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

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.