Relationship Between Perceived Organizational Support and Organizational Citizenship Behavior; a Study of Employees in National Highway Authority of Pakistan

Rizwan Qaiser Danish^{1, *}, Asad Afzal Humayon², Ahmad Usman Shahid³, Hafiz Waqas Ahmad⁴, Ghulam Murtaza⁴

¹Hailey College of Commerce, University of Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

²COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Vehari, Pakistan

³Hailey College of Commerce, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

⁴Institute of Business and Finance, National University of Modern Languages, Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behavior of the employees in NHA (National Highway Authority) of Pakistan. Data was collected through questionnaires distributed in a survey and overall 200 useable filled questionnaires were received. Convenience sampling technique was applied for the selection of sample and SPSS 16 was used for the analysis of the data. Results indicate that positive environment, organizational resources, the behavior of the employees, organizational environment, and other related factors are all linked to organizational citizenship behavior positively. This paper also provides the implications of the study for human resource managers and tries to find out how to improve organizational citizenship behavior in the organizations by providing organizational support to the employees.

Keywords

Organizational Citizenship Behaviors, Organizational Effectiveness, Perceived Organizational Support, Organizational Climate

Received: April 9, 2015 / Accepted: April 22, 2015 / Published online: May 11, 2015

@ 2015 The Authors. Published by American Institute of Science. This Open Access article is under the CC BY-NC license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

1. Introduction

The business world is striving for the growth and performance of the organizations, and only those owners would able to survive who care for their human capital. In return for the support from organizations, employees manifest organizational citizenship behavior in their interactions. Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is such voluntary actions of employees that are not clearly part of the job, and that tend to encourage the organization (Organ, 1988). Employees are backbone of an organization and organizations use different methods to build harmony among members (Luthans et al., 2004).

Many organizations offer retirement fund facility after the full path down to the employee, and many organizations set up their own hospitals and schools for the benefits of employees, and also give many grants to employees to inspire work. Organ (1988) deconstructed the dimension of general compliance and added additional dimensions of OCB. This deconstruction resulted in a five-factor model consisting of altruism, courtesy, conscientiousness, civic virtue, and sportsmanship. An employee who practices OCB may belong to a muscular group of players who maintains the spirit of support (Niehoff & Moorman, 1993) between age group and keep the feelings of others highly positive. As a bonus, housing rent allowance etc. these actions inspire the worker honestly do for the organization. Government sector provides opportunities to their employees but the workers are not committed with the organization. What are the fundamental problems exists there? We want to know that? The problem is the absence of administration, or Politian issues. Govt. sector provide every opportunity for the employees. The problems are, in principle, can exist or not. Thus, various issues involved in this quest. This research is being conducted on the organization of the National Highway Authority (NHA), which is responsible for the developed, operating and maintaining the National Highway and motorway networks throughout Pakistan.

2. Literature Review

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is defined as behavior that (a) is of the basic needs of the job, (b) has a huge prospective unlimited, and (c) critical for the benefit of the organization (Lambert et al., 2008). OCB is employee’s behavior that, while not critical to the duty or project, serves to promote the functioning of organizations (Lee and Allen, 2002) Organizational citizenship behavior significantly affects the work place in which employees have to give the autonomy in the assigned projects and organization focuses on the cognitive environment in which employees can share their knowledge with each other (Hsu & Lin, 2008).

Exploring job satisfaction among government employees usually best predicted cause by interpersonal associations and collaboration perceptions (Kais et al., 2005). When the pressure is increased in the organizational environment it leads to increase the job stress level of the employees and diminishes the job satisfaction level among them. The major factor which plays an accelerated role in increasing the problems in the organizational climate is the personal conflicts and lack of trust among the employees of the organizations. Johnsrud & Rosser (2002) studied the operational level of the employees and concluded that the core factors which affect the job satisfaction significantly are the appreciation through proper reward system, organizational justice and flexibility in the working environment. Costa & Akerstedt (2006) described that progressive organizational environment pertains collective effort, security and strong interpersonal relationships. ''They accomplished that the overall satisfaction is the creation of a composite stability of many ingredients.''

Belcher (1991) tested a basic model for the workers on the stages of the occupation described that with the increase of autonomy in the working environment the privlige also increases with the job and your relationship with peers expands and strengthen which helps to reduce the workload and increases the job satisfaction. According to Sonmezer and Eryaman (2008) recognition, power, horizontal and vertical relationship, creativity and innovative skills are the major determinants of organizational behavior of the employees.

