International Journal of Basic Sciences & Applied Research. Vol., 3 (SP), 69-74, 2014 Available online at http://www.isicenter.org ISSN 2147-3749 2014 The Relationship Between Psychological Empowerment and Organizational Citizenship Behavior in the Employees With Bank Melli in Golestan Province Abolfazl Abbas Nayebi 1, Aliakbar Aghaie 2* 1 Department of Management, Aliabad Katoul Branch, Islamic Azad University, Aliabad Katoul, Iran 2 Golestan University, Gorgan, Iran * Corresponding Author Email: aghaei.aliakbar@gmail.com Abstract The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in the employees with Bank Melli in Golestan province. The population of the study consisted of all employees with Bank Melli branches in Golestan province (N=837). From among the population, a number of 265 employees were selected as the participants using proportionate stratified random sampling. The data were collected using a questionnaire comprising 39 questions on a 5-point Likert scale. The results showed a significant positive correlation of psychological empowerment and its components (meaning, impact, competence and self-determination) with OCB. The study is an applied research adopting a descriptive-correlational method and survey design. Keywords: Psychological empowerment, Organizational citizenship behavior, Bank Melli of Islamic Republic of Iran, Golestan province. Introduction Traditional approaches to management tend to stifle innovation in the employees, increase workload, restrict the personnel and decrease job satisfaction. On the other hand, complete freedom in work leads to disorder and chaos. In fact, either of these situations could waste organizational material and spiritual resources and hinder efficiency. Thus, attention to the factors promoting employee abilities in doing their job duties can improve their performance. Personal traits such as self-confidence, innovation and optimism may help alleviate such problems. Scientific approaches should be adopted to reach these goals (Schneider et al., 2007). Empowerment is one of the most important techniques to nurture such traits in the individuals and can be a new motivational factor in dynamic workplaces. It should be noted that two dominant research perspectives are observable in empowerment studies. First, there are studies in which scholars tend to address the structural aspect of empowerment. In these studies, empowerment is studied as the product of a process, which is called structural approach (Peterson & Zimmerman, 2004). Second, some researchers tend to examine the psychological and cognitive dimensions of empowerment. They consider empowerment as an underlying factor contributing to the development of organizational activities (despite the first group of scholars who considered other factors). They believe that empowerment is an internal factor that is directly associated with personal attitudes, emotions or perceptions toward the workplace. They contend that development or strengthening of perceived empowerment at subjective levels would lead to empowerment in the individual. This approach is regarded as a new motivational factor in mobilizing and increasing willingness to work in the employees (Robbins et al., 2002). From almost one and a half decade ago, researchers started to distinguish between in-role and extra-role performance (Hee Yoon & Suh, 2003). Extra-role performance refers to occupational behaviors beyond the formal roles of employees, which are voluntary and typically disregarded in the official reward system (Organ, 1988). Studies on OCB fall into three categories. First, a group of studies have focused on the prediction and empirical testing of the factors fostering OCB. In this regard, such factors as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational identity, organizational justice and trust have been introduced as the facilitators of OCB (Podsakoff et al., 2000). Second, some studies have focused on the outcomes of OCB. In this regard, such factors as organizational performance, organizational effectiveness, organizational success, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and social capital have been addressed. Third, a limited number of studies have focused on OCB concept and have tried to offer a new definition of the concept, define its dimensions or develop standard instruments to measure OCB using factor analysis (Morrison, 1994).Considering the above discussion, the present study mainly focuses on the identification of factors affecting OCB because once we identify such factors and their impact, we should be able to improve OCB by adopting appropriate strategies and approaches. With regard to the discussion on employee empowerment and its prevailing effects in the organization, psychological empowerment of employees is 69
