revolution in the use of information technologies, just to list a few. ... necessarily security or stability) during times of change, (c) manage the emotional .... challenged by liquidity problems, regulation and policy summersault, ..... flexible, autonomous job designs (Parker et. al, 1997), virtual teams and teleworking (Cascio,.
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Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) and Corporate Resilience in the Domestic Aviation Sector in Nigeria
BY
GABRIEL, Justin Mgbechi Odinioha B.Sc (Business Administration - Management), MBA (Management) RSUST, P.H. PG. 2008/00027
“A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL, RIVERS STATE UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, NKPOLUOROWORUKWO, PORT HARCOURT, IN FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (PhD) DEGREE IN MANAGEMENT, FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT SCIENCES”
APRIL 2015
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ABSTRACT This study investigated the association of organisational citizenship behaviour and corporate resilience in the domestic civil aviation sector in Nigeria. The unit of data generation was the organization and the corresponding level of analysis was the macro-level. The framework of the study was the baseline social theory of social exchange whereas the study design was a cross-sectional survey. A total of 180 top and middle level members from the five organisations studied constituted the study population, and a sample size of one hundred and eighteen (118) was drawn using the Krejcie and Morgan Table. Data was collected through questionnaire and oral interviews. With AMOS 5.0 programme; Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was computed and parameter estimates indicated a model fit. Also, the Cronbatch’s alpha values of the scales which surpassed the threshold of 0.7 showed reliability of the scales used. Using the SPSS version 17.0, frequencies were computed to show the sample characteristics. Descriptive statistics were computed and charts exhibited on the study variables at the primary level of analysis. Subsequently, at the secondary level of analysis, inferential statistics such as Spearman’s Rank Order Correlation Coefficients and Regression coefficients including the p-values were calculated in order to ascertain the nature and direction of the proposed associations and for testing the stated hypotheses. More so, qualitative data were analized using the issue focused approach with the aid of the Nvivo Software (version 8.0). Results revealed positive and statistically significant association between empirical referents of organisational citizenship behaviour and measures of corporate resilience. Therefore, the study specifically found that altruism, conscientiousness, civic virtue, sportsmanship, courtesy and self development behaviors in the Nigerian domestic airlines lead to high adaptive capacity, situation awareness and keystone vulnerability management. Again, perception of organisational politics (POP) mediated the influence of organisational citizenship behaviour on corporate resilience. Consequently, the study concluded that because employees in Nigerian domestic airliners exhibited citizenship behaviours of altruism, conscientiousness, civic virtue, courtesy, sportsmanship and self development, organisations became resilient as well. The study then recommended among others, that (1) Managers of domestic airlines should create enabling environment for citizenship behaviours to strive in the organizations (2) Managers should look out for applicants with potentials to exhibit organizational citizenship behavior during selection interviews so that when they are employed, they will naturally behave accordingly (3) Managers should also pay sufficient attention to their employees’ work behavior in order to determine those employees who are high in citizenship behavior so that such behaviors could be constantly reinforced (4) Managers should periodically organize training programs that will teach employees how to exhibit organizational citizenship behavior as well as draw their attention to the relationship between such behaviors and organizational goals.
DECLARATION
3
I Gabriel, Justin Mgbechi Odinioha hereby declare that this thesis is my original idea and has not been previously submitted either in part or in full to any institution for the award of any certificate or degree whatsoever.
CERTIFICATION It is hereby certified that this thesis is a which was written and submitted by Gabriel, Justin Mgbechi Odinioha (PG. 2008/00027) of the department of management, Faculty of
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Management Sciences, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Nkpolu, Oroworukwo, Port Harcourt, Rivers State Nigeria is accepted in partial fulfillment for the award of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Organizational Behavior.
Emeritus Professor Augustine. I. Ahiauzu Research Supervisor
Date
Professor Seth Accra Jaja Research Supervisor
Date
Dr Isaac Zeb-Obipi Research Supervisor
Date
Dr. D. I. Hamilton Ag. Head of Department
Date
Dr. A. J. Toby Ag. Dean, FMS, RSUST
Date
External Examiner
Date ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I strongly wish to express my deepest gratitude to my team of supervisors- Prof. A. I. Ahiauzu, Prof. S. A. Jaja and Dr I. Zeb-Obipi for accepting to play this significant and lifemolding role in my life. Prof. Ahiauzu; a very caring scholar whose reputations have blazed
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righteous paths for evaluators around the globe was not just a supervisor to me; he was a mentor, financier and father to whom I am perpetually indebted. Prof. Jaja; a man of few words, with quality comings and goings was of immense inspiration and support; he was never tired of asking me of my work, a habit that often spurred me to action each time. Dr Obipi is incontestably a sparker of ideas; each time I talked with him concerning my work, he had always opened fresh vistas to the status of my work. How can I thank you all for your guidance, words of advice, criticisms, encouragements and insights throughout this research?
There is another person whom I choose to describe as supervisor behind the scene; he is Dr. D. I. Hamilton who made himself readily disposed to answering my questions each time I got to a cross road. I also give great thanks to Dr G. A. Okwandu, Dr L. C. Obara, Dr A. J. Toby, Dr. B. D. Kiabel, Dr P.U.C. Agundu, Dr. A. O. Oparanma, Dr.D. W. Dagogo, Dr A. O. Momodu, Dr G. N. Nwokah, Dr. J. C. Imegi, Dr T. A. Agwor, Dr J. Ohaka, Dr O. Maxwell, Dr. L. I. Nwaeke, Dr. Henry Ejo-Orusa, M. D. Tamunomiebi, C. C. Ihunda, K. B. Bagshaw, J. I. Owunary, Ibekwe Wechie, Rev. John Mark, Dr Asawo, Soye,
Adiele Kenneth, Stella
Nwulu, Tega Ogbuigwe, Letam Don-Baridam, George Peters, Patrick Nwinyokpugi and every other academic and non academic staff of Faculty of Management sciences in Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt. I am particularly grateful to my amiable colleagues in this PhD program- Benibor George, Paul Nadube, Peter Chikere, Nnah Godpower, , Increase Orowari and James U. Didia for helping to sharpen my views as we periodically engaged in collective reasoning, intellectual arguments and social meetings.
Thanks
to Gbaraka Kpakol,
Deekor Baridon and every other staff of the Center for
International Management Research and Training (CIMRAT), Port Harcourt who were a fantastic help during the analysis of my research. I’ve heard that it’s easy when you know
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how, but I would never have known how without your help. Highly regarded are the encouragements from Mr and Mrs Charles Nwosu, Barr and Barr (Mrs) PNC Olokotor, Dr Onyekwere Orike, Mr and Mrs Abule Atteh, Mr and Mrs Anthony Chibuzor Imegi, Engr. Prince GKM Imegi and family, Engr. V. G. Nnadi and family, Elder and Mrs Fredshed Imegi, Elder Vincent Chinedu Nwaogwugwu and family, Elder and Mrs Emmanuel Osarokeiye , Mr and Mrs Emeka Ordu, Mr and Mrs George Nwadike and Mr Henry Okoroma, Pst. Dr Moses Onyendu Okai, Pst Chimezie Obuzor and all members of Seventhday Adventist Church family.
Also deserving a warm appreciation are- Barr and Mrs Nnamdi Gabriel and family, Barr Nnamdi –Nonyege remains my constant role model from whom I learnt basic life principles. Others are Chief Andrew Gabriel and family, Chimezie Gabriel and family, Prince Gabriel and family, Edwyn Jonathan and family, Elems Clement and family and lucky Gabriel. Others are again, my step Mother Mrs. Jerinah Orukwowu; Mrs Happiness Nanu and family and my parent’s in–law Captain Ila Briggs and family. Finally and importantly too, let me emotionally thank my dear wife Linda Otonye Justin Gabriel, you are indeed the best wife on earth and I will live to love you throughout the high low moments of life. I heartily thank my lovely children: Homachukwu, Chinyachukwu and Adauku for all their laughter, tantrums and love that kept me going, what a bundle of joy you are to me?. I hope you all grow up to learn that no matter what life throws at you, you can excel beyond imaginations of men if you so desire. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing- (Helen Keller); and for me, having a PhD does not mark the attainment of learning pinnacle but simply the beginning of serious learning itself.
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Above all, none of these persons appreciated here would have been able to make any impact in me if God did not sanction, therefore all glories are returned to Him who is able, to Him who sits in heaven using the earth as footstool, you are my God.
DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to the memory of my late parents Chief Loveday Odinioha Orukwowu and Deaconess Nwayiugo Odinioha Orukwowu.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT DECLARATION CERTIFICATION DEDICATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURES CHAPTER 1: Introduction 1.1 Background of the study……………………………………… 1 1.2 Statement of the problem…………………………………… 1.3 Purpose of the Study…………………………………………
ii iii iv v vi viii xiii xv
10 15
9
1.4 Objectives of the Study……………………………………… 1.5 Research Questions………………………………………… 1.6 Study Variables/Conceptual Framework………………… 1.6.1 Independent Variable (Predictor or Causal Variable)…… 1.6.2 Dependent Variable……………………………………….. 1.6.3 Mediating Variable…………………………………………. 1.7 Research Hypotheses…………………………………….. 1.8 Delimitation of the Study…………………………………… 1.9 Scope of the Study………………………………………… 1.9.1 Content Scope…………………………………………….. 1.9.2 Geographic Scope………………………………………… 1.9.3 Units of Analysis…………………………………………… 1.10 Significance and justification of the Study……………… 1.11 Definition of Operational Terms………………………….