3. Research Methodology

Questionnaires were distributed among members of the organization (National Highway Authority) by using convenience sampling. Population of this study was employees working in different departments of this national level service in Pakistan such as IT department, Motorway Police, Budget & Account department, Revenue Department, Establishment Section, Computer department etc.

National Highway Authority headquarters in Islamabad and sub offices in Lahore, Karachi and Quetta. Their main goal is to provide all general transport routes and motor road and all bridges outside view and control all motor road departments like; motor way police etc. The power of the people in this organization in thousands, NHA Lahore branch staff strength is about 450, and 200 members were selected at random from the total number of members for this study purpose for (N = 200) of our respondents rate. This is a research study on the basis of the primary data and questionnaire is based on all the elements of the perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behavior. Five point Likert scale was used. Personal demographic information was also collected in this analysis and items were included in the pilot study, the relevant articles are also included in order to collect all necessary information.

4. Theoretical Framework

Figure 1.0 presents the pictorial diagram of model and theoretical framework for the study in which both the variables are correlated.

Figure 1.0. Theoretical Framework

5. Hypotheses Development

On the basis of literature given before, the only hypothesis for this study is described below.

H₁: There is a positive relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behavior.

6. Results and Findings of the Study

Table 1 show that the data is collected from 200 respondents in which majority of the respondents are male (63.5%) and female represents the (36.5%) of the population. The majority of the respondents has age of between 40-49 (29.5%) and is married (61.5%). Most of the respondents have 2-3 years’ experience (29%).

Table 1. Respondent ID information

Gender: In our study there were 200 respondents in which 127 (63.5%) are male, and female are 73 (36.5%) as shown in figure 2.0.

Figure 2.0. Gender of Respondents

Job tenure: Less than one year is 7 (3.5%), 1-2 year 14 (7%), and 2-3 year 58 (29%), and 3-5 year 46 (23%), and 5-10 year 47 (23.5%), and more than 10 year in which 28 (14%) are respondent rely as shown in figure 3.0.

Age: In our investigation the percentage of employees age ranging from 20-24 in which 38 (19%) respondent and 25-29 in which 28 (24%), and 30-39 in which 45 (22.5%), and 40-49 in which lie 59 (29.5%), 50-59 in which respondent 10 (5%) as shown in figure 4.0.

Marital status: Married is 123 (61.5%) and single is 77 (38.5%) as shown in figure 5.0.

Figure 3.0. Job Tenure of Respondents

Figure 4.0. Marital Statuses of Respondents

Figure 5.0. Marital Statuses of Respondents

Table 2. Descriptive analysis of all the items (Percentages are given in brackets)

Table 3. Reliability statistics

Table 3.0 indicates the descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation), reliability coefficients and of independent (POS) and dependent variable which is job performance. As the reliability of some constructs was low, items with less interitem correlation were deleted before the analysis was performed. The deletion of items improved reliability. The mean value for POS, 4.0720 which is higher and for self-determination 3.95, which is the dimension of organizational citizenship behavior, is higher. In this analysis POS have dimensions which are meaning, competence, self-determination, impact, courtesy, conscientiousness, while other variable, job performance contains organizational citizenship behavior of employees which is also called extra role performance of employees.

Table 4. Correlation analysis

The correlation results shows that there exist a significantly moderate relation between perceived organizational support (POS) and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) but one dimension of OCB, Conscientiousness is negatively related to perceived organizational support. Correlation analysis is helpful in creating and discovering the relationship among the variables and creates a sense that all variables are associated with each other whether negatively or positively.

7. Conclusion & Managerial Implications

The finding of this research studies is that there exist the positive relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behavior. The organizational support comprises of different factors such as compensation system, organizational justice, leadership skills and employee empowerment when these factors increases then it ultimately affect the organizational citizenship behavior of the employees. When the organizational citizenship behavior of the employees enhance in the firm then it leads the organization to the profitable way and set new benchmarks of the success because the employees become loyal for the organizations. They set aside their personal interest and give priorities to the organizational goals and objectives. The managers should introduced target oriented reward based system and reduce the organizational politics by strengthen the fairness policies so that no employees morale decreases which helps enhance the organizational citizenship behavior and they start will start work in an enthusiastic manner.

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