Interpersonal relationships at work: An examination of dispositional influences and organizational citizenship behavior

Abstract

Positive interpersonal relationships at work foster a variety of beneficial outcomes for individuals and organizations. Past research has examined contextual and demographic antecedents of friendships at work. Forming interpersonal connections should have strong dispositional roots. The authors use structural equation modeling to analyze data from 438 front-line service employees from a casual dining, national restaurant chain in the United States. Results from this study support the hypotheses that extraversion, agreeableness and emotional stability are each positively related to forming valued interpersonal relationships at work. In addition, interpersonal citizenship behavior is hypothesized and supported as an outcome of positive interpersonal relationships at work. Testing a full model of all the hypotheses enabled us to identify valued interpersonal relationships as an intermediary variable of the relationship between personality and interpersonal citizenship behavior.