Project citizenship behavior? – An explorative analysis at the project-network-nexus

SummaryStudying projects as (more than) temporary systems from a behavioral perspective, we ask what kind of cooperative behaviors project staff perform that go beyond contractual requirements and how these behaviors can be characterized. Based on the concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and our own exploratory study, we re-conceptualize OCB as Project Citizenship Behavior (PCB) and employ the concept for interorganizational projects and the networks that they are embedded in. In this context, we discuss how citizenship behaviors within projects relate to citizenship behaviors which occur between a series of several projects, i.e. in project networks, and vice versa.

► We study projects as (more than) temporary systems from a behavioral perspective.
► In particular we investigate Project Citizen Behavior (PCB).
► The study highlights similarities and differences between PCB and OCB.
► In addition it accounts for extra-role behavior that cuts across single projects when these are embedded in project networks.