15 17 18 18 18 19 22 25 26 26 26 29 27 31
CHAPTER 2: Review of Related Literature 2.1 Theoretical Foundation of the Study ……………………………… 35 2.1.1 Model of Social Exchange Theory……………………………… 38 2.2 Concept of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)………… 42 2.3 Dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior………………. 48 2.3.1 Altruism…………………………………………………………….. 48 2.3.2 Conscientiousness…………………………...……………….. 51 2.3.3 Civic Virtue………………………………………………… 54 2.3.4 Courtesy…………………………………………………… 55 2.3.5 Sportsmanship…………………………………………… 57 2.3.6 Self Development………………………………………… 58 2.4 Concepts similar to organizational citizenship behavior… 61 2.4.1 Prosocial organizational behavior………………………… 61 2.4.2 Organizational spontaneity………………………………… 63 2.4.3 Contextual Performance…………………………………… 64 2.5 Antecedents of Organizational Citizenship behavior……… 69 2.5.1 Disposition………………………………………………… 69 2.5.2 Attitudes………………………………………………………. 2.5.3 Motivation……………………………………………………… 2.5.4 Task characteristics…………………………………………. 74 2.5.5 Social relationships……………………………………………. 75 2.5.6 Relationship with Supervisors as antecedents of OCB……… 76 2.5.7 Relationship with co-workers as antecedent of OCB……… 78 2.6 Consequences of OCB………………………………………… 79 2.6.1 Consequences of OCB for those who perform it…………… 80 2.6.2 Consequences of OCB for individual and Group performance, and organizational effectiveness 2.7 The concept of Resilience…………………………………………. 84 2.7.1 Origin of Resilience………………………………………………… 89
71 72
81
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2.7.2 Organizational Resilience……………………………………….. 91 2.8 Measures of Organizational Resilience…………………………. 96 2.8.1 Situation awareness………………………………………………. 97 2.8.2 Keystone Vulnerability Management…………………………… 99 2.8.3 Adaptive Capacity………………………………………………… 101 2.9 Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Corporate Resilience… 102 2.9.1 Altruism and Corporate Resilience……………………………… 106 2.9.2 Conscientiousness and Corporate Resilience…………………. 108 2.9.3 Civic Virtue and Corporate Resilience…………………………… 110 2.9.4 Courtesy and Corporate Resilience………………………………. 112 2.9.5 Sportsmanship and Corporate Resilience………………………. 113 2.9.6 Self Development and Corporate Resilience…………………… 114 2.9.7 Mediating effect of (POP) on the causal relationship between OCB and CR……………………………………………………….. 114 CHAPTER 3: Research Methodology 3.1 Underlying Philosophical Assumptions……………………… 122 3.2 Research Design …………………………………………….. 124 3.3 Population of the Study………………………………………. 125 3.4 Sample Size and Sampling Techniques………………….… 127 3.5 Methods of Data Collection……………………………………. 127 3.6 Measurement of Study Variables……………………………… 128 3.7 Reliability and Validity Tests…………………………………… 129 3.8 Data Analysis Techniques………………………………………131 CHAPTER 4: Data Presentation and Analyses 4.1 Survey Report and Data Processing………………………… 133 4.1.1 Fieldwork……………………………………………………… 4.1.2 Data preparation and entry………………………………… 135 4.2 Sample Characteristics……………………………………… 138 4.2.1 Respondents Age…………………………………………… 138 4.2.2 Respondents Gender……………………………………… 139 4.2.3 Respondents Educational Attainments…………………. 141 4.2.4 Respondents Years of Experience………………………. 143 4.2.5 Respondents Job Titles…………………………………… 145 4.2.6 Interpretation of Results of Demographic Data………… 147 4.2.6.1 Age of Respondents……………………………………… 147 4.2.6.2 Gender of Respondents………………………………… 148 4.2.6.3 Educational Attainments of Respondents……………… 148 4.2.6.4 Years of Respondents Job Experience………………… 149 4.2.6.5 Respondents Job Titles……………………………..… 149 4.3 Univariate Data Analyses……………………………………. 150 4.3.1 Analysis on Organizational Citizenship Behavior………… 151 4.3.2 Analysis of Corporate Resilience…………………………. 156 4.3.3 Analysis of Contextual Factor……………………………… 162
133
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4.3.4 Interpretations of Results and Findings from Univariate Analysis ………………………………………………………. 4.3.4.1 Organizational Citizenship Behavior…………………… 165 4.3.4.2 Corporate Resilience……………………………………. 172 4.3.4.3. Contextual Factor………………………………………… 176 4.4 Bivariate Analysis……………………………………………… 177 4.4.1 Scatter Plot Showing Relationship of Variables……….. 178 4.4.2 Results on analysis of Data on research questions and testing of hypotheses………………………………………… 4.4.2.1 Association of Altruism and Corporate Resilience……… 182 4.4.2.2 Association between Conscientiousness behavior and Corporate Resilience ………………………………….. 185 4.4.2.3Association between Civic Virtue Behavior and Corporate Resilience………………………………………… 4.4.2.4 Association between Courtesy behavior and Corporate Resilience…………………………………………………….. 4.4.2.5 Association between Sportsmanship and Corporate Resilience……………………………………………………. 4.4.2.6 Association between Self Development and Corporate Resilience……………………………………………………. 4.4.3 Model Fit: Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)…………… 196 4.4.4 Interpretation of Results of Bivariate Analysis: OCB and CR………………………………………………………… 4.4.4.1 Altruism and Corporate Resilience………………………. 200 4.4.4.2 Conscientiousness and Corporate Resilience………….. 202 4.4.4.3 Civic Virtue and Corporate Resilience…………………… 204 4.4.4.4 Courtesy and Corporate Resilience……………………… 206 4.4.4.5 Sportsmanship and Corporate Resilience………………. 207 4.4.4.6 Self Development and Corporate Resilience…………… 209 4.4.4.7 Mediating effect of Perceived Organizational Politics (POP)………………………………………………………… 4.5 Qualitative Data Analysis……………………………………. 212 4.5.1 Field Work…………………………………………………… 213 4.5.2 Data Preparation and Processing……………………….. 212 4.5.3 Result of Qualitative Data Analysis………………………. 214 4.5.4 Interpretation of Results of Qualitative Data Analysis….. 215 4.6 Summary of Findings………………………………………… 220 CHAPTER 5: Discussion of Findings 5.1 Positive and Significant Association between Altruism and Corporate Resilience………………………………………… 5.2 Positive and Significant Association between Conscientiousness and Corporate Resilience…………………………………….232
165
179
186 187 189 192
200
211
227
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5.3 Positive and Significant Association between Civic Virtue and Corporate Resilience………………………………………236 5.4 Positive and Significant Association between Courtesy and Corporate Resilience…………………………………………… 239 5.5 Positive and Significant Association between Sportsmanship and Corporate Resilience……………………………………… 241 5.6 Positive and Significant Association between Self Development and Corporate Resilience……………………… 244 5.7 Presence of direct and statistically significant mediating influence of Perception or Organizational Politics (POP) on the positive association between organizational citizenship behavior and corporate resilience………………….………… 248 CHAPTER 6: Conclusions, Implications and Recommendations 6.1 Conclusions……………………………..……………………. 251 6.2 Theoretical Implications……………………………………… 255 6.3 Practical Implications………………………………………… 259 6.4 Recommendations…………………………………………… 263 6.5 Suggestions for further Studies…………………………… 265 References …………………………………………………. 268 Appendixes ………………………………………………… 303
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1
Reliability for Organizational Citizenship Behaviour ….
130
Table 3.2
Scale: Reliability for Corporate Resilience ……………
130
Table 4.1
Age of Respondents ……………………………………
138
Table 4.2
Respondents’ Gender …………………………………
139
Table 4.3
Respondents’ Highest Academic Degree …………..141
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Table 4.4
Respondents’ length of service in this organization …
143
Table 4.5
Respondents’ job title …………………………………..
145
Table 4.6
Statistics on Altruism ……………………………………
151
Table 4.8
Statistics on Conscientiousness ……………………….
152
Table 4.9
Statistics on Sportsmanship …………………………….
153
Table 4.10
Statistics on Courtesy ……………………………………
154
Table 4.11
Statistics on Civic Virtue ………………………………… 154
Table 4.12
Self Development ……………………………………….
155
Table 4.13
Statistics on OCB ………………………………………..
156
Table 4.14
Statistics on Situation Awareness …………………….
156
Table 4.15
Statistics on Management of Keystone Vulnerability …
158
Table 4.16
Statistics on Adaptive Capacity …………………………
159
Table 4.17
Descriptive statistics on corporate resilience …………..
161
Table 4.18
Frequency table regarding responses to The items relating to perceived organizational politics…
162
Table 4.19
Descriptive Statistics of Altruism ……………………….
167
Table 4.20
Descriptive Statistics on Civic Virtue …………….…
168
Table 4.21
Descriptive Statistics on Conscientiousness ……... 169
Table 4.22
Descriptive Statistics ………………………………...
Table 4.23
Descriptive Statistics on Sportsmanship ……….….. 171
Table 4.24
Descriptive Statistics of Self development ……….. 172
Table 4.25
Descriptive Statistics on Situation Awareness ……. 173
Table 4.26
Descriptive Statistics on Management of Keystone vulnerability ……………………………………
170
174
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Table 4.27 Table 2.28 Table 4.29 Table 4.30 Table 4.31 Table 4.32 Table 4.33 Table 4.34 Table 4.35 Table 4.36 Table 4.37
Descriptive Statistics on Adaptive Capacity …………. 175 Descriptive Static’s on perceived Organizational Politics 171 Correlation Matrix for Altruism and Corporate Resilience 182 Correlation Matrix for Conscientiousness and Corporate Resilience ………………………………………………… 184 Correlation Matrix for Civil Virtue and corporate Resilience 186 Correlation Matrix for Courtesy and Corporate Resilience 188 Correlation Matrix for Sportsmanship and Corporate Resilience…………………………………………………… Association between self development and corporate resilience …………………………………………………… Coefficient of regressing perception of Organizational Politics against Organizational citizenship behaviour 194 Coefficient of regressing Corporate Resilience against Organizational citizenship behaviour …………………. Coefficient when corporate resilience is regressed Against Organizational citizenship behaviour and Perception of organizational politics ……………………
195
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1
Conceptual framework …………….…………………
Figure 4.1
Pie chart showing Respondents Age brackets……. 139
Figure 4.2
Showing a Pie Chart of respondents gender distribution
Figure 4.3
Depicts specific Clusters of Association of Respondents’
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140
Gender and job titles ……………………………………… 141 Figure 4.4
Pie Chart showing Respondents Education Attainment
Figure 4.5
Shows specific clusters of association of Respondents’
142
Gender and Length of service …………………………
145
Figure 4.6
Pie Chart showing Respondents’ Job Title …………..
146
Figure 4.7
Clustered Bar Chart of Job Title and Job tenure of Respondents ……………………………………………… 147
Figure 4.8
Positive Associations between Organizational Citizenship Behaviour and Corporate Resilience …………………...
