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  This research tackles a fundamental question in organisational life: How can companies maintain high levels of Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) over the long term, especially when this helpful, voluntary behaviour is constantly threatened by free-riding?

First, what exactly is OCB?. OCB refers to things like helping a busy colleague, sharing knowledge, or proactively contributing to team morale—it is vital for collective success but often goes unrewarded by formal systems. Because it’s costly for the individual but benefits everyone (a "public good"), it creates a classic social dilemma: individuals are tempted to stop contributing and instead rely on the help of others, eventually causing the good behaviour to collapse. 

This study solves this puzzle by arguing that enduring cooperation requires a powerful combination of psychological motivation and structural opportunity. The researchers drew on two major theories to prove their point:

1. Social Exchange Theory (SET): This explains the initial motivation—why people start cooperating. People help when they feel their actions will be reciprocated or rewarded in a supportive environment, which is known as a cooperative climate. 
2. Evolutionary Game Theory (EGT): This explains the structural stability—how cooperation survives the threat of free-riders. EGT suggests that to survive, cooperators must be able to "walk away" from those who exploit them. 

The key structural element linking these ideas is team membership fluidity, or how frequently employees rotate across various temporary team configurations. 
 

The Two-Study Approach

To test this combined theory, the researchers used a multi-method design:

• Study 1: Agent-Based Evolutionary Simulation: This computer model simulated a population of 100 "agents" playing a cooperation game over many generations. It was a controlled environment to see how cooperative behaviour (OCB) evolved under different conditions. 
• Study 2: Confirmatory Field Study: This involved surveying managers in real-world Japanese workplaces to validate the simulation findings using actual data on team climate, fluidity, and observed OCB. 

Key Findings: OCB Needs Both

The results from both studies converged to reveal three major insights:

1. Cooperation Must Be Personally Beneficial (The Necessity of Climate)
   The simulation established a baseline: if cooperation was not personally beneficial (meaning the cooperative climate was absent), the frequency of OCB rapidly declined to zero regardless of how fluid the teams were. This confirmed that the motivational belief in reciprocity (the cooperative climate) is a necessary foundation for OCB to persist. 
2. Fluidity Unlocks the Potential of a Cooperative Climate
   This was the central finding. When cooperation was personally beneficial (i.e., when a cooperative climate existed):
   •    In low-fluidity teams (fixed teams), cooperation slowly declined over time. Cooperators were "trapped" and repeatedly exploited by free riders, who eventually earned higher relative payoffs, causing OCB to unravel. 
   •    In high-fluidity teams (frequent reshuffling), cooperation remained substantially high and stable. Fluidity allowed cooperators to break out of exploitative relationships and find new, cooperative partners, ultimately making OCB the more successful long-term strategy. 
3. Real-World Replication Confirms the Synergy
   Study 2 empirically validated this interaction. It showed that a strong cooperative climate only translated into high and sustainable collective OCB when team membership fluidity was high. If the team structure was rigid (low fluidity), a cooperative climate had 
   no discernible impact on OCB sustainability. 

Practical Takeaways:

Managers should view team structure not just as a source of disruption, but as a strategic tool to promote helpfulness: 

• Cultivate Climate First: Ensure OCB is visibly rewarded, recognised, and reciprocated, creating the essential foundation where people feel it's worthwhile to help. 
• Embrace Moderate Fluidity: Don't fear all team changes. Implementing a moderate degree of team reshuffling prevents the permanent establishment of free-rider relationships and allows cooperators to reinforce positive exchanges across a broader network. 
• Fluidity is Not a Fix-All: Increasing team rotation without a supportive cooperative climate will likely be detrimental, as it simply adds uncertainty without the underlying social incentives needed for sustained OCB. 
   

In short, to sustain a culture of helping, organisations must make OCB feel worthwhile to individuals (cooperative climate) and give those individuals the structural freedom (team fluidity) to avoid being exploited by those who don't contribute. 

Professor Motoki Watabe
ºìÐÓÊÓƵ Business School
ºìÐÓÊÓƵ Email: @email

Dr. Daisuke Nakama
Recruit Inc, Japan