INTRODUCTION
The fact that every organization desires employees who will perform beyond their usual duties and expectations for organizational growth and sustainability cannot be considered baseless. Extra-role behaviors, which are behaviors that are not prescribed by job descriptions and may be similar across jobs, and serve the accomplishment of organizational goals is of considerable importance in an organization (Katz, 1964). Although defining specific roles for each job reduces human variability and increases predictability of the quality and quantity of the performance, individuals should be encouraged to engage in spontaneous and innovative behaviors that may help the organization to survive (Öztürk, 2010). Katz and Kahn (1966) stated that organizational well-functioning heavily depends on extra-role behaviors. Managers therefore need employees who do more than what is described in the work contract. Specifically speaking, what managers look out for is Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs) (Öztürk, 2010), which were explained by Organ (1988:4) as “discretionary behaviors, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system and that in aggregate promote the effective functioning of the organization”. Such discretionary behaviors which are not specified by role prescriptions are vital for achieving organizational goals (Öztürk, 2010). OCB which is employees’ voluntary performance of tasks or duties that are not part of those specified officially is of immense importance in any organization. OCBs are not within the role or range provided by job descriptions as it is not a clear employment contract and does not attract reward when exhibited nor attract express punishment when ignored (Gabriel, 2015).
As Katz (1964) identified, it is not possible for an organization to foresee all contingencies within its operations, or to anticipate environmental changes accurately, or
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to control human variability perfectly. Therefore, an organization which depends solely upon its blueprints of prescribed behavior for workers is a very fragile social system (Katz, 1964). Therefore, the necessary things for organizational survival and effectiveness is employees who contribute to organizational functioning by engaging in extra role behaviors such as assisting co-workers, avoiding frequent faultfinding, defending the organisation whenever occasion demands (Gabriel, 2015), helping a new co-worker or one that has heavy workload, voluntarily attending and actively participating in unit meetings, paying attention to self- development to become versatile and being flexible in terms of tasks that can be performed, and not complaining about petty problems (Öztürk, 2010).
Allen and Rush (1998) stated that organizational citizenship behaviors when aggregated over time and persons become important since they facilitate the accomplishment of organizational goals and enhance organizational performance; hence, it promotes the effective functioning of the organisation (Organ, 1998; Allen & Meyer, 1990; Bolino & Turnley, 2003; Shroudt & Wolfle, 2002; Shrrodt, Cawyer & Sanders, 2003).
The evolution of Organisational Citizenship Behaviour is traceable to Bateman and Organ (1983) who assigned the label of organisational citizenship behaviour to a type of behaviour Katz and Kahn referred to as spontaneous behaviour or extra – role behaviour (Van Dyne, Cummings & Parks, 1995); Civic organizational behaviour (Graham, 1991); Prosocial organizational behaviour (George, 1990, 1991); Organisational spontaneity (George & Johnes, 1997) and contextual performance (Borman & Motowildo, 1993, 1997).
Records from empirical research has shown that OCBs benefit the organizations in many ways such as customer satisfaction, quality and quantity of the service or
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product, sales performance, customer complaints, and revenue (Karambayya, 1990; Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1994; MacKenzie, Podsakoff, & Ahearne, 1998; Walz & Niehoff, 1996; Koys, 2001; Podsakoff, Whiting, Podsakoff, & Blume, 2009; Öztürk, 2010). Podsakoff et al (2009) defined certain ways by which OCBs may affect organizational performance. These were organized by Öztürk (2010) as follow:
OCBs might enhance both coworker and managerial productivity. OCBs may also free up resources for more productive purposes and reduce the need to devote scarce resources to purely maintenance functions. Moreover, OCBs may serve as effective means of coordinating activities between team members and across work groups. OCBs may also enhance the organization’s ability to attract and retain the best people by making it a more attractive place to work. Additionally, OCBs may enhance the stability of organizational performance by reducing variability. Furthermore, OCBs may improve an organization’s ability to adapt to environmental changes. Lastly, OCBs may enhance organizational effectiveness by creating social capital. (2010:3).
