Organizational attributes and its relation to organizational citizenship behavior among academic nursing staff

Marwa M Abdel Alim; Rasha I El-Sayed

doi:10.4103/ENJ.ENJ_5_17

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Year : 2017 | Volume : 14 | Issue : 1 | Page : 25-30

Organizational attributes and its relation to organizational citizenship behavior among academic nursing staff

Marwa M Abdel Alim, Rasha I El-Sayed
Department of Nursing Administration, Faculty of Nursing, Port Said University, Port Said, Egypt

Date of Submission	09-Jan-2017
Date of Acceptance	30-Jan-2017
Date of Web Publication	13-Jun-2017

Correspondence Address:
Marwa M Abdel Alim
Department of Nursing Administration, Faculty of Nursing, Port Said University, Port Said, 42511
Egypt

Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None

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DOI: 10.4103/ENJ.ENJ_5_17

Abstract

Introduction
Nowadays, there is persistent development and competition among educational institutions. To enhance their competitive advantage, nursing colleges should maintain a high level of citizenship behavior among their staff members.
Objective
The purpose of this study was to determine organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among academic nursing staff and its relation to training and development, work–life policies, empowerment, commitment, and organizational trust in the nursing faculty at Port Said University.
Participants and methods
A descriptive corelational design was used in the present study. The sample consisted of 81 teaching staff. A structured questionnaire sheet was utilized for data collection.
Results
The study results revealed that most academic staff have high OCB and that work–life policies have a positive correlation with OCB.
Recommendation
The study recommended that university and faculty management should reconsider their training programs and development opportunities and faculty management should provide favorable working conditions and improve work–life policies.

Keywords: academic staff, nursing, organizational citizenship behavior

How to cite this article:
Abdel Alim MM, El-Sayed RI. Organizational attributes and its relation to organizational citizenship behavior among academic nursing staff. Egypt Nurs J 2017;14:25-30

How to cite this URL:
Abdel Alim MM, El-Sayed RI. Organizational attributes and its relation to organizational citizenship behavior among academic nursing staff. Egypt Nurs J [serial online] 2017 [cited 2018 Dec 9];14:25-30. Available from: http://www.enj.eg.net/text.asp?2017/14/1/25/206941

Introduction

Organizational citizenship behaviors

One additional role behavior, which is known as good soldier syndrome, is organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) (Çetin, 2004; Sabuncuoğlu and Tüz, 2005; Organ et al., 2006). OCBs are positive social behaviors that increase the efficiency of the organization as a whole. These are the behaviors displayed voluntarily by workers depending on their personal choice without a written rule, and they are not clearly indicated in the agreement of an organization and not required by job definition; therefore, omission of these behaviors does not bring any penalty (Bolon, 1997; Koberg et al., 2005).

Training and development

Staff development is at the heart of an organization and improves employee competency and organizational effectiveness. Training activities are designed to provide the knowledge and skills needed for the current job and also for the development of the employee that goes beyond the current job and has more long-term focus. Universities organize development programs for their faculty as they play a vital role in imparting learning to students. Continuous learning programs improve the teacher’s professionalism.

Work–life policies

Employer policies and practices to support work–life integration have proliferated as a means to attract and retain a high-quality workforce (Kossek and Lambert, 2005). Work–life policies include any organizational programs or officially sanctioned practices designed to assist employees with the integration of paid work with other important life roles such as family, education, or leisure. Examples of work–life policies include flexibility in the timing, location, or amount of work (e.g. flexitime, job sharing, part-time work, telework, leaves of absence), direct provision of care giving and health benefits (e.g. child or elderly care, domestic partner), and monetary and informational support for network roles (e.g. vouchers, referral services) (Pallavi, 2013).

Empowerment practices

The process of empowerment basically motivates employees to make use of their experiences and skills by providing the power and authority to work effectively. Nurses need to be empowered to make decisions pertaining to their practice. Decision making that is staff driven is a strong indicator of excellence. Excellence in nursing practice can only be achieved and sustained if nurses have influence that leads to satisfaction and excellence (Heather et al., 2009).

Organization commitment

An important factor in organizations that has attracted the attention of researchers is organizational commitment. Organizational commitment is a binding force that links employees with the goals of the organization (Thomas et al., 2006). Riketta (2002) reported a higher correlation between attitudinal commitment and performance through citizenship behavior and role behavior.

Organizational trust

The positive expectations of the employees and their expectations about competency, reliability, and benevolence referred to the organizational trust. It is the institutional trust between the organization and the individual. According to Altuntas and Baykal (2010), who studied the relation between organizational trust of staff nurses and their OCB, nurses who trust their organizations, managers, and coworkers more regularly demonstrate citizenship behaviors.