one of the factors that may contribute to OCB. Thus, the present study aims to address the question is there any relationship between psychological empowerment and OCB in the employees with Bank Melli branches in Golestan province?. Literature review Vaezi and Sabzikaran (2010) conducted a study entitled investigating the relationship between organizational structure and employee empowerment in National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC)-Tehran region. The research population consisted of 560 employees with NIOPDC-Tehran region. A number of 230 employees were selected as the participants using simple random sampling. They used Spreitzer s model of psychological empowerment (1995) and eventually developed an appropriate structural model to empower the NIOPDC employees. Naderi and Hoveida (2013) carried out a study entitled the relationship between Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and Human Resources Empowerment (HRE) Case study: University of Isfahan (Iran). The study adopted a descriptive method and investigated correlations between research variables in the employees with the University of Isfahan. The results showed a significant positive correlation between psychological empowerment and OCB. Chiang and Hsieh (2012) studied the impacts of perceived organizational support and psychological empowerment on job performance: The mediating effects of organizational citizenship behavior. They reported that perceived organizational support and psychological empowerment did not positively affect OCB. Besides, perceived organizational support was found to have no positive effect on job performance. The results also revealed that psychological empowerment and OCB exerted a positive effect on job performance. Organizational behavior functioned as a mediator between perceived organizational support and job performance and between psychological empowerment and job performance. Allahyari et al (2011) conducted a survey of relationship between the psychological empowerment of employees with organizational learning. They showed a significant positive correlation between organizational learning and psychological empowerment. Besides, a sense of solidarity with others and competence could predict organizational learning (there was a positive regression relationship). The results showed no significant difference between empowerment and organizational learning between male and female employees with Tehran University. Mokhtarian and Mohammadi (2011) carried out a study entitled effective factors on psychological aspects of employee empowerment; Case Study: employee's point of views in one of the sub-organizations of Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology. The employees reported that independence, work structure and clear goals were the most important factors contributing to their psychological empowerment. The results showed no significant difference among employee attitudes toward the factors affecting psychological empowerment of personnel. The findings also revealed no significant correlation between demographic characteristics of the employees (including gender, marital status and education) and their attitudes toward the factors affecting personnel empowerment. Rita Men (2011) studied how employee empowerment affects employee-organization relationship in order to investigate how employees perceived the effect of empowerment on the quality of employee-organization relations in China. The results demonstrated that both dimensions of employee empowerment (perceived competence and control) were the positive predictors of the employee-organization relationship. Besides, perceived control had a greater weight than perceived competence in the prediction. In their study entitled empowerment in hospitality organizations: Customer orientation and organizational support, Heejung and Chen (2011) aimed to investigate the effect of employees willingness to customer orientation and organizational support factors on employee empowerment perceptions. The findings revealed that organizations should employ customer-oriented people, guide them through service training, define reward systems for them and facilitate service standards in order to increase perceived empowerment in the employees. In a study entitled affective organizational commitment and citizenship behavior: Linear and non-linear moderating effects of organizational tenure, Thomas and Feldman (2011) aimed to investigate the relationship between organizational commitment and citizenship behavior with the moderating role of tenure in the organization. They reported that organizational tenure had a non-linear moderating effect in the relationship between affective organizational commitment and citizenship behavior. For less than 10 years of organizational tenure, the correlation between commitment and citizenship behavior was positive with increasing the tenure. However, after 10 years of organizational tenure, increased tenure decreased the strength of correlation between commitment and citizenship behavior. In their study entitled explanation of organizational citizenship behavior with personality, Mahdiuon et al (2010) aimed to examine the relationship between OCB and personality traits of employees in the Tehran University personnel. The results showed that OCB and personality traits were above average. There was a significant positive correlation between OCB and personality traits (such as adaptability, alertness, etc.). OCB had a negative correlation only with nervousness. The results also