Figure 4.9
Diagram of Latent and Manifest Variable for
179
190 192
194
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Organizational Citizenship behaviour …………………. Figure 4.10
Nexus between Organizational Citizenship Behaviours And Corporate Resilience ……………………………….
Figure 6.1
198
199
Mediated effect of Perception of Organizational Politics On the positive association of organizational citizenship Behaviour and corporate Resilience…………………….
257
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION 1.1
Background of the Study Turbulence will never cease. The best evidence says that winning organisations will continue to deal with this fact... The single biggest challenge in the process is changing people’s behaviour. The key to this behaviour shift, so clear in successful transformations, is less about analysis and thinking, and more about seeing and feeling (Kotter, 2003:232).
The world today is dramatically facing increasing and novel social, economic and environmental changes. These changes are driven by two factors: (1) the interaction of multiple slow processes (stresses) and (2), occasional sudden events (shocks). One can list several current perturbations (stresses and shocks) and associated changes that traverse national boundaries: climate changes, global economic crises, outbreaks of swine flu, tsunamis, hurricanes,
the spread of democratic processes, political uprisings
and the
revolution in the use of information technologies, just to list a few.
It is evident that each of these perturbations come with diverse consequences on nations and its economies; especially the business organisations, prompting some scholars to argue that this is the most amazing period of transformational change the world has ever seen (Hamel and Valikangas, 2003; Hoopes and Kelly, 2004; Maddi and Khoshaba, 2005; Robb, 2000; Wanberg and Banas, 2000). With this wind of rapid changes and perturbations, business organisations must become resilient to avert entropy and other negative consequences.
Deevy (1995) suggests that the ultimate test for any organisation today can be summarized in a single question: is it sufficiently resilient to cope with an increasingly turbulent and
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unpredictable environment? The basic ingredient of a resilient organisation is “a committed work force that is free to give the maximum effort” (Deevy, 1995: 15). This commitment may however be demonstrated via employees’ behaviours that go far and above their call of duties. Resilience is characterized as the ability to bounce back from negative emotional experiences and by flexible adaptation to the changing demands of stressful experiences (Bonanno, 2005; Brooks and Goldstein, 2003; Hunter, 2006; Maddi and Khoshaba, 2005; Norman et al., 2005; Tugade and Frederickson, 2004).
Literature reveals that resilient individuals bounce back from stressful experiences quickly and effectively also (Hoopes and Kelly 2004; Tugade and Frederickson, 2004; Viscott, 1996). In his view, Mallack (1998) averred that resilient organisations design and implement effective actions to advance themselves, thereby increasing the probability of their own survival. Similarly, a resilient organisation according to Brand and Jax (2007) is said to possess the ability to sustain competitive advantage over time through its capability to do two things simultaneously; deliver excellent performance against current goals, and effectively innovate and adapt to rapid, turbulent changes in markets and technologies.
It is also argued that resilient organisations exhibit certain broad characteristics, and are able to; (a) create structure and dissolve it when necessary, (b) provide safety (though not necessarily security or stability) during times of change, (c) manage the emotional consequences of continuous transformation and change, and (d) learn, develop and grow (Robb, 2000). By implication therefore, if an organisation is resilient, then it is safe. This follows from the simple fact that it is impossible for something to go right and wrong-to succeed and to fail- at the same time. If the number of things that goes right increases, then the number of things that goes wrong will consequently decrease. The opposite is, however,
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not true, (i.e., an organisation that is safe is not necessarily resilient). Therefore, a resilient organisation must be able to respond to regular and irregular variability, disturbances, and opportunities, and it must know what to do and when to do it without suffocating itself in any form.
In their view, resiliency as a psychological and organisational strength is receiving increased attention by both organisational behaviour scholars and professional managers, implying that there may be a resilience gap (Dalziell and McManus, 2004). That is, as the world around us changes more quickly than ever before, employees, leaders, and overall organisations are struggling to keep up and maintain their resilience. This gap may have been necessitated by the challenge of conceptualizing and validly measuring organisational resilience. It may be amazing to note that in spite of the vitality of the resilient construct as an organisational process or state, there is still insufficient clarity as to what it is and how it can be measured.
Several reviews have attempted to provide some explanation about the meaning of resilience. For example, reviews have been made by Folke (2006) on history and current state of the concept of resilience as applied in ecosystem studies. More recently in socio-ecological systems by Gallopin (2006) who studied the linkages between the concepts of resilience, vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Brand and Jax (2007) also looked at resilience as descriptive concept and as boundary object; Adger (2000) considered the link between ecological and social resilience whereas Klein et al., (2003) studied the usefulness of resilience concept in the context of natural hazards.
Many others have also defined resilience (Carpenter et al., 2001; Walker et al., 2004) and provided frameworks for resilience measurement (Cumming et al., 2005; Allen et al., 2005;
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Bennet et al., 2005). More recently, in his work on the conceptualization and measurement of organizational resilience, McManus, (2008) developed tripartite measures of organizational resilience; these include the following: (1) situation awareness, (2) management of keystone vulnerability and (3) adaptive capacity). Inspite of these, sufficient clarity remains elusive perhaps because of the multidimensionality and vastness of the fields and discipline where resilience is applied. Swanstrom (2008) searched for published articles on resilience in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) for a period from 1997 to 2007 and recorded a 400 percent increase annually for ten years. Psychology and psychiatry related resilience topics were dominant in number.
Because of this multiplicity and challenge of measuring resilience, most research attentions on the construct has been focused on its conceptualization, measurement and consequences rather than its possible organisational behavioural causes, and we have hardly come across any evidence of such studies especially in Africa and Nigeria in particular. It is however thinkable as Deevy (1995) argues that the unstable environments under which modern organisations operate requires a deep understanding of the inner dynamics of organisations. The old view that organisations are simply mechanical entities that can be fixed when broken is no longer adequate. “The challenge for organisations today is to develop a new organisational form; one with the capability for continuously responding to change” (Deevy, 1995).
To achieve this, we think, organisations must necessarily boast of employees who can transcend their 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 that can result in resilience.
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Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is a discretionary behaviour, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system but in aggregate promotes the performance of the organisation (Organ, 1988). These behaviours may include actions such as assisting co-workers, avoiding frequent faultfinding, defending the organisation whenever occasion demands etc.
Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is 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. In the aggregate, organisational citizenship behaviour promotes the effective functioning of the organisation (Organ, 1998; Allen and Meyer, 1990; Bolino and Turnley, 2003; D’Intino, Shepard, and Wolfle, 2002; Organ, 1998; Shroudt and Wolfle, 2002; Shrrodt, Cawyer and 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 and Parks, 1995); Civic organizational behaviour (Graham, 1991); Prosocial organizational behaviour (George, 1990, 1991); Organisational spontaneity (George and Johnes, 1997) and contextual performance ( Borman and Motowildo, 1993, 1997).
Organisational citizenship behaviour is a multidimensional construct. Literature is awash with plethora of organisational citizenship behaviour dimensions. For example, several researchers (Graham, 1986; Morrison, 1994; Smith, Organ and Near, 1983, Organ, 1988) posit that there are five dimensions: Altruism, Conscientiousness, Civic virtue, Courtesy; and Sportsmanship; whereas Podsakoff et al., (2007) developed seven dimensions: (1) Helping behaviour, (2) Sportsmanship, (3) Organisational Loyalty, (4) Organisational compliance, (5)
21
Individual initiative, (6) Civic Virtue, and (7) Self Development. Williams and Anderson, (1991) simply divided organisational citizenship behaviours into OCB-1-behaviours directed at individual members of the organisation and OCB-O- behaviours directed at the organisation.
The concept of organisational citizenship Behaviour draws its origin from the Social Exchange Theory that describes the conditions under which people feel obligated to reciprocate when they feel benefited from some other persons or some entity’s action. Because Organisational Citizenship Behaviour is believed to contribute to Organisational, team and individual performance, studies have attempted to investigate the subordinate characteristics, task characteristics, organisational characteristics and leadership behaviours as its antecedents. Although, it is important to understand antecedents of OCB, previous researchers have somewhat not adequately addressed the effects of OCB on other variables.
According to Podsakoff and Mackenzie (1994) and Walz and Niehoff (1996), not much research has focused on the effects of OCB on individual, groups and organisational performance. Confirming this view, Bolino (1999: 212) states that “….in contrast to the numerous studies exploring the antecedents of OCB, there is a paucity of research examining the outcome of Citizenship Behaviours in Organisations.” Conversely,
studies on the
antecedents of organizational resilience has not looked in the direction of organizational citizenship behavior but have explored other constructs such as Wildavsky (1988) who linked social support and retaining financial reserves to have causal affiliation with organisational resilience and Meyer (1982) who identified availability of slack resources which he described as shock absorber that buffered the impact of environmental jolts, and strong organisational ideology as organisation’s factors that can cause resilience.
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Others studied demystifying business intelligence as predictor of organizational resilience (Sawka, 1996), industry Analysis through the use of the External Factor Evaluation (EFE) Matrix (Mullich, 2009), and External Organisational Auditing through the use of the Competitive Profile Matrix (Miller, 2009). All these have not resolved the problem with organisational resilience. Worrisomely therefore, none of these studies has investigated how organisational citizenship behaviour can cause corporate resilience. The lacuna identified above is the gap our study is out to fill through the investigation of how OCB can influence corporate resilience in the Nigerian domestic aviation sector.
1.2
Statement of the Problem
It is not out of place to contend that high performing Organisations rely heavily on employees who exceed their contractual duties to discharge official tasks successfully. Organisations could hardly survive or prosper without their members behaving as good citizens by engaging in all sorts of positive behaviours. Because of the importance of good citizenship for Organisations, understanding the nature and sources of OCB has long been a high priority for organisational scholars (Organ, 1988) and remains so still. 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.
Although we are oblivious of studies which have specifically investigated the nature and extent of the relationship between OCB and organisational resilience per se, it is widely accepted among Organisational Behaviour theorists that OCB has an accumulative positive effect on Organisational functioning (Wagner and Rush, 2000). It is then thinkable that if organisational citizenship behaviour can positively affect organisational functioning, then it can affect organisational resilience, because an organisation can hardly be described as
23
functional without the prevalence of resilience characteristics; such as adaptation, robustness, resourcefulness, rapidity, among others. It is no longer in vogue to argue that change is permanent, rather one will be taken more seriously on the grounds of a realization that change is now more rapid, fast occurring and devastating than ever before. The business and social environment is complex, dynamic and turbulent which means that today’s success formula can become tomorrow’s liability nearly overnight. One thing has become clear-the world is becoming more turbulent at a faster pace than organisations are becoming resilient enough to handle that change. Thriving or even surviving in this context requires a fundamental re-thinking of the meaning and application of our most basic assumptions about leading, and managing, business growth and survival.
