A New Insight into Customer Citizenship Behavior: Concept and Theoretical Framework

Abstract

Customer behavior in service offerings may emerge either in the form of in-role behavior or extra-role behavior (Bettencourt and Brown 1997). Extra-role behaviors are referred to customer citizenship behavior (CCB) which entails customers’ inputs in terms of time, information, idea, and even physical possession (Bettencourt 1997; Bitner et al. 1997; Groth 2005; Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004). CCB originated from the notion of prosocial behavior in the social psychology field (Brief and Motowidlo 1986; Motowidlo and Scotter 1994). Prosocial behavior has been conceptualized by two behavioral stipulations of voluntary and benevolent performances (Walster and Pilivian 1972). CCB is rooted in the notion of prosocial behavior in social psychology studies, but most of the previous studies neglected the benevolent aspect of this concept.