demonstrated that adaptability, alertness and openness could predict OCB (based on regression equation). Bhatnagar and Sandhu (2005) studied psychological empowerment and organizational citizenship behavior in a number of 111 IT managers. They reported that managers who understand psychological empowerment in their workplace can demonstrate OCB. Based on regression analysis, the findings suggested that OCB could be improved in IT managers when they are psychologically empowered. Bogler and Somech (2004) studied the influence of teacher empowerment on teachers organizational commitment, professional commitment and organizational citizenship behavior in schools. They carried out the study on a number of 983 high school teachers. The results suggested that teachers perception of their level of empowerment was significantly associated with their organizational and professional commitment as well as their OCB. Markoczy and Xin (2004) studied the virtues of omission in organizational citizenship behavior in order to develop a comprehensive model of OCB. They based their study on the models developed by Organ (1988) for cultural milieu of the U.S and Farh et al (1997) for the cultural milieu of China. They eventually developed an OCB model including seven components: civic virtue, altruism, conscientiousness, interpersonal harmony, protecting company resources, sportsmanship and courtesy. They provided the indices of these components along with questionnaire items. 70
Theoretical framework and research hypotheses Based on the review of the literature, the following conceptual model is developed as the research model (Figure 1). It should be noted that every dependent and independent variable will be evaluated based on the research model. Independent variable Based on the Spreitzer s four-dimensional model of psychological empowerment, the components of the present model are as follows: Meaning (a sense of value): refers to the value of work goals judged in relation to the individual s standards or ideals. In fact, meaning involves the consistency of job requirements with personal beliefs, values and behaviors. Without organizational requirements, people tend to work toward goals that are meaningful to them. In fact, employees prefer to work with the individuals that share similar values. Competent people feel they are meaningful and value the goals for which they work. There is homogeneity between their ideals and what is being carried out, and this work is important in their value system. Impact (personal acceptance of the outcome): refers to the degree to which an individual can influence strategic, administrative or operational outcomes at work. Impact is the opposite of helplessness. It is different from and influenced by the locus of control. The internal locus of control is a personality trait that is stable in different life events. People who have strong impact do not believe in the limitation of their abilities at work by external barriers; rather they believe that the barriers can be controlled. They have active control and align the environment with their demands (despite the passive control). They try to maintain their dominance over whatever they see rather than having a reactive behavior toward the environment. Competence (self-efficacy): when people are empowered, they feel self-efficacy or they feel they are competent to accomplish a task. Competent people feel not only competent but also confident to do a task adequately. They feel personal mastery and believe they can learn to face new challenges. Self-determination (a sense of having choices): self-regulating the sense of having choice and initiating the regulation of activities indicate the independence and sustenance of processes. Examples are deciding on work procedures or determining the amount of efforts needed to have a task done. Self-regulation denotes experiencing a sense of choice in personal execution and organization of works in detail. When people volunteer to involve in job duties rather than being forced to initiate or end a task, they feel having choice or self-regulation at work (Spreitzer, 1995). Dependent variable: was based on the OCB model developed by Markoczy and Xin (2004) who based their work on the models developed by Organ (1988) for cultural milieu of the U.S and Farh et al (1997) for the cultural milieu of China. They eventually developed an OCB model including seven components: civic virtue, altruism, conscientiousness, interpersonal harmony, protecting company resources, sportsmanship and courtesy. The discussion is already presented above. Independent variable Dependent variable Psychological empowerment Meaning Impact Competence OCB Self-determination Figure 1. Conceptual model of the research (Spreitzer, 1995; Markoczy & Xin, 2004). Accordingly, the research hypotheses were developed as follows: Main hypothesis There is a significant relationship between psychological empowerment and OCB in the employees with Bank Melli branches in Golestan province. 71