Robb (2000) argues that the evidence is everywhere; large companies are failing more frequently, profit levels dwindling, and overall corporate performance threatened as well. As a result of this fact, resiliency at the individual and organisational levels has taken on urgent importance (Norman et al., 2005). There are three main reasons that stress the need for resilient organisations. First of all, for organisations it is of utmost importance that they are able to respond quickly to low probability/ high- impact disruptions in order to minimize cost and damage. The consequences can be severe if a company is not able to deal with these disruptions: financial and human losses, critical damage to image, lost market share and the like, as illustrated by many case studies in Sheffi (2005).
Secondly, companies are faced with increased vulnerability because they are subject to more and unforeseeable risks. For example, globally distributed supply chains make companies more dependent on each other to the extent that whatever happens to one has ripple effects on others. Finally, despite the importance, the lack of business continuity plans in today’s
24
companies indicates that companies are not well prepared for disruptive events (Callagher, 2003; Chapman, 2006) As prevalent as this knowledge might be around the globe, we are not aware of any serious intellectual or practical attention given to it in Nigeria. Nigerian organisations are scarcely prepared for challenges, particularly in the wake of current sociopolitical and economic quandaries like: Niger Delta militancy, Boko Haram Islamic sect, sophisticated robberies, kidnapping and its multiplier effects on corporate survival.
Coming to the industry of our interest, it is founded that for nearly two decades, Nigerian domestic aviation sector, both civilian and military, had witnessed a number of unfortunate calamities; in September 1992, a Hercules C-130 military plane crashed in Ejigbo, Lagos, five minutes after take-off, in which 192 middle ranking and senior military officers perished, in November 1996, 142 people died when an ADC Boeing 727 plane plunged into a lagoon near Lagos, in May 2002, an EAS Airline plane crashed in kano killing 148 people, most of them non–passengers on the ground, on 23 October 2005 a Belleview airline crashed immediately after takeoff, killing all on board, and on
December 11, of same year, many
lives of young school children were lost, when a Sosolioso airline – Flight 1145 crashed in Port Harcourt and recently on September 19, 2006, a military plane, Dornier 228 crashed at Mbakumu, Benue State, claiming the lives of 13 senior military officers, the Dana passenger plane that crashed in Lagos on the 3rd of June, 2012 killing more than 150 passengers and crew members among many others, prompting the argument that “ the incomprehensibility of the spate of air crashes in Nigeria is indeed a yawning gap” (Okon, 2013:5) .
Beyond these disasters so enumerated, it is also evident that Nigerian aviation sector is challenged by liquidity problems, regulation and policy summersault, decrepit infrastructural base, labor related issues and others as discussed in Nwokah, (2012) which give the sector a
25
status of high attrition sector where companies come and go in an accelerated and alarming pace. This premature exit of domestic airline operators is surely a negative occurrence in the aviation industry and the country’s economy at large. This is so because transportation is the driving force of a country’s economic development, particularly the air transport which is credited with several advantages, ranging from its ability to carry bulky materials to its fastness and convenience, hence any problem in its operation grinds the activities of such economy.
The scenario highlighted above sparks our interest to investigate how those domestic airline operators that currently exist and those unborn can attain resilience in the midst of avalanche of problems that plague the industry using behavioural models, such as organisational citizenship behaviour. Therefore, the thrust of our current endeavor is to investigate the causal nexus between organisational citizenship behavior and corporate resilience in the Nigerian domestic aviation sector.
1.3
Purpose of the Study
Any human endeavor without a purpose is worthless. This study like any other result oriented engagement is teleological in nature. Our general objective is primarily to examine if the practice of Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) can cause resilience in Nigerian Organisations; particularly in the domestic aviation sector. Drawing from this wider perspective, our study seeks to consider the individual association of six dimensions of OCB viz., altruism, conscientiousness, civic virtue, courtesy, sportsmanship (Organ, 1988 ) and self development , an extract from Podsakoff et al’s (2000) and Organisational resilience measured by situational awareness, keystone vulnerability management capacity (McManus, 2007) in the Nigerian domestic aviation sector.
and adaptive
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1.4
Objectives of the Study
Our study objectives include to: 1.
Ascertain the extent to which organisational members in the domestic aviation sector in Nigeria exhibit helping behaviours while discharging their official assignments and how these behaviours accumulate positive outcomes that can make the Organisations resilient.
2.
Examine the extent to which employees of domestic aviation sector in Nigeria abide by organisational rules and procedures even when under no observations and how such tendencies can influence resilience in the workplace.
3.
Consider how employees’ deep concern and active interest in the life of the Organisation can influence the resilience of the domestic aviation sector in Nigeria.
4.
Ascertain how employee’s behaviors that are aimed at preventing work related conflicts can cause resilience in the domestic aviation sector in Nigeria.
5.
Examine how organisational members’ willingness for the
tolerance of less-than-
ideal organisational circumstances without complaining and blowing problems out of proportion can influence resilience in the domestic aviation sector in Nigeria. 6.
Find out whether employees’ voluntary behaviours of improving their knowledge, skills, and abilities can lead to resilience in the domestic aviation sector in Nigeria.
7.
Finally, determine the extent to which Perceived Organisational politics in the domestic aviation firms in Nigeria mediates the influence of Organisational citizenship behaviour on corporate resilience.
1.5
Research Questions
Using this outlined purpose of study as radar, we are poised to propose some research questions with a view to explaining the association between Organisational citizenship
27
behaviour and corporate resilience and the mediating influence of Perceived Organisational politics in the relationship. The following are the research questions: 1. Is there a significant association between Altruism Behaviour and resilience in the domestic aviation sector in Nigeria? 2. Is there a significant association between Conscientiousness Behaviour and resilience in the domestic aviation sector in Nigeria? 3. Is there a significant association between Civic Virtue Behaviour and resilience in the domestic aviation sector in Nigeria? 4. Is there a significant association between Courtesy Behaviour and resilience in the domestic aviation sector in Nigeria? 5. Is there a significant association between Sportsmanship Behaviour and resilience in the domestic aviation sector in Nigeria? 6. Is there a significant association between Self development Behaviour and resilience in the domestic aviation sector in Nigeria? 7. Does the contextual factor; Perceived Organisational politics pose any mediating influence on the relationship between Organisational citizenship behaviour and corporate resilience?
The research questions in section 1. 5 define our study objectives in section 1.4 and consequently the cornerstone with which we have hypothesized in section 1. 6. They shall also direct our discussion in chapters four and five of this study respectively.
1.6
Study Variables/Conceptual Framework
According to Ahiauzu (2010), a variable is an empirically applicable concept that takes on two or more values. For purposes of our study, three typologies of variables will be relevant.
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These are dependent or criterion variable, independent / predictor or causal variable, and moderating variables
1.6.1 Independent Variable (Predictor or Causal Variable) These variables tend to have either negative or positive relationship with the dependent variables. In this study, our independent variable is Organisational Citizenship Behaviour OCB. The variable comprises the following empirical referents: Altruism, Conscientiousness, and Civic virtue, Courtesy, Sportsmanship and Self Development (Organ, 1988 and Podsakoff et al., 2000).
1.6.2 Dependent Variable This is the variable that we are out to explain. It is in essence the anticipated outcome of; or results of the practice of the independent variable. In our study, the dependent variable is organisational resilience. The measures of this variable include: situation awareness, reduced keystone vulnerability and adaptive capacity (McManus, 2007).
1.6.3 Mediating Variable There is a variable we think is capable of producing some mediation effect in this study. This variable is an important player in the life of every Organisation and whatever goes on in the Organisation can hardly escape its influence. This is Perceived Organisational Politics. Therefore, our conceptual framework in Figure 1.1 is a representation of the hypothesized causal relationship between organisational citizenship behaviours and corporate resilience as well as the mediating consequences of Perception of Organisational Politics (POP). [
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Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB)
Contextual
Corporate Resilience (CR)
Factors Situation Awareness
Altruism Conscientiousnes s Civic Virtue
SA Perceived Organisational Politics (POP)
Courtesy Sportsmanship Self Development
Keystone Vulnerability Management KVM Adaptive Capacity AC
Figure 1.1 Conceptual frameworks of Orgainisational Citizenship Behavior and Corporate Resilience
The research questions and objectives are drawn from the visual depiction of the hypothesized relationships between the predictor, mediating and criterion variables. The framework takes a linear relationship between the predictor variable on the left hand side and the criterion variable at the right hand side, while the mediating variable is at the centre. The conceptual framework shows that Corporate Resilience (CR) is a function of Organisational Citizenship Behaviours (OCB), and that functional relationship is mediated by a contextual Factor (CF). This assertion is mathematically modeled as:
30
CR=f (OCB) CF…………………………………………………1 Where CR= Corporate Resilience OCB= Organisational Citizenship Behaviour, and CF= Contextual Factors.
From the conceptual framework, corporate resilience is measured by the level of organisations’ situation awareness, reduced keystone vulnerability areas and adaptive capacity (McManus, 2007). Similarly, components or referents of Organisational Citizenship Behaviours are also shown to include: altruism, conscientiousness, civic virtue, courtesy, sportsmanship (Organ, 1988) and self development (Podsakoff et al., 2000). The mediating effect of the contextual factor of Perception of organisational politics is also on display. Consequently, our mathematical model can be expanded in this order: CR=f (al, c,cv,ct,s, sd) pop, Where: cr = corporate resilience al =
altruism
c =
conscientiousness
ct = courtesy; cv = civic virtue s =
sportsmanship;
sd = self development and, pop = perceived organisational politics.
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1.7
Research Hypotheses
In our quest to provide answers to the research questions and consequently attain our research objectives, the following hypotheses shall be put forward: H1:
There is a significant and positive association between employees’ altruism behaviours and situational awareness level of domestic aviation firms.
H2 :
There is a significant and positive association between employees’ altruism behaviours and
reduced keystone vulnerabilities of domestic aviation firms in
Nigeria. H3:
There is a significant and positive association between employees’ altruism behaviours and adaptive capacity of domestic aviation firms in Nigeria.
