Ethical party culture, control, and citizenship behavior: Evidence from Ghana

Emmanuel Mensah Horsey, Lijia Guo () and Jiashun Huang ()
Additional contact information
Emmanuel Mensah Horsey: University of Science and Technology of China
Lijia Guo: University of Cambridge
Jiashun Huang: University of Science and Technology of China

Palgrave Communications, 2023, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract The purpose of this study is to amplify Ghana’s code of conduct, a provision made to control the behavior of political parties, candidates, and supporters in the electoral processes as well as their day-to-day activities. Although existing studies have documented the merits of organizational citizenship behavior such as sacrificial behaviors, little research has explored organizational citizenship behavior in the context of political parties. In this light, we argue that political parties’ external behavioral conformity depends on the parties’ internal behavior checks. We draw on the self-concept theory to elucidate how ethical party culture and party control shape party citizens’ self-concept to define their conforming behavior. Having investigated 404 members of different political parties, we have found that ethical party culture has a positive impact on party citizenship behavior. In addition, party control positively moderates this linkage. Theoretically, we reveal factors that positively influence organizational citizenship behavior and identify ethical organizational culture and control as components of individuals’ self-conception. From a practical standpoint, our study shows the need for political parties to construct ethical party culture and install party controls comprising process, output, and normative controls to nurture and guide party citizenship behavior. The findings can augment the Ghanaian government’s code of conduct by nurturing conforming behaviors via the parties’ internal behavior-shaping mechanisms that consequently promote external conduct consistent with the political parties’ code of conduct.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-023-01698-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palcom:v:10:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-023-01698-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/palcomms/about

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-023-01698-8

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Palgrave Communications from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().