Subsidiary hypotheses There is a significant relationship between meaning and OCB in the employees. There is a significant relationship between impact and OCB in the employees. There is a significant relationship between competence and OCB in the employees. There is a significant relationship between self-determination and OCB in the employees. Methodology The study is an applied research adopting a descriptive-correlational method. The unit of analysis is considered to be individual subjects. Population and sample The research population consisted of all employees with Bank Melli of Islamic Republic of Iran in Golestan province. Based on the statistics obtained in February 2013, the population amounted to 837 employees in 52 branches and 11 cities. A number of 265 employees were selected as the participants based on Krejcie and Morgan s table using proportionate stratified random sampling (Danaie Fard et al., 2009). In this regard, every city was considered as a stratum and provided a share of the sample proportionate to the population. Data collection and instrument The data were collected using two different methods Library study and Internet search to review the relevant literature; Field study (using a questionnaire) to collect the data from the research sample. The questionnaire was developed by combining two standard questionnaires as follows Spreitzer's psychological empowerment questionnaire (1995) Markoczy and Xin s OCB questionnaire (2004) (Moghimi, 2011) These two questionnaires were combined to develop a single questionnaire consisting of 39 items on a 5-point Likert scale (Appendix 1). The questionnaire was administered to the participants. Data analysis SPSS software was used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics including measures of central tendency and variability such as mean, median, standard deviation and variance was used to describe the data. Inferential statistics including Spearman correlation coefficient was run to analyze the data. Results Since the data were not normally distributed, non-parametric tests were run to analyze the data. In this regard, Spearman correlation coefficient was used to test the research hypotheses. The level of significance was considered to be 0.05 with 95% certainty. Table 1. Results of correlation test between psychological empowerment and OCB. Correlation Coefficient 184 **.0 Sig. 000.0 Table 2. Results of correlation test between meaning and OCB. Correlation Coefficient 246 *.0 Sig. 033.0 *Significant at the level 0.05 72
Table 3. Results of correlation test between impact and OCB. Correlation Coefficient 166 **.0 Sig. 008.0 Table 4. Results of correlation test between competence and OCB. Correlation Coefficient 144 **.0 Sig. 000.0 Table 5. Results of correlation test between self-determination and OCB. Correlation Coefficient 225 **.0 Sig. 000.0 Table 6. Coefficients of the regression model. Non-standardized coefficients Standardized coefficients t Sig. B Std. Error Beta Fixed value 444.5 054.0 604.25 000.0 Psychological empowerment 003.4 056.0 205.0 616. - 34 000.0 As shown in Table 6, the standardized coefficient (Beta) is 0.502. Since the t value is significant at the level smaller than 0.01, one may contend that psychological empowerment affects OCB. That is, an increase as much as one standard deviation in the psychological empowerment increases OCB as much as 0.502 standard deviation. Discussion and Conclusion The present findings showed a significant positive correlation between psychological empowerment and OCB in the employees with Bank Melli branches in Golestan province. Psychological empowerment could considerably predict variations in OCB. This is consistent with the findings of Rita Men (2011), Heejung and Chen (2011) and Naderi and Hoveida (2013). In the literature review, we addressed three studies that had examined the relationship between cognitive (psychological) empowerment and OCB in different research populations. Bogler and Somech (2004) studied the relationship between these two variables in high school teachers and reported a significant positive correlation between these variables. Bhatnagar and Sandhu (2005) studied the relationship between psychological empowerment and OCB in the IT managers. They showed a significant correlation between these two variables in IT managers. They further contended that the correlation could be demonstrated based on a regression and predictive relationship as well so that improved psychological empowerment in IT managers could improve their OCB. In Iran, Naderi and Hoveida (2013) conducted a similar study on employees with Isfahan University and reported similar findings. They found a significant positive correlation between psychological empowerment and OCB in the university employees. The present findings are consistent with the findings reported by the above studies so that the same relationship is confirmed in a new research population. Therefore, one can conclude that there is a significant positive correlation between psychological empowerment and OCB. This relationship is confirmed in most of the research populations including the present one. Considering the present findings, the following recommendations are made to the top management at Bank Melli of Islamic Republic of Iran: Bank employees should be informed of the performance and activity outcomes. Employees should be ensured that they are important for the bank and their awareness, effort and commitment could guarantee bank success. As far as possible, bank employees should be engaged in decision making relevant to their branch. A tangible coordination should be established between bank goals and personal goals of individual employees. Employees should be encouraged that they are competent and can deal with environmental problems. Self-confidence should be increased in the employees rather than being repressed for little mistakes. Employees should be trained on problem-solving techniques during in-service training. 73