Organisational citizenship behaviour is a multidimensional construct. Literature is saturated with plethora of organisational citizenship behaviour dimensions. For example, several researchers (Graham, 1986; Morrison, 1994; Smith, Organ & Near, 1983, Organ, 1988) posit that there are five dimensions: Altruism, Conscientiousness, Civic virtue, Courtesy; and Sportsmanship; whereas Podsakoff et al, (2009) developed seven dimensions: (1) Helping behaviour, (2) Sportsmanship, (3) Organisational Loyalty, (4) Organisational compliance, (5) Individual initiative, (6) Civic Virtue, and (7) Self Development. Williams and Anderson, (1991) simply divided organisational citizenship
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behaviours into OCBI- behaviours directed at individual members of the organisation and OCBO- behaviours directed at the organisation.
Since it is agreeable upon that even with all advancements in ICT and other machines and devices, workers in an organization are the main value creators in the organizations and the organizations’ success depends on their performance, it will be an important task for research to identify the variables that trigger workers’ commitment in OCBs. Therefore, the present study aims to discover the variables that influence engagement in OCBs in workers. Among numerous variables available, the present study concentrates on the recently thriving variable, Emotional intelligence and workers’ involvement in the job (Job Involvement) to see the influence these would have on OCBs-directed towards individual colleagues (OCBI) and towards the organization (OCBO).
Emotional Intelligence took its origin from the concept of Social Intelligence of Salovey (1990) who defined Emotional Intelligence as the sub set of Social Intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions (James, Velayudhan & Gayatridevi, 2010). From the time of the publication of Goleman’s (1995) book, emotional intelligence (EI) has been a passionately debated topic. Some proponents of EI claim it can predict various work-related outcomes, including job performance (Bachman, Stein, Campbell, & Sitarenios, 2000) and turnover (Goleman, 1998). Also, there is accumulating evidence that EI abilities and traits influence organizational citizenship behavior (Daus & Ashkanasy, 2005; Van Rooy & Viswesvaran, 2004).
Even beyond cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence is valuable to everyone in the organization. James et al (2010) opined that emotional Intelligence becomes a stronger predictor of task performance and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour directed
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to Organization (OCBO) as Cognitive Intelligence decreases. Employees with low Cognitive Intelligence perform tasks correctly and engage in Organizational Citizenship Behaviour directed to Organization frequently if they are Emotionally Intelligent (Cote & Miners, 2006).
Goleman (1995) identified the dimensions of Emotional Intelligence in the workplace which are Self-awareness, Self-management, Self-motivation, Empathy and Social skills. In a more recent work than the Goleman (1995), James et al (2010) organized the focus of Emotional Intelligence in the work place in two aspects: Self-mastery job capabilities such as self-confidence, initiative, trustworthiness and achievement drive that contribute to outstanding performance and Relationship-skills such as empathy, political awareness, leveraging diversity, team capabilities and leadership that result in effective organization.
Most of the organizations work on Emotional Intelligence for selecting adaptable employees and also for development of employees for team effectiveness which can lead to organizational effectiveness (James et al, 2010). The employee that is emotionally intelligent can keep up with a healthy relationship with other coworkers and this implies that developing emotional intelligence in workers may develop in them good citizens for the organization.
On the other part of this study is Job involvement which was first introduced by Lodahl and Kejner (1965) with a definition that it is the psychological identification of an individual with the work or importance of work in that individual’s self-image. Kanungo (1982) defined job involvement as psychological identification with a job. According to Nwibere (2014) job involvement is how people see their jobs as both a relationship with the working environment, the job itself and how their work and life are commingled. The foregoing definition implies that employees who are highly involved in their job will see
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work “as an important part of their self-concept” (Lawler & Hall, 1970), and that jobs “define one’s self-concept in a major way” (Kanungo, 1982).
According to Dubin (1956) job involvement is conceptualized as the degree to which the total job situation is a “central life interest”, that is, the degree to which it is perceived to be a major source for the satisfaction of important needs. Job involvement is a function of the satisfaction of eminent personal needs (Kanungo, 1982). Kanungo (1982) suggests a reformulation of the job Involvement construct to be viewed as a form of psychological identification enhanced by a cognitive or belief state.