H4:
There is a significant and positive association between employees’ conscientious behaviours and situation awareness of domestic aviation firms Nigeria.
H5:
There is a significant and positive association between employees’ conscientious behaviours and reduced keystone vulnerabilities of domestic aviation firms in Nigeria.
H6
There is a significant and positive association between employees’ conscientious behaviour and adaptive capacity of domestic aviation firms Nigeria.
H7:
There is a significant and positive association between employees’ civic virtue and situation awareness of domestic aviation firms Nigeria.
H8:
There is a significant and positive association between employees’ civic virtue and reduced keystone vulnerabilities in Nigerian domestic aviation firms.
H9:
There is a significant and positive association between employees’ civic virtue and adaptive capacity of Nigerian domestic aviation firms
H10:
There is a significant and positive association between courtesy and situation awareness of Nigerian domestic aviation firms
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H11
There is a significant and positive association between courtesy and reduced keystone vulnerabilities of Nigerian domestic aviation firms.
H12
There is a significant and positive association between courtesy and adaptive capacity of Nigerian domestic aviation firms.
H13
There is a significant and positive association between sportsmanship and situation awareness of Nigerian domestic aviation firms
H14
There is significant and positive association between sportsmanship and reduced keystone vulnerabilities of Nigerian domestic aviation firms.
H15
There is a significant and positive association between sportsmanship and adaptive capacity of Nigerian domestic aviation firms.
H16
There is a significant and positive association between self development and situation awareness of Nigerian domestic aviation firms
H17
There is a significant and positive association between self development and reduced keystone vulnerabilities in Nigerian domestic aviation firms
H18
There is a significant and positive association between self development and adaptive capacity of Nigerian domestic aviation firms.
H19
Perceived Organisational Politics mediates the association between organisational citizenship behaviours and corporate resilience in Nigerian domestic aviation firms
Details of the modus for deriving these hypotheses shall be offered in chapter two of this study and is also to be depicted in the conceptual operational framework.
1.8
Delimitation of the Study
Organisational Citizenship Behaviours is no more a new arrival construct in organisational behaviour literature. It has been severally dimensionalized by scholars in the past (Organ,
33
1988, 1990a, 1990b; George and Brief, 1992; Graham, 1989; Van Scotter and Motowidlo, 1996 and Williams and Anderson, 1991) and the latest of them Podsakoff et al’s (2000) taxonomy that has self development as a dimension. However, in this research, we have the intent to use Organ’s (1988) five dimensions in addition to one out of Podsakoff et al’s seven dimensions which are also similar to those of Organ.
1.9
Scope of the Study
In this section, we shall delineate the coverage of our study in relation to its theoretical foundation and geographic coverage; as well as the unit of analysis. 1.9.1 Content Scope: The theoretical area to be covered in this study will be within the purview of Organisational citizenship behaviours which we shall adopt empirical approach using referents such as: altruism, conscientiousness, civic virtues, courtesy, sportsmanship and self development and corporate resilience which we shall measure with situation awareness, understanding and management of keystone vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity. We shall also consider one mediating factor of perceived organisational politics (POP). 1.9.2 Geographic Scope: we intend to domicile this study in the Nigerian domestic aviation sector. The study shall be conducted in four zones as delineated by the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), comprising Port-Harcourt International Airport (Head of Eastern Region), Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja (Head of North Central Region), Murhtala Muhammed International Airport (Head of South West Region) and Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport; Kano, Head of Northern Region. These cities possess the characteristics of a full industrial district as suggested by Todaro and Smith (2003). 1.9.3 Units of Analysis: Our study unit for data generation and analysis was at the level of the organisation. Our instrument was designed to elicit independent views of senior members
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of the organisations on the relationships between the dependent and independent variables as well as those of the contextual factors.
1.10: Significance and Justification of Study One of the greatest puzzles of Organisational life is that individuals with the same formal job descriptions often define their roles differently (Morrison, 1994). For example, some manufacturing employees define their roles narrowly in terms of completing assigned tasks, whereas others take on broader roles in which they also feel responsible for improving production processes and satisfying customers (Parker, Wall, and Jackson, 1997). Some employees include safety consciousness behavior in their role definitions, while others do not (Hofmann, Morgueson, and Gerras, 2003); and some hospital cleaners define their roles narrowly in terms of cleaning wards, whereas some others define theirs to include caring for patients (Wizesniewski and Dutton, 2001).
These variations in role definitions have important consequences for how employees perform their jobs. Considerable research now indicate that those who define their roles broadly are rated by Supervisors as more effective (Morgeso, Delaney-Klinger, and Hemingway, 2005; Parker, 2007). Because they incorporate wide responsibilities and activities into their role, employees with broad role definitions are motivated and able to perform their tasks more proficiently, adaptively and proactively (Griffing, Neal and Parker, 2007), as well as engage in more frequent helping and citizenship behaviours (Coyle-Shapiro, Kessley, and Purcell, 2004; Morrison, 1994; Tepper, Lockhart, and Hoobler, 2001).
In the light of this evidence on the benefits of broad role definitions, both scholars and practitioners are interested in understanding when and how employees decide to expand their
35
roles. Understanding role expansion is particularly important in the context of recent dramatic changes in the landscape of contemporary work systems. As organisational structures flatten, and work system become more dynamic, uncertain, and interdependent, it becomes increasingly difficult to formalize roles into well-specified job descriptions (Griffin et. al, Ilgen and Hollenbeek, 1991; Mohrman, Galbraith, and Lawler, 1998). Organizations depend largely on employees to expand their roles to include Citizenship, Adaptive, Proactive and Innovative Behaviors that contribute to its effectiveness in often unpredictable ways (Grant and Ashford, 2008).
To encourage such expanded role definition, Organizations are providing employees with increasing level of latitude and freedom (Crant, 2000, Frese and Fay, 2001). The growth in autonomous workgroups (Moregeson, Johnson, Campion, Medsker, and Mumford, 2006), flexible, autonomous job designs (Parker et. al, 1997), virtual teams and teleworking (Cascio, 1999), boundryless careers (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996), specialized knowledge work and independent contracting (Barley and Kunda, 2004), temporary work (Ashford, George, and Blatt, 2007), “free agent” arrangements (Pink, 2001) and idiosyncratic employment deals (Rousseau, Ho and Greenberg, 2006) has given employees more discretion to define their roles in distinctive, unique ways than ever before.
This trend has provided employees with more flexibility to choose how broadly versus narrowly they wish to define their roles. Stemming from this scenario, Organisational Citizenship Behaviour has in no doubt been perceived as a virile driver of Organisational outcomes. Yet, its implications are not adequately harnessed in the Nigeria corporate circle, especially the domestic aviation sector. Therefore, our study of Organisational Citizenship Behaviour and corporate resilience will certainly be of immense intellectual and utility values
36
to Nigerian domestic aviation sector. Consequently, our study will derive its significance and justification in the following specific ways: To further the frontier of knowledge of organisational citizenship behaviour as a virile driver of resilience in the domestic aviation sector. That is to say those airlines such as Arik, Aero, IRS, Dana and Overland can actually draw from the expected findings of this study in their bid to maintaining healthy survivability. Excite an expanded consciousness on those little things that matter in the life of organisation and its members as explainable in the dimensions of organisational citizenship behavior which by extention would be very useful for the domestic aviation airlines. Direct attention to the need for Nigerian domestic airlines to constantly prepare for the unknown and volatile shake- offs that emanate from the environment. Empirically establish how Nigerian domestic airlines can apply resilience attributes in averting premature entropy and by extension maintan dynamic homeostasis. Establish standards of behavior and exercises that can elongate the chronological as well as developmental ages of the domestic airlines in Nigeria.
1.11. Operational Definition of Terms This section shall offer explanations to key terms that will be used in this thesis. Adaptive capacity: the ability of an enterprise to alter its ‘strategy, operations, management systems, governance structure and decision-support capabilities’ to withstand perturbation and disruptions. Altruism: voluntary actions that help another person with work related problem such as instructing a new hire on how to use equipment, helping a coworker catch up with a backlog of work.
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Civic virtue: constructive involvement in the political process of the organisation and contribution to this process by expressing opinions, attending meetings, discussing with colleagues the issues of the day, and reading organisational communications such as mails and notice boards for well being of the organisation. Conscientiousness: a pattern of going well beyond minimally required level of attendance, punctuality, housekeeping, conserving resources and related matters of internal maintenance. Corporate or organisational resilience: the business system’s ability to maintain a growing or constant ‘healthy’ state over time, despite being subjected to negative and/or destructive events, or to make a quick positive turnaround from one state to the other to finally enter the ‘healthy’ state. By ‘healthy state’, we refer to constant goal attainment. Organizational resilience can also be described as organisation’s ability to overcome challenges without getting badly scorched. Courtesy: gestures that help others to prevent interpersonal problems from occurring, such as giving advance notice of the work schedule to someone who is in need, or consulting others before any actions that would affect them. Keystone: biologically seen as the presence of integral species in an ecosystem. Architecturally depicting either ‘the wedge-shaped piece at the highest point of an arch that locks the other pieces in place’ or ‘something on which associated things depend upon for support’ Keystone vulnerabilities: components in the organizational system, which by their loss or impairments have the potentials to cause exceptional effects throughout the systems; associated components of the system depend on them for support.
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Organisational politics: those actions by individuals which are directed toward the goal of furthering their own self-interests without regard for the well-being of others or their organisation Perception of organisational politics (POP) represent the degree, to which individuals view their work environment as political in nature, promoting the self interest of others or self, and thereby unjust and unfair or vice versa from the individual point of view. Reduced keystone vulnerabilities: describes a reduction through the identification, proactive management, and treatment of vulnerabilities that if realized, would threaten the organisation’s ability to survive. This includes emergency and disaster management, and business continuity, and covers many of the traditional crisis planning activities. [
Resilience: the ability of a system to maintain its identity in the face of internal changes and external shocks and disturbances. It can also be perceived as intrinsic ability of a system or an organisation to adjust its functioning prior to; or following changes and disturbances so that it can sustain required operations under both expected and unexpected conditions. Self development: developing oneself through training and catching up with changes in one’s field of work. Sportsmanship: a person’s desire not to complain when experiencing the inevitable inconveniences and abuse generated in exercising a professional activity; not complaining unnecessarily and being positive and tolerant towards difficulties that may be experienced in the workplace. Situation awareness: an organisation’s awareness of its entire operating environment, including threats and opportunities, connectivity and internal and external stakeholders. Vulnerability: the degree of harm or negative exposure experienced by a system, subsystem or even a component of a system following an event.
