employee ownership. The results also show that a set of HR practices positively influences psychological ownership. The results suggest that organizations should strive for a consistent message, which makes the employees feel that they are taken serious as and deserve to be owners. We analyzed the influence of a configuration of high performance ownership system on psychological ownership and organizational citizenship behavior that is not done before.