According to Nwibere (2014), “the majority view is that job involvement has four different aspects and as such individuals are said to be job-involved when: firstly, work to them is a central life interest; secondly, when they actively participates in their job; thirdly, when they perceive performance as central to their self-esteem; and fourthly, when they perceive performance as consistent with their self-concept” (2014:324). There are a number of attitudes and behaviors that have been linked to job involvement; turnover or intent to leave (Baba & Jamal, 1991; Huselid & Day, 1991), job satisfaction (Gerpott, 1990; Patterson & O’Driscoll, 1990; Baba & Jamal, 1991; Mathieu & Farr, 1991) work performance, sense of achievement and unexplained absenteeism (Rabinowitz & Hall, 1977). Dimitriades (2007) in describing highly job involved individuals stated the following:
Highly job involved individuals generally seem to be satisfied with their jobs, to be in characteristic positive moods at work and to be highly committed to their employing organizations, their careers, and their professions. Moreover, job involved individuals believe that personal and organizational goals are compatible. (2007:476)
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Given that job involvement has been shown to be related to the various organisational outcomes listed above, it is assumed that it may also be related to or be a predictor of OCB. Chen and Chiu (2009) is in support of the foregoing in their suggestion that employees that have high degree of job involvement among all other things are also more likely to increase their self-respect through successful job performance and display of organizational beneficial behaviors even those behaviors beyond their main job roles as stipulated in their organizations blue print.
Statement of Problem
It is factual and evidence based to argue that high performing organisations rely heavily on employees who exceed their contractual duties to discharge official tasks successfully and that organisations could hardly survive or prosper without their members behaving as good citizens by engaging in all sorts of positive behaviours (Gabriel, 2015). The importance of good citizenship for organisations has made understanding of the nature and sources of OCB a high priority for organisational scholars (Organ, 1988) and remains so still (Gabriel, 2015). Prominent and current organisational researchers, including George and Brief (1992) have supported Organ’s argument regarding the importance of effectiveness of those behaviours he labeled as OCB (Gabriel, 2015).
Organisations in the present dispensation must as a matter of necessity boast of employees who are really citizens of the organization and can transcend their normal role assignment and perform other pro social behaviours here referred to as Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in order to maintain an adaptive, robust, resourceful, flexible, responsive and rapid work environment (Gabriel, 2015) that will enhance workers’ performance and organizational growth.
Admitting that the work force (i.e. workers) is the most important element of organizations and the organizations’ success depends on the performance of this work
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force, identifying the variables that trigger engagement of organizations’ work force in OCBs is really reasonable. Some of the workers do not present with the capacity to engage in OCBs. You would usually hear from some workers, “this is not what I was called to do in this place” or “I know my work, am not responsible for that …” even at the expense of the organization’s progress. This therefore is the problem this present study is driven to solve. The drive then is to investigate the predictive stand of emotional intelligence and job involvement on organisational citizenship behavior (directed to individual colleagues and directed to the organization) in some selected private sector organizations in Enugu Metropolis.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study in general term is to determine whether emotional intelligence and job involvement can predict organisational citizenship behavior- OCBI and OCBO among selected private sector organizations in Enugu Metropolis.
Specifically, the study will seek to determine whether:
Emotional intelligence would significantly predict OCB among staff of PRODA and INNOSSON Plastic Co. Emene.
Job involvement would significantly predict OCB among staff of PRODA and INNOSSON Plastic Co. Emene.
Operational Definition of Key Variables
Organizational Citizenship Behavior: This is a person’s level of voluntary commitment within the organization or company that is not part of his or her contractual tasks. It is measured using the 20-Item Organizational Citizenship Behavior Checklist (OCB-C) by Fox and Spector (2011).
Emotional Intelligence: This is the level of one’s awareness of his/her own emotions, management of his/her own emotions, awareness of others’ emotions, and
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management of others’ emotions in the workplace measured using the four factor, 16 items Workplace Emotional Intelligence Profile short version (WEIP-S) by Jordan and Lawrence (2009).
Job Involvement: Job involvement is one’s psychological identification with a job assessed with a 10-item Kanungo (1982) Job involvement Scale (JIS).