Various definitions of OCB exist, but the understanding is central to all definitions that OCB involves voluntary extra-role behaviour to benefit the organisation. Organ (1990) proposed a five-dimensional model of OCB consisting of altruism, courtesy, sportsmanship, consciousness, and civic virtue. Organ expanded this model to include two additional dimensions, peace-keeping and cheer-leading (Organ, 1990). Altruism refers to employees assisting their co-workers to perform their jobs. A culture of sharing and collaboration with other colleagues is thus adopted. This is done without expecting any reward and to benefit the organisation. The study by Piatak and Holt (2020) built on this definition and stated that employees display OCB for the team’s benefit instead of serving self-interest. Employees who display courtesy are respectful, empathetic, and helpful towards their colleagues. Sportsmanship involves having a positive outlook and tolerating minor issues and inconveniences (Wan, 2016). Conscientiousness focuses on loyalty, responsibility, reliability, and acting in the organisation’s best interest. Civic behaviours relate to how well employees associate themselves with the organisation (Ghavifekr & Adewale, 2019). It involves support for the organisation, such as attending events arranged by the organisation, representing the organisation when required, attending meetings, and contributing inputs to organisational policies.

Williams and Anderson (1991) defined OCB according to the targets of OCB and identified behaviour for the benefit of other individuals or colleagues and behaviour for the benefit of the organisation. Williams and Anderson’s (1991) categorisation scheme captured Organ’s dimensions but also interpersonal helping (Venkataramani & Dalal, 2007) and interpersonal facilitation (Treadway et al., 2007). The OCB aimed at the organisation included Organ’s dimensions of compliance, civic virtue, and sportsmanship. It also captured voice behaviour (Van Dyne & LePine, 1998) and advancing an organisation’s image (Baker et al., 2006).

Employees’ OCB toward customers has gained interest as customer service and meeting customers’ needs became a strategic priority to organisations. Bettencourt, Gwinner, and Meuter developed a three-dimensional OCB model in 2001. These three dimensions included promoting the organisation and its services, customer service, and involvement in service orientation (Bettencourt & Brown, 1997). A study by Pattanayak et al. (2003) identified three dimensions of OCB: sharing and involvement, organisational ownership, and professional commitment.

Further research concluded that the original five-dimensional model of OCB could be reduced to a three-factor model by removing conscientiousness and combining altruism and courtesy to form a helping dimension (Podsakoff et al., 2016). This resulted in a three-factor model of helping behaviour, civic virtue, and sportsmanship. Biswas and Mazumder (2017), however, divided OCB into two types by grouping all behaviours directed at individuals (courtesy and altruism) and behaviours benefiting the organisation (conscientiousness, sportsmanship, and civic virtue).

Avci (2016) studied the effects of principal leadership styles on OCB and identified the following nine dimensions: Institutional identification, administrative contribution, sacrifice, being thoughtful and compatible, team spirit and positive communication. Johnson’s (2016) study identified a stewardship mindset as an important component of OCB. Ummah and Athambawa (2018) identified three OCB constructs: caring for and assisting others, cooperativeness, and being reliable and dutiful. Pradhan and Mishra (2019) identified work involvement and organisational ambassadorship, in addition to civic virtue and conscientiousness, as dimensions of OCB.

Ma et al. (2021) identified a three-dimensional OCB structure based on OCB directed at individuals (altruism, courtesy), OCB directed at organisations (conscientiousness and sportsmanship), and OCB directed at customers (extra-role customer service and cooperation).

Table 1 provides a summary of the OCB constructs identified by various studies.

Most studies on OCB behaviour identified similar constructs, with the most common constructs being Altruism and Civic virtue. A study by Bogler and Somech (2023) on OCB during COVID-19 identified the following OCB behaviours: Promoting academic achievement, investing extra time in lecturing, providing emotional and academic support to students, mastering technology, complying with COVID-19 regulations and coping with role changes due to COVID-19.

With regard to the higher education context, this study outlined a sense of duty and consideration as an additional construct of OCB.

Because educational institutions serve society, an additional burden is on employees to engage in OCB. An unwillingness to engage in OCB will thus not only disadvantage the institution but also have a ripple effect throughout society. Without employees willingly performing these tasks, higher education institutions will fail to successfully guide students to complete their studies and contribute to the country’s economic prosperity.