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CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1
Theoretical Foundation of the Study
The framework of this study is based on social exchange theory. Social exchange theory grew out of the intersection of economics, psychology and sociology; hence, it is also referred to as socio-psychological theory. Social exchange theory evolved from the work of sociologists such as Homans (1958), Blau (1964), and Emerson (1972). Unlike the economic exchange theory that features precise specifications of transactions and prevalence of extrinsic rewards, especially material gains; social exchange theory by contrast, is characterized by unspecified personal obligations and trust as well as intrinsic in conjunction with extrinsic rewards, thus occupying the middle ground between pure calculations of advantage and pure expression of love (Blau, 1994).
Exchange theory is a general theory concerned with understanding the exchange of material or non material resources between individuals or groups in an interaction. The relationship in which a person or group acts in a certain way toward others in order to receive a reward (i.e., benefit or return) is called an exchange relationship (Homan, 1958; Blau, 1964). Homans, the initiator of the social exchange theory, expressed that this theory was developed to understand the social behavior of humans in economic undertakings. Social exchange theory poses that all human relationships are formed by the use of a subjective cost-benefit analysis and the comparison of alternatives. For example, when a person perceives the costs of a relationship as outweighing the perceived benefits, then the theory predicts that the person will choose to leave the relationship.
40
For social exchange theorists, when the costs and benefits are equal in a relationship, then that relationship is defined as equitable. The notion of equity is a core part of social exchange theory. Homan, (1958) outlined that social behaviour is an exchange of goods, material goods but also non-material ones, such as the symbols of approval or prestige. Persons that give much to others try to get much from them, and persons that get much from others are under pressure to give much to them.
According to Blau, (1964) social exchange refers to
relationships that entail unspecified future obligations. Like economic exchange, social exchange generates an expectation of some future return for contributions; however, unlike economic exchange, the exact nature of that return is unspecified.
Blau, (1964) believes that individuals will enter into and maintain a relationship as long as they can satisfy their self-interests and at the same time ensure that the benefits outweigh the costs. An individual will seek to maximize his or her profits and minimize losses in interactions with others. In terms of continuing relationships, individuals will try to maintain those exchanges which have proven to be rewarding in the past, and break off those which proved to be more costly than rewarding, and to establish new relations which have a good chance of being more rewarding than costly.
This theory basically asserts that people develop attitudes toward other people and things in the context of anticipated personal benefits and costs to be derived from contact with them. Activities that generate net benefits will tend to be perceived positively, while those activities that do not are perceived as negative. The central idea of this theory is that the exchange of social and material resources is a fundamental form of human interaction (Ingoldsby and Smith, 1995). This theoretical perspective states that people are reward-seeking and punishment-avoiding creatures who attempt to maximize individual well-being in all
41
situations. Based on this theory, social relationships are considered as “markets” in which individuals act out of self-interest with the goal of maximizing profits (Sabatelli and Sheehan, 1993).
2.1.1 Model of Social Exchange Theory As Wilson (1997), Searle (1990) and Jacobs (1970) argued, social exchange theory can provide a model for understanding individual behaviour in participation. In this regard this study was designed for explaining participation of people based on model suggested by Searl (1990) and it is depending on four main elements: (1) reciprocation (2) justice principle (3) maximizing benefits and minimizes cost, and (4) voluntarily joining. Following the assertions made above, the models of social exchange theory shall be briefly discussed beginning with reciprocity.
(a)
Social exchange is based on reciprocity:
Reciprocity holds that every transfer from one person to another involves the expectation of return. The return may be immediate or delayed. The expectation of an equal return governs the initial offering (Blau, 1964). That means each individual in the relationship will provide benefits to the other so long as the exchange is equitable. An exchange between two individuals must be seen as fair by both for the relation to continue, or at least to continue as strongly. This indicates that it is not only important to respond fairly, but also to respond with items (not necessarily material) deemed to be important by the other person (Searle, 1990). Expectations contribute to a “norm of reciprocity” because individuals have certain beliefs about what a program should provide to them as a participant in exchange for their efforts.
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(b)
Social exchange is based on a justice principle:
In each exchange, there should be a norm of fairness governing behaviour. That is, the exchange must be viewed as fair when compared in the context of a wider network. This notion of distributive justice goes beyond the equity between the two principals' contribution. It involves each person comparing his or her reward to that of others who have dealt with this individual and what they received for the same or a similar contribution. In this regard, Organ, (1988) believed that supervisor fairness leads to employee citizenship because a social exchange relationship develops between employees and their supervisors. When supervisors treat employees fairly, social exchange and the norm of reciprocity dictate that employees reciprocate. Organ suggested that organisational citizenship behaviour is one likely avenue for employee reciprocation. (c)
Individuals seek to maximize their benefits and minimize their costs in the exchange relation:
According to Homans, (1958) social exchange theory developed to understand the social behaviour of humans in economic undertakings. Social exchange theory poses that all human relationships are formed by the use of a subjective cost-benefit analysis and the comparison of alternatives. For example, when a person perceives the costs of a relationship as outweighing the perceived benefits, then the theory predicts that the person will choose to leave the relationship. It is important to understand that the notion of costs does not relate exclusively to financial issues; rather, costs can be incurred through the time and energy invested in a relationship example, time spent in helping behaviors at work; altruism.
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(d)
Individuals participate in a relationship out of a sense of mutual benefit rather than coercion:
Individuals perceive that family or friends forced them into the activity, then they will be more likely to cease participation as their motivation will be extrinsic and as a result unstable than those who chose the activity freely. According to Searle, (1990), individuals engage in organized activities pursuits to satisfy a need. Usually, the need has emerged as important, Mark (2002) believes that certain exchanges must occur in order for an individual to participate and sustain their involvement in a program: Participants will seek to maintain their involvement if they continue to receive the need satisfaction that they sought initially and as it evolved through participation. Participants seek to experience a sense of reciprocation through their involvement in the activity pursuit; that is, they seek to receive something for their involvement that is approximately equal to their contribution to the activity.
Drawing from the foregoing, our choice of the social exchange theory as theoretical foundation for this study appears justifiable because it has become apparent that
Social
exchange refers to voluntary actions of individuals that are motivated by the returns they are expected to bring and typically do in fact bring to others (Blau, 1964). Social exchange entails unspecified obligations, did not specify the exact nature of future return for contributions, is based on individual’s trusting that the exchange parties will fairly discharge their obligations in the long run, and allows exchange parties reciprocate through discretionary, extrarole acts (Konovsky and Pugh, 1994; Moorman, 1991; Niehoff and Moorman, 1993).
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To reciprocate the support from the organisation, the employee may reciprocate via job performance, but such performance may be limited up to a certain extent only since organisation has strict contracts. Thus, the exchange that takes place will be more of an ambiguity thus allowing discretionary acts to be carried out by employees. OCB, from a social exchange theory perspective, becomes an outlet for these positive feelings.
2.2 Concept of Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) Citizenship behaviour based on the works of Barnard (1968, first publication was in 1938), Katz (1964), and Katz and Kahn (1966). Sixty eight years ago, Barnard proposed that the informal cooperative system of an organisation was facilitating the execution of the formal system. He emphasized on “willingness to cooperate” since he considered such a will as an essential component of formal organisational functioning. This emphasis was the first notice of the construct later called OCB (Barnard, 1968). Barnard related OCB to the informal organisation. This approach put him away from the dominant view on the structuring of organisations in that period, namely “Classical Management Theory”. According to classical theorists, while job incumbents could not collaborate at work, Barnard considered the formal organisation as the consequence of organising.
According to Barnard (1968), the formal structure was deficient and far from perfection, and cooperation was the most important requirement of the organisation that must supplement the formal structure for an effective work environment. Katz (1964) noticed that organisations needed cooperation to perform efficiently and effectively and stated that “an organisation which depends solely upon its blueprints for prescribed behaviour is a fragile social system” (Katz, 1964: 132) that would break down. OCB was inevitable for an organisation to survive.
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Katz appreciated the importance of acts beyond the line of duty before Bateman and Organ’s (1983) conceptualization of organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB).
Katz (1964: 132) wrote: “within every work group in a factory, within any division in a government bureau, or within any department of a university are countless acts of cooperation without which the system would break down. We take these everyday acts for granted, and a few, if any, form the role prescriptions for any job”. Katz and Kahn (1966) suggested innovative and spontaneous behaviours that went beyond role requirements fostered organisational functioning and effectiveness. They identified three areas of behaviour with which organisations were concerned (Katz and Kahn, 1966). First, organisations must attract and maintain employees in the system. Second, organisations must ensure that employees perform duties meeting or exceeding certain minimal requirements. Third, they must exhibit “innovative and spontaneous behaviour performance beyond role requirements for accomplishments of organisational functions”. According to Organ et al. (2006), the last area includes employees cooperating with other employees to protect or enhance the organisational system, and to promote favorable work environments. Five years after the introduction of the term OCB to the organisational behaviour literature, Organ (1988a) offered an expanded definition of OCB as: Individual behaviour that is discretionary, not explicitly recognized by the formal system and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organisation. By discretionary, we mean that the behaviour is not an enforceable requirement of the role or job description, that is, the clearly specifiable terms of the person’s employment contract with the organisation; the behavior is rather a matter of personal choice, such that its omission is not generally understood as punishable (p. 4).
Organ (1988b) went on to state that:
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Our definition of OCB requires that it must not be directly or formally recompensed by the organisation’s reward system…(Does this) mean that OCB must be limited to those gestures that are utterly and externally lacking in any tangible return to the individual?....Not necessarily. Over time a steady stream of OCB of different types….could well determines the impression that an individual makes on a supervisor or on co-workers. That impression in turn could influence the recommendation by the boss for a salary increase or promotion. The important issue here is that such returns not be contractually guaranteed (p.5).
From these definitions, three essential positions can be extracted. First, OCB is discretionary in nature and goes far beyond the traditional requirements of the job. Second, OCB is not directly or formally recognized by reward system of the organisation, and thirdly, OCB in the aggregate promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organisation. Organ (1997) clarifies this characteristic by giving helping a co-worker as an example. He states that helping a co-worker might result in a dysfunctional situation for an employee, but when lots of employees engage in such behaviour repeatedly, it will enhance organisational effectiveness.