Aim

The aim of this study was to determine OCB among academic nursing staff and its relation to training and development, work–life policies, empowerment, commitment, and organizational trust in the nursing faculty, Port Said University, through the following means:

Assessing the OCB of the academic staff.
Examining factors such as training and development opportunities, work–life policies, empowerment practices, organizational commitment, and organizational trust.
Analyzing the relation of training and development opportunities, work–life policies, empowerment practices, organizational commitment, and organizational trust with citizenship behavior of the academic staff.

Participants and methods

Research design

A descriptive corelational design was utilized to achieve the aim of this study.

Setting

The present study was conducted in the Faculty of Nursing at Port Said University. The faculty was composed of six academic departments (Medical and Surgical Nursing, Maternity, Obstetrics and Gynecology Nursing, Pediatric Nursing, Nursing Administration, Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, and Family and Community Health Nursing).

Participants

The target population consisted of all working staff (professors, assistant professors, lecturers, assistant lecturers, and demonstrators) in the study setting who had been working for at least 1 year. A total of 81 staff members were recruited out of 91.

Tools of data collection

The research tool used in this study consisted of three parts:

The first part included personal and job characteristics of the academic staff, such as sex, age, years of experience, qualification, marital status, etc.
The second part was developed by Podsakoff et al.(1990) and included 12 items aiming at determining the OCB among academic staff.
The third part required respondents’ views on the determinants of OCB, which was categorized under five categories: training and development opportunities − developed by Rogg et al.(2001) and consisting of six items; work–life policies − developed by Paré et al.(2001) and consisting of four items; empowerment practices − developed by Tremblayet al.(1997) and consisting of nine items; organizational commitment − developed by Porter et al.(1974) and consisting of eight items; and organizational trust − developed by Shaheen (2010) and consisting of 16 items. The tools were translated into Arabic and tested for validity and reliability.

Validity

The tool was tested for clarity, relevance, applicability, comprehensiveness, understanding, and ease of implementation by a panel of five nursing professors from various faculties of nursing, all of whom are specialists and experts in nursing management and administration. Based on their feedback, the required modifications were carried out.

Reliability of the tool

The tool was tested for reliability using Cronbach’s α. The results were as follows: Cronbach’s α=0.65 for OCB; 0.82 for training and development opportunities; 0.81 for work–life policies; 0.83 for empowerment practices; and 0.92 for both organizational commitment and organizational trust.

Scoring system

A five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) was used to rate each statement. Regarding organizational trust, items were scored 3, 2, and 1 for the responses ‘yes’, ‘sometimes’, and ‘no’, respectively.

Results

[Table 1] shows that the highest percentage of academic staff were female (96.3%) and were married (76.6%). More than half of them had a doctorate degree (53.1%) and were aged between 30 and 40 years (mean: 35.7±7.7 years); 42.0% of academic staff were lecturers, and 40.8% of academic staff had 10–20 years of experience (mean: 12.6±7.6 years).

Table 1: Personal and job characteristics of the studied academic staff

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[Table 2] shows the composite scores of training and development opportunities, work–life policies, empowerment practices, organizational commitment, organizational trust, and OCB of the studied academic staff. As illustrated in the table most of the academic staff had high OCB, organizational commitment, and organizational trust. An overall 86.4% of them were empowered and about two-thirds (67.9%) of academic staff were satisfied with the training and development opportunities. However, only one-fifth (22.2%) were satisfied with work–life policies.

Table 2: Composite scores of training and development opportunities, work–life policies, empowerment practices, organizational commitment, organizational trust and organizational citizenship behavior the studied academic staff

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[Table 3] shows a statistically significant relation between training and development opportunity and work–life policies, empowerment practices, organizational commitment, and organizational trust, as well as a statistically significant correlation between organizational trust and empowerment practices and organizational commitment. A statistically significant correlation was also found between organizational commitment and empowerment practices. Finally, the table revealed a statistically significant relation between OCB and work–life policies.

Table 3: Correlation between scores of training and development opportunities, work–life policies, empowerment practices, organizational commitment, organizational trust and organizational citizenship behavior among the studied academic staff

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[Table 4] illustrates the correlation between scores of OCB and other study factors among the studied academic staff. As revealed in the table, there are statistically significant relations between teaching staff age and experience and their citizenship behavior. Moreover, a statistically significant relation was found between OCB and work–life policies.

Table 4: Correlation between scores of organizational citizenship behavior and other study factors among the studied academic staff

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[Table 5] displays linear regression for predictors of OCB among the studied academic staff. As indicated in the table, work–life policies were the only variable that had a positive impact on the OCB.