This study used a cross-sectional census approach to collect respondents’ data using a questionnaire. All employees of the population were invited to participate in the study. Using a census survey ensured a sufficient response rate, which resulted in higher statistical confidence. The margin of error was 4% according to the margin error calculator, and hence, 452 responses were reasonable and deemed sufficient for data analysis. The sample comprised 452 of 5471 employees at a South African open-distance higher education institution. The respondents were categorized by race, gender, age, qualification, job tenure, and job level.

Ethics clearance was granted by the higher education institution’s research ethics committee (2018_HRM_003). Participants consented to participate and completed the survey online. The data was secured by password protection and stored in a locked location.

Concerning race, 45.1% of the respondents were white, 42.7% of the participants were Blacks, 7.1% were Indian, and 4,4% were colored. 0,6% were from the other category, with only 0.4% specifying they were Asian. The remaining 0.2% did not specify their race. There were 38.3% males and 61.7% females. Concerning age, the highest percentage of the participants (35.6%) were from the 46–55 years age group, followed by the 36–45 years age group (24.6%), the 50–65 years age group (21.0%), the 26–35 years age group (18.6%), and the 25 years and younger age group (0.2%). Concerning qualifications, 27.4% had a Master’s degree, 26.3% had a doctoral/PhD degree, 16.5% have an honors degree, 13.4% had a bachelor’s degree, 10.2% have a certificate or diploma, 5.3% have matric, and 0.8% have indicated other. Regarding job tenure, 43.95% were employed for more than 11 years, 34.08% were employed for 6–10 years, 20.40% were employed for 1–5 years, and 1.57% were employed at the institution for less than one year. Regarding the job level, 46.0% of respondents are academic staff, 32.3% are administrative employees, and 17.9% are managers. The missing data concerning demographic information was 2.5% and did not influence the analysis regarding bias.

The OCB questionnaire consisted of 27 items. The items were developed by referring to the constructs of OCB as identified by previous studies on OCB. Items were phrased to refer to situations in a higher education institution. Four OCB factors were identified: Altruism (7 items, I provide suggestions to improve the performance of the department/organisation), civic virtue (6 items, I speak highly of my organisation outside of the work environment), sense of duty and consideration (5 items, I keep myself updated with information concerning my work), and sportsmanship (4 items, I can bear the inconveniences that may arise in the organisation).

The items were scored on a 6-point Likert Scale (1 = totally disagree; 6 = totally agree). A pilot study was conducted on 20 individuals from the Department of Human Resource Management at the Higher Education Institution to determine the suitability and validity of the questions.

The data set was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 22.0 of 2013. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using Principal Axis Factoring as an extraction method with Promax rotation was used. The suitability of the data for factor analysis was established by analysing the results of the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett’s tests. The KMO value should be should be greater than 0.70. Values between 0.70 and 0.80 are average, between 0.80 and 0.90 is good, and between 0.90 and 1.00 is excellent. KMO values between 0.50 and 0.60 are flawed but acceptable (Sharma, 1996). These tests confirmed that the scale items correlated adequately, and Eigenvalues larger than 1.00 were used as the factor criterion. A cut-off score of 0.30 was used for factor loadings. The reliability of the OCB measure was assessed using a Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient cut-off score of 0.70. Murphy and Davidshofer (1988) state that Cronbach values <0.60 are unacceptable; 0.70 is low, between 0.80 and 0.90 are moderate, and >0.90 is high.

Table 2 presents the results to confirm the suitability of the data for factor analysis. The value for the KMO measures of sampling adequacy was 0.96 and well above the threshold of 0.60 (Kaiser, 1970). The significance level of Bartlett’s test of sphericity was 0 and below the threshold of p < 0.05 (Bartlett, 1954). The Kaiser-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity results indicated that factor analyses were appropriate. However, items 8, 15, 16, 17, and 22 were eliminated from further analysis because these items did not meet the reliability criteria of factor loadings above 0.30 (Veth et al., 2018).