A second definition of OCB comes from Van Dyne et al. (1995), who proposed the broader construct of "extra-role behaviour" (ERB), defined as "behaviour which benefits the organisation and/or is intended to benefit the organisation, which is discretionary and which goes beyond existing role expectations" (p. 218). Organ (1997) suggested that this definition did not provide much clarity, noting that one's "job role" is dependent on the expectations of and communication from the role sender. The "sent role" could thus be less than or greater than the actual job requirements. This role theory definition thus places OCB or ERB in the realm of phenomenology, unobservable and completely subjective in nature. Distinctions between antecedents and behaviours become blurred, completely dependent on the "eyes of the beholder."
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This definition also presumes that the actor's intentions are "to benefit the organisation." Once again, the behaviour should be defined independent of its presumed antecedents. Borman and Motowidlo (1993, 1997) proposed another construct called ‘contextual performance’ related to OCB that contribute to the effectiveness of the organisation by shaping the organisational, social, and psychological context that serves as the catalyst for task activities and processes. As opposed to “task performance” (i.e. the effectiveness with which job incumbents perform activities that contribute to the organisation’s technical core) by “contextual performance” these authors referred to those behaviours that employees engage in many work behaviours that fall outside the rubric of task performance.
Their taxonomy of contextual performance includes persisting with enthusiasm and extra effort as necessary to complete own task activities successfully, volunteering to carry out task activities that are not formally part of own job, helping and cooperating with others, following organisational rules and procedures, and endorsing, supporting, and defending organisational objectives. Van-Scotter and Motowidlo (1996) suggested that contextual performance should be separated into the two narrower constructs of “interpersonal facilitation” and “job dedication,” which are similar to Organ’s interpersonally directed and organisationally-directed factors respectively (which will be discussed under the section of Dimensions of OCB). However, Organ (1997) suggested that Borman and Motowidlo's (1993) construct of "contextual behaviours" has provided a more tenable definition of OCB. For further clarity, a detailed discussion on dimensions of OCB is offered next. [
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2.3 Dimensions of Organisational Citizenship Behaviour Researchers hold different views with respect to the dimensionality of OCB. Since the introduction of the term “organisational citizenship behaviour” by Bateman and Organ (1983), researchers have identified almost thirty different forms of OCB (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Pain, & Bachrach, 2000). Although different labels have been used for the dimensions of OCB, there is an undeniable overlap among categorizations. In Van et al’s (1994) framework, they include loyalty, obedience, advocacy participation, functional participation, and social participation. In Moorman and Blakely’s (1995) framework, organizational citizenship behaviours include interpersonal helping, individual initiative, personal industry and loyal boosterism. Furthering these classifications of organizational citizenship behaviour, two celebrated organizational behaviour scholars, ZebObipi and Jaja (2004) offered a wider scope for the identification and analysis of specific citizenship behaviours (See Table 2.1). The organisation of this section however is mainly drawn by following Organ (1988). Organ, and Near (1983) conceptualized OCB with two dimensions: altruism (behaviour targeted specifically at helping individuals) and generalized compliance (behaviour reflecting compliance with general rules, norms, and expectations).
However, later Organ (1988)
identified five dimensions belonging to OCB; (Altruism, Conscientiousness, Civic Virtue, Courtesy and Sportsmanship) as well as one other dimension of Self development proposed by George and Brief (1992) and Podsakoff (2001).
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Table 2.1: Organizational Citizenship Behaviour Strategies S/N 1.
Strategy Altruism
or
Description
Altruistic
Behavior
Helping
Example others
selflessly
Helping a co-worker, supervisor at work
Interpersonal helping
Assisting a customer who needs help
2.
Generalized Compliance
Compliance
not
or Obedience or Loyal
occasioned
just
by
Boosterism
threat of enforcement. Adherence to rules and policies
Observing
work
standards even when not told so Complying
with
standards
Boosting
compliance
beyond
words to their essence Enthusiastic
and loyalty
compliance Obedience and loyalty. 3.
Sportsmanship Advocacy
or
participation
or Courtesy
Being innovative and
Enduring
co-operative Being controversial but tolerant Being
Engaging in team work
and
impositions
inconveniences
without complaints. courteous
to
others
Providing
individual
initiatives Minding others.
4.
Civic Virtue or Social Participation
Participation
and
involvement
in
organisation’s affairs
Attending meetings and group activities Volunteering services
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Table 2.1: Organizational Citizenship Behaviour Strategies Continuned Extra role duties
Performing not work related assignments
5.
Personal
industry
or
Functional participation
Being consciencious Self development and fulfillment Applying oneself fully to work
Increase
learning
knowledge
and
competence Paying details and extra attention to work Meeting datelines and schedules.
Source: Zeb-Obipi and Jaja (2004).
2.3.1 Altruism In their views, altruism is the enduring tendency to think about the welfare and rights of other people, to feel concern and empathy for them, and to act in a way that benefits them (Carlo, Eisenberg, Troyer, Switzer, & Speer, 1991; Penner & Finkelstein, 1998; Piliavin & Charng, 1990), or voluntary behaviours that is intended to benefit another and is not motivated by the expectations of external rewards (Eisenberg, 1986). Similarly, Wang, et al (2010) described altruism as helping behaviour aimed at coworkers, customers, clients, vendors, or supplies; others stretched it further by describing altruism as behaviours that directly and intentionally aim at helping a specific person in a face to face situation (Smith, Organ and Near, 1983).
However, a prognostic interpretation of these views will produce the tendency to render help to persons other than self as the convergent theme of altruistic tendencies. Accordingly, altruism is one of the most consistent individual resources that have been related to the engagement in helping behaviours (Carlo et al., 1991; Penner & Finkelstein, 1998; Smith et
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al., 1983). Piliavin and Charng (1990) conclude that such altruistic resources indeed exist and that the willingness to consider others in our overall calculations of our own interests is natural to people. Studies show employees giving altruistic reasons for becoming involved in helping behaviours, such as wanting to help others (Farmer & Fedor, 2001; Penner & Finkelstein, 1998; Wilson & Musick, 1997).
Kaplan (2000) states that people with altruistic values help others selflessly, just for the sake of helping, and may incur personal cost in the process because it is all about making sacrifices. Unlike courtesy which is meant to prevent work related problems from happening, altruism is meant to provide help to someone who is already in trouble (Organ, 1988). Altruism has been found to have cultural undertones. Schartz (1999) cited in Wang, et al, (2010) argued that people in a culture of egalitarianism (comparable to low power distance) tend to be more helpful. Schartz (2007) found that the helping behaviour of individualists is more inclusive than that of collectivists; in other words, individualists tend to extend their helping behaviour to a broad range of people whereas collectivists are more likely to limit their help to in-group members (Schartz, 2007; Triandis, 1998).
According to Triandis et al (1986), individualists tend to hold prosocial values at more universal and abstract level than collectivists. Comparing people’s behaviors in the cities in France, Greece and United States of America, Feldman (1968) found that people from the U.S , a society with high individualism were the most likely to help strangers. Similarly, Conway, Ryder, Tweed and Sokol (2001) found evidence that individualists were more willing to help strangers. Tracing the origin of altruism from a religious perspective, Ma (2009) emphasized that altruism was a fundamental value in the teachings of Jesus Christ; more so, Meisinger (2000) investigated the editorial history of the synoptic gospel and
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showed that the gospel of Luke emphasized the extension of Jesus’ love command beyond all bounds. The command of Jesus to love our enemies in Luke 6:27-36 can be regarded as the highest form of unconditional love. The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37) is an exemplary illustration of altruistic love. Jesus used this story to illustrate that human kindness and benevolence must be available to all people even to the enemy.
2.3.2 Conscientiousness Conscientiousness (one of the Big Five Personality Factors) refers to instances in which employees perform their roles behaviours well beyond the minimum required level, such as attending to meetings, keeping one’s work area clean, punctuality and strict adherence to other formal and informal rules designed to preserve order in the work place (Organ 1988: 10; Law, Wong and Chen, 2005). Similarly, conscientiousness has been defined as discretionary behaviours that go beyond the basic requirements of the job in terms of obeying work rules, attendance and job performance (Redman and Snape, 2005). In other words, conscientiousness means the painstaking obedience to organisational rules and procedures, even when no one is watching. These authors are in agreement that conscientious behaviours are beyond role requirements, directed at the organisation and exhibited as a matter of the conscience.
By implication therefore, these behaviours indicate that employees accept and adhere to the rules, regulations and procedures of the organisation. Conscientiousness is more impersonal than altruism because it is not directed at a specific person but to the system. It mainly refers to compliance with internalized norms that define the behaviours of a good worker (Smith, Organ and Near, 1983). Conscientiousness is very similar to the concept of generalized compliance of Smith et al., (1983: 675). Generalized compliance refers to those behaviours
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that are not directed towards one specific person but are “indirectly helpful to others involved in the system” (Smith et al., 1983: 675).
The conscientiousness dimension is a measure of reliability that can be associated to a particular employee. A highly conscientious person is responsible, organised, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable. (Robbins, 2008: 104-105) but also conscientiousness dimension can be characterized by reliability, achievement-oriented, and orderly. (Rothman and Contzer, 2003: 71). Yen and Neihoff (2004) argues that those employees who are more conscientious will stay informed with up-to date knowledge about products or services offered by the organisation.
Sanson et al., (1999) states that high conscientious individuals, on the contrary, stick with the organisation longer than individuals lower in conscientiousness whether or not there was an additional benefit and whether or not they varied the procedure while performing. Konovsky and Organ (1996) found in their study that conscientiousness was significantly related to all five dimensions of OCB. Also, conscientiousness was significantly related to generalized compliance and to civic virtue, (two of the antecedents of organisational citizenship behaviour). Conscientiousness emphasizes on responsibility and dedication with the underlying motive of interpersonal helping by taking the initiative to engage into those behaviours that are good for the organisation (Islam et al., 2012).
