Organizational citizenship behaviors are an expression used to represent workers' informal acts that benefit the organization. Several studies have shown evidence of the factors which are responsible for the emission of these actions. In the present study a theoretical model for this class of actions has been developed, made up of cognitive and affective antecedents, aiming at establishing interdependence between the psychosocial factors which emerge in the work context and they precede citizenship actions in the organizations. 520 workers of public and private companies from Minas Gerais, Brazil, took part in the study. They answered a questionnaire with seven measuring scales of the model variables. The data were analysed according to the hierarchical multiple regression and the stepwise models. The results confirmed the two hypotheses of the study, showing that the cognitions about the organization constitute the informational basis with will influence the affect the employee nurtres for the work he performs and for the company employer, and that these affective links, for its turn, have been able to predict five classes of organizational citizenship behaviors.
organizational citizenship behaviors; pos cognitive model; social exchange