The principal-axis factor analysis revealed the presence of four factors with eigenvalues exceeding 1.0, which cumulatively explained 64.44% of the variance in OCB. The factor loadings were all above 0.30 (Veth et al., 2018) and considered suitable for inclusion. The factor loadings in the pattern matrix, as illustrated in Table 3, were analysed in line with the theory and labeled as follows:

Factor 1: Altruism

Factor 2: Civic virtue

Factor 3: Sense of duty and consideration

Factor 4: Sportsmanship

Table 4 presents the descriptive data analysis, including the identified factors’ reliability coefficients, skewness, and kurtosis values. Concerning reliability, all the factors had Cronbach’s alpha values in the range of 0.72 to 0.88. Cronbach’s alpha is a measure of scale reliability that assesses how well several items together measure a construct. According to Bryman et al. (2014), a coefficient alpha of 0.6 or less is unacceptable. The following reliability scores were determined for each of the OCB factors:

Altruism (7 items): α = 0.88.

The factor with the highest mean score was Altruism (M = 5.24, SD = 0.65), and the factor with the lowest mean score was sportsmanship (M = 4.62, SD = 0.79). The skewness values indicated that all the constructs had a negative skew but fell within the range of −2 to +2 and between −7 and +7 for kurtosis to be considered acceptable and for a normal distribution to occur (Kline, 2011).

Correlation was carried out using the Pearson product-moment correlation to measure the strength and direction of the relationship between the OCB factors. According to Cohen (1992), the correlations (r-values) from 0–0.30 indicate a small correlation. Correlation coefficients between 0.31 and 0.49 indicate a moderate correlation, and correlation coefficients between 0.50 and 1 indicate a very high correlation. With reference to Table 5, the correlation coefficients of r = 0.50 ≤ 1.0 are practically significant (large effect). Hence, the correlation between altruism, civic virtue, and sense of duty/consideration was practically significant. The correlation between civic virtue and sportsmanship was also practically significant. None of the subscales presented very low correlations, indicating moderate to large internal validity between the subscales.

Based on the findings above, the 27-item OCB scale for employees at higher education institutions provides a reliable internal factor structure. The identified factors are internally reliable in terms of factor loadings (>0.30) and Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients (α ≥ 0.70).

The study contributes to an understanding of organisational citizenship behaviour within the context of higher education in the following ways: It confirms the role of altruism as a significant dimension of OCB, resonating with the findings of Pradhan and Mishra (2019). This finding confirms the importance of altruism for a supportive work environment. Regarding civic virtue, staff should be allowed to serve on committees and participate in decision-making. A sense of duty and consideration play an important role in the efficient functioning of departments and colleges. Cooperation and conscientiousness among committee members are prerequisites to enhancing the smooth running of an educational institution. Higher education institutions should recognise and unofficially reward staff members who display collegiality. Although sportsmanship was not regarded as the most important dimension of OCB, it does play a significant role in creating a culture of tolerance. In light of the challenges related to online teaching, employees must constantly deal with technological developments and online platform problems. This requires tolerance and a work culture of support to assist colleagues in coping with the work demands.

Given that most OCB measurements originated in non-service organisations, specific measurement scales for different higher education institution settings need to be researched to reach a consensus on the definition and measurement of OCB at higher education institutions.

HR practitioners and managers can use the OCB scale to measure and understand employees’ OCB performance. Performance key indicators should include OCB competencies, and OCB should be encouraged for all stakeholders. Higher education institutions could use the results of this study to recruit candidates who possess these OCB qualities.

Overall, the study adds to existing theories of OCB. It provides an understanding of how different dimensions of OCB are exhibited by university staff, which can help improve practices in higher education institutions.

The exploratory research on OCB was limited to a single distance higher education institution. Future studies should sample from several higher education institutions. This will ensure that the set of observed variables across different institutions accurately represents the underlying constructs of OCB. Future studies could consider collecting data from multiple sources, such as managers and customers, to avoid common method bias.

Culture, leadership, workload, supervisor support, and other institutional variables can also be included as influencers on OCB. It is recommended that future studies perform confirmatory factor analysis to identify poorly performing items and to refine and improve the measurement instrument. OCB behaviours are dynamic and change constantly. Future studies could investigate OCB fluctuations over time.