Employees should be rewarded for their good decisions on work issues. As competence creates a sense of capability, skillfulness and confidence in the employees, these feelings should be nurtured in the personnel in different ways rather than being repressed. Employees should be exposed to new challenges (that are a little beyond their normal capabilities) through occupational or recreational programs so that they can prove themselves that they can accomplish a task. As far as possible, employees should be given independence to make decisions. Employees should be ensured in words and in practice that management supports and encourages their appropriate decisions. Employees should be allowed to make appropriate decisions in their daily interaction with clients as well as in out-of-ordinary situations. References Allahyari R, Shahbazi B, Mirkamali SM, Kharazi K, 2011. Survey of relationship between the psychological empowerment of employees with organizational learning. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 30: 1549-1554. Bhatnagar J, Sandhu Sh, 2005. Psychological Empowerment and Organisational Citizenship Behavior in IT Managers. IJIR. 40: 449-469. Bogler R, Somech A, 2004. Influence of teacher empowerment on teachers organizational commitment. Professional commitment and organizational citizenship behavior in schools. Teaching and Teacher Education. 20: 277-289. Chiang CF, Hsieh TS, 2012. The impacts of perceived organizational support and psychological empowerment on job performance: The mediating effects of organizational citizenship behavior. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 31:180-190. Hee Yoon M, Su J, 2003. Organizational Citizenship Behaviors and Service Quality as External Effectiveness of Contact Employees. Journal of Business Research. 56: 597-630. Heejung R, Chen PJ, 2011. Empowerment in hospitality organizations: Customer orientation and organizational support. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 30: 422-428. Mahdiuon R, Ghahramani M, Rezaii Sharif A, 2010. Explanation of organizational citizenship behavior with personality. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences. 5: 178-184. Markoczy L, Xin K, 2004. The virtues of omission in organizational citizenship behavior. Journal of University of California. 12: 28-30. Mokhtarian F, Mohammadi R, 2011. Effective factors on psychological aspects of employee empowerment. Case Study: employee's point of views in one of the sub-organizations of Iranian Ministry of Science. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 30: 786-790. Morrison EW, 1994. Role Definitions and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Importance of the Employees Perspective. Academy of Management Journal. 37: 15-43. Naderi N, Hoveida R, 2013. The relationship between Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and Human Resources Empowerment (HRE) Case study: University of Isfahan (Iran). International Journal of Human Resource Studies. 3: 69-78. Nadiri H, Tanova C, 2010. An investigation of the role of justice in turnover intentions, job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior in hospitality industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 29: 33 41. Organ DW, 1988. Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Good Soldier Syndrome. Lexington: Lexington Books Publications. Peterson NA, Zimmerman MA, 2004. Beyond the individual: Toward a nomological network of organizational empowerment. American Journal of Community Psychology. 34: 129-148. Podsakoff PM, Mackenzie SB, Paine JB, Bachrach DG, 2000. Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: A Critical Review of The Theoretical and Empirical Literature and Suggestions for Future Research. Journal of Management. 26: 513-563. Robbins TL, Crino MD, Fredendall LD, 2002. An integrative model of the empowerment process. Human Resource Management Review. 12: 419-420. Spreitzer G, 1995. Psychological Empowerment in The Workplace: Dimensions, Measurement And Validation. The Academy Of Management Journal. 38: 1442-1465. Thomas WHN, Feldman DC, 2011. Affective organizational commitment and citizenship behavior: Linear and non-linear moderating effects of organizational tenure. Journal of Vocational Behavior. 79: 528-537. Vaezi R, Sabzikaran E, 2010. Investigating the relationship between organizational structure and employee empowerment in National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC)-Tehran region. Research Journal of Change Management. 2: 153-178. 74