Table 5: Linear regression (Enter method) for predictors of organizational citizenship behavior among the studied academic staff

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Discussion

The world is looking forward to high-performance organizations that can provide high job satisfaction to their employees and would also cherish excellence and effectiveness. This could be achieved if organizational citizenship developed. Organizational citizenship is a discretionary behavior and not a part of an employee’s formal job requirements; nevertheless, it promotes effective functioning of the organization (Chien, 1988). This study found that most of the academic staff in the nursing faculty at Port Said University demonstrated high OCB, organizational commitment, and organizational trust; 86.4% of them were empowered and about two-thirds of academic staff were satisfied with training and development opportunities, although only one-fifth were satisfied with work–life policies. These finding might be related to the fact that the faculty were accredited by the national authority of quality assurance and accreditation of education in Egypt, which obligates the faculty to follow specified standards in performance appraisal, training, availability and utilization of resources, and development of teaching staff, which leads to positive social attitudes displayed voluntarily depending on teaching staff personal choice without a written rule, in addition to the staff development training program affiliated to the university. These findings go in line with those of Abdalla et al. (2013), who conducted a descriptive study in Upper Egypt universities and found almost all demonstrators and assistant lecturers to disagree on work–life policies but to agree on organizational commitment and OCB. The previous finding is supported by Organ et al. (2006), who opined that OCBs are a special type of work behavior that are defined as individual behaviors that are beneficial to the organization and are discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system. These behaviors are rather a matter of personal choice, such that their omission is not generally understood as punishable. Moreover, Turnipseed and Rassuli (2005) illustrated that OCBs can be accomplished through understanding and cooperation with colleagues, mentoring, performing extra duties without delay and complaint, punctuality, volunteering, efficient use of organizational resources, sharing ideas, and positively representing the organization.

According to the study findings, a statistically significant correlation was found between training and development opportunity and work–life policies, empowerment practices, organizational commitment, and organizational trust, as well as between organizational trust and empowerment practices and organizational commitment. In addition, a statistically significant correlation was found between organizational commitment and empowerment practices, as well as between OCB and work–life policies. These findings may be due to the organizational empowered climate that motivates the staff to work harder and be involved with their work and highly committed to their faculty. These findings were supported by Noor (2009), who conducted a study on 134 university teachers of Pakistan and indicated that there was a statistically significant correlation between organizational commitment and OCB. Also, there was a statistically significant correlation between training and development opportunities, work–life policies, empowerment practices, and organizational commitment. Contrarily, Altuntas and Baykal (2010) investigated the relationship between nurses’ organizational trust level and their OCB. The results showed that nurses who trust their managers, organizations, and coworkers demonstrate citizenship behaviors. Furthermore, Van Dyne et al. (2000) found that an individual’s propensity to trust predicted OCB. Also, Mayer et al. (1995) found that an employee’s trust in the organization operationalizes citizenship behaviors.

Excessive work, afternoon shifts, frequent overtime, inflexible hours, inability to leave during emergencies, and physically or mentally demanding work are the most important factors that create job–family conflict. Studies revealed that work–life policies include flexible working hours, training, breaks from work, and arrangement of better work support (Pleck et al., 1980). Accordingly, the study findings illustrated that there were statistically significant relations between teaching staff age and experience and their citizenship behavior. Meanwhile, work–life policies was the only factor that had an impact on the OCB. This finding was supported by Chien (1988), who asserted that positive work climate, organization resources, employee’s personality, organizational culture, and so on are all related to OCB. Moreover, Lee et al. (2013) suggested that employees could engage in OCB when they perceive fairness in the decision-making process, receive leaders’ support and care, and recognize less complexity of the organizational process. Podsakoff et al. (2000) asserted that job attitudes, task variables, and various types of leadership behaviors were strongly related to OCBs. In addition, a research on blue color workers in a manufacturing industry showed that organizational citizenship did not predict OCB (Ertürk et al., 2004).

In contrast, Noor (2009) in her study concluded that organizational commitment has a positive impact on OCB. Salehi and Gholtash (2011) conducted a research on faculty members and showed that organizational commitment had a positive effect on OCB. Zeinabadi and Salehi (2011) indicated that organizational commitment has a significant effect on OCB. Furthermore, ÜNAL (2013) in his study on eight firms in a group of companies in Istanbul found that both affective commitment and continuance commitment have different impacts on the dimensions of OCB. An employee who has high organizational commitment engages in many behaviors that benefit the organization, such as citizenship activities and high job performance. Committed employees are more likely to engage in behaviors that enhance their value and support the organization.

Conclusion

On the basis of the study findings, it can be concluded that most of the academic staff have high OCBs and among all the factors work–life policies seem to be most significantly correlated with staff OCB.

Recommendations

The link between how work–life policies are implemented and how they promote or deter from a culture of inclusiveness should be reconsidered by faculty management.
University and faculty management should reconsider their training programs and development opportunities.
Faculty management should provide favorable working conditions and improve work–life policies.
Future research may investigate more factors that may influence organizational citizenship.

Limitations of study

The limitations of the current study may include the sample size. Only one faculty sample was taken from a single university. A bigger sample may give more reliable results. In addition, future research could investigate more factors that may influence organizational citizenship, such as recognition, job satisfaction, and job involvement. [30]

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

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