Seow Ling OohYee Chii Chua0000-0003-0454-3734Soon-Aun TanGan Su WanPit Wan Pung0000-0002-1870-2356Teoh Xi Yao2024-10-172024-10-172023-11-16https://doi.org/10.1007/s10672-023-09481-2https://dspace-cris.utar.edu.my/handle/123456789/2887Employees' absence from organisational citizenship was unquestionably caused by their high level of emotional exhaustion. Despite this, few studies have been conducted in search of a solution. This has prompted the need to examine the relationship between emotional exhaustion, organisational citizenship behaviour, and psychological capital in this study. In particular, it examined the role of psychological capital as a moderator in weakening the negative relationship between emotional exhaustion and organisational citizenship behaviour. A total of 392 employees from Malaysia participated in this cross-sectional study. The results showed that emotional exhaustion and organisational citizenship behaviour are negatively correlated. However, psychological capital moderated the negative relationship between emotional exhaustion and organisational citizenship behaviour. This study has provided new insights into how the negative effect of emotional exhaustion on organisational citizenship behaviour can be weakened by psychological capital. An intervention of psychological capital is recommended and should be provided to employees who are experiencing emotional exhaustion so as to reduce the detrimental impact of emotional exhaustion on employees’ organisational citizenship behaviour. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023.enEmotional exhaustionOrganisational citizenship behaviourPsychological capital and Malaysiajournal-article