Promoting organisational citizenship behaviour through corporate governance

Corporate governance is a major topic of debate among scholars from different parts of the world, but little has been empirically investigated on the impact of corporate governance on the discretionary work behaviour of employees in selected deposit money banks in Nigeria. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the impact of corporate governance on the organizational citizenship behaviour of employees in deposit money banks. A cross-sectional survey design was used, which supports the use of questionnaire to collect data from the participants. Data were collected from 224 participants from 18 deposit money banks operating in south-east Nigeria. The study employed frequency distribution and linear regression to analyse respondents’ profiles and research hypotheses. Results of the study revealed that corporate governance dimensions predicted organisational citizenship behaviour indicators. The practical significance of this study lies in the possibility of improving organizational citizenship behaviour in organizations by integrating the main recommendations of this study into the corporate governance of organizations. This study concludes that corporate governance (measured in terms of leadership quality, accountability, board size, board effectiveness, and board independence) influences and improves organizational citizenship behaviour that is driven by altruism, integrity, sportsmanship, courtesy, and civic virtue.