Employees’ Death Awareness and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model

The purpose of this study is to develop and test a theoretical model that distinguishes how death anxiety and death reflection influence organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) directed towards the organization (OCB-O) and individuals within it (OCB-I). We draw from terror management and posttraumatic growth (PTG) theories to argue for prosocial motivation as a mediator for these relationships. We also examine organizational identification (OI) as a potential moderator. Data were collected from 241 employees every month for 3 months. Our findings support the mediating role of prosocial motivation. Death anxiety was negatively related to prosocial motivation, whereas death reflection was positively related to prosocial motivation. In turn, prosocial motivation was positively related to OCB-I and OCB-O. Regarding moderation, lower levels of OI strengthened the indirect effects of death anxiety on OCB-I and OCB-O through prosocial motivation. However, OI did not moderate the indirect effects of death reflection on OCB-I or OCB-O. These results highlight the conceptual differences between death anxiety and death reflection. In addition, these results emphasize the need to explore death anxiety and death reflection in organizational research.