Conscientiousness can be expressed in numerous ways in organisations and, most obviously, in terms of job performance (King, 2005). It affects important work outcomes (Goldberg et al., 2005). Theoretically, it may be an important predictor of workplace behaviours because it
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provides direction and association that are necessary to produce targeted behaviours (King et al., 2005). A research done by Ladd and Henry (2000) found that conscientiousness accounted for unique variance in citizenship targeted toward the organisation. Supervisory evaluations of performance were found to be determined by altruism and conscientiousness as well as by objective job performance (Lowery and Krilowicz, 1996). One of the foremost studies that explored the relationships between personality, satisfaction and OCB reported conscientiousness as significant predictors of OCB with respect to generalized compliance (Organ and Lingl, 1995).
2.3.3 Civic Virtue Civic virtue’ refers to behaviours that demonstrate a responsible concern for the image and wellbeing of the organisation (Redman and Snape, 2005). Borman et al. (2001) defines civic virtue as responsibly involving oneself in and being concerned about the life of the company. Civic virtue is behaviour indicating that an employee responsibly participates in, and is concerned about the life of the company (represented by voluntary attendance at meetings) (Todd, 2003). Baker (2005) explains civic virtue as responsible, constructive involvement in the political processes of the organisation. As mentioned earlier, conscientiousness was (is) significantly related to generalized compliance and to civic virtue (Konovsky and Organ, 1996).
There was (is) an impact of fairness for only a single form of OCB (civic virtue), as found by Bacharach and Jex (2000). As per Redman and Snape (2005), the civic virtue is positively predicted by commitment to customers and co-workers (hence resulting in the behaviour, beneficial to the organisation) with evidence of partial mediation by global commitment. Coole (2003) argues that civic virtue was more limited in their relation to organisational
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effectiveness; that is, the more the organisation is effective, the chance of emergence of this very behavioural aspect is the most. Extraversion was (is) negatively related to the citizenship behaviours of altruism, civic virtue, and conscientiousness (Baker, 2005).
2.3.4 Courtesy Courtesy refers to discretionary behaviours that aim at preventing work-related conflicts with others (Law et al., 2005). In a related view, courtesy involves “such activities as “touching base” with fellow employees whose work could be affected by one’s decisions or commitments. Accordingly Organ (1888) argued that advance notices, reminders, passing along information, consultations and briefing all suggest the intrinsic quality of courtesy. The definition of courtesy also includes the word’s literal meaning of being polite and considerate of others (Organ, 2006). Organ (1988) aver that courteous behaviour enables co-workers to efficiently order and distribute their efforts thereby reducing the chances of wasting resources and experiencing anger or frustration. In their view, Islam et al., (2010) advance that this type of behaviour can be seen as intended to prevent chaos or conflict among employees and serving to maintain social order and group harmony. This could be true because everybody likes being treated with consideration and respect, made to feel as part of the system and never to be ignored; hence courtesy is a potent panacea for the prevention of interpersonal and intergroup disagreements. When the employees in the organisation treat each other with respect, they would be comfortable working with each other. In addition, it would make things easier for them to work in a team.
2.3.5 Sportsmanship Sportsmanship has been defined as willingness on the part of the employee that signifies the employee’s tolerance of less-than-ideal organisational circumstances without complaining
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and blowing problems out of proportion. Organ et al. (2006) further define sportsmanship as an employee’s “ability to roll with the punches” even if they do not like or agree with the changes that are occurring within the organisation. By reducing the amount of complaints from employees that administrators have to deal with, sportsmanship conserves time and energy.
Expanding the notion of sportsmanship, organ, (1988) and Podsakoff et al., (2000) posit that behaviors such as not complaining about trivial matters or making pretty grievances, enduring uncomfortable working conditions, maintaining positive attitude to work in difficult circumstance and being willing to sacrifice personal interests for that of group typifies true sportsmanship. Enduring uncomfortable conditions without complaining can actually be seen as the opposite of hedonism, a value cherished by individualists and consistent with conformity; a value viewed as important by collectivists (Schwartz, 1992).
2.3.6 Self Development Based on the work of Katz (1964), George and Brief (1992) identified developing oneself as a key dimension of citizenship behaviour. Self development includes voluntary behavior employees engage in to improve their knowledge, skills and abilities. According to George and Brief (1992:155), this might include “seeking out and taking advantage of advanced training courses, keeping abreast of the latest developments in one’s field and area, or even learning a new set of skills so as to expand the range of one’s contribution to the organisation”. on a similar note, self-development “encompasses the discretionary measures people take to broaden their work-relevant skills and knowledge, including voluntary enrollment in company-sponsored training courses as well as informal study” (Organ et al., 2006:25).
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However, as Organ et al. (2006) admitted, there has been no research to empirically support self-development as a dimension of OCB. Although they did not speculate as to the reason of such a lack of focus on self-development, it perhaps shows that self-development is a more complicated and difficult dimension than the other dimensions of OCB. Indeed, selfdevelopment is effective in improving employees’ task performance and organizational effectiveness, and, the rewards of these benefits are not often connected to those employees. In this regard, self-development might be regarded as one of many OCB dimensions; however, a significantly more complicated aspect of self-development is that it is not always used to improve employees’ job skills in their current organisation.
Often, employees educate themselves in order to pursue a better position in a different organisation. Clearly, the self-development of employees intending to leave the organisation should not be included as a dimension of OCB. Therefore, although we admit that, in part, self development should be included in the definition of OCB, it should be limited to the behaviors that improve employees’ skills and techniques that are effective only to their current organisation. Such skills and techniques may not necessarily contribute to their current job, and instead may contribute to a future job. Further, one of the most difficult problems facing researchers is that they cannot identify employees’ true motives in developing themselves just from their behaviour.
Even if employees are learning a skill irrelevant to their current job, it cannot be concluded that they are learning with intention of leaving the organisation, as they might be aiming towards a future position that requires such skills in their current organisation. A perfect example is a non-managerial employee learning management skills, as they are considering applying for a managerial position at the same company.
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In view of the fact that almost all of the citizenship behaviour research was influenced by Katz (1964), perhaps it is not surprising that these underlying dimensions bear a strong resemblance to the dimensions of “innovative and spontaneous” behaviour that he identified in his original article, including (1) cooperating with others, (2) protecting the organisation, (3) volunteering constructive ideas, (4) self-training, and (5) maintaining a favorable attitude toward the company.
For example, cooperating with others is reflected in the helping and sportsmanship dimensions; protecting the organisation is reflected in the civic virtue and organisational loyalty dimensions; volunteering constructive ideas is reflected in the individual initiative dimension; self-training is reflected in the self-development dimension; and maintaining a favorable attitude toward the company is reflected in the organisational loyalty and, perhaps, sportsmanship dimensions. Thus, in a sense, the roots of almost every form of citizenship behaviour can be traced back to Katz’s seminal framework (Katz, 1964). Discussion on the dimensions of OCB is stretched further for a thorough conceptualization of the construct by investigating concepts similar to OCB
2.4 Concepts Similar to Organisational Citizenship Behaviour Many constructs that have similarities with OCB have been identified in the literature. This section presents an overall review on Prosocial Organisational Behaviour (Brief and Motowidlo, 1986), Organisational Spontaneity (George and Brief, 1992), and Contextual Performance (Borman and Motowidlo 1993, 1997).
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2.4.1 Prosocial Organizational Behaviour Prosocial behaviours represent a wide range of behaviours that serve the well-being of other people and the maintenance of social integrity (Penner, Dovidio, Piliavin, and Schroeder, 2005; Brief and Motowidlo, 1986). Influenced by the work of Katz (1964), Brief and Motowidlo (1986) defined prosocial organisational behaviour. According to Brief and Motowidlo, prosocial behaviour is more comprehensive than innovative and spontaneous behaviours. They described prosocial organizational behaviours (POB) as “behaviours that are performed by a member of an organisation that are directed toward an individual, group, or an organisation with whom he or she interacts while carrying out his or her organisational role and performed with the intention of promoting the welfare of the individual, group, or organisation toward which it is directed” (Brief and Motowidlo, 1986: 711). They have identified 13 specific kinds of POBs on the basis of three distinctions.
POB differ in terms of whether they are functional or not, prescribed or not as a part of one’s organisational role, and directed toward an individual or organisational target. The major difference with OCB is the fact that not all prosocial organisational behaviours are organisationally functional and serve the effectiveness of the organisation. For example, speaking favorably about the organisation is functional because it helps the organisation to survive and achieve its goals. However, helping a coworker to achieve a personal goal inconsistent with organisational objectives is dysfunctional despite its prosocial behaviour aspect. In addition to this, prosocial behaviours may be role-prescribed or extra-role.
Although role prescribed prosocial behaviours are generally functional, extra role prosocial behaviours are not always functional. In addition to this, POB is criticized because of the fact
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that it covers numerous behaviors and it does not restrict itself with behaviours that have direct or specific organisational relevance (Organ, Podsakoff, and MacKenzie, 2006).
2.4.2
Organisational Spontaneity
Derived from the work of Katz (1964), George and Brief (1992) defined organisational spontaneity (OS) as “extra-role behaviours that are performed voluntarily and that contribute to organisational effectiveness” (p. 331). They do not use the term spontaneity as impulsive acts, but as behaviours that are voluntary and enhance organisational effectiveness. Five forms of OS were defined as helping co-workers, protecting the organisation, making constructive suggestions, developing oneself, and spreading goodwill. Sharing supplies, calling attention to a potential error, and helping a coworker with heavy workload are examples of helping behaviours which are spontaneous and in case of their absence serious problems emerge.
Protecting the organisation includes activities to protect or save life of the workers and property of the organisation in case of emergency situations such as natural disasters. Making constructive suggestions was defined as all voluntary acts for creativity and innovation. Developing oneself includes voluntary activities like improving knowledge, skills, abilities which will in turn help the worker to be better at his job and contribute more to the organisation. Spreading goodwill was defined as voluntary contributions to organisational effectiveness by presenting one’s organisation as supportive or presenting its services and goods as high quality. OS has dimensions which are related to POB (Brief and Motowidlo, 1986), OCB (Organ, 1988), and contextual performance (Borman and Motowidlo, 1997). Although there are certain overlaps among these constructs, they are not the same (George and Brief, 1992; George and Jones, 1997). OS is related to but different from citizenship
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behaviour in terms of its organisationally recognized reward system. OS is recognised by the formal reward system, whereas OCB is not directly (Moorman and Blakely, 1995).
2.4.3
Contextual Performance
Borman and Motowidlo (1993) distinguished task performance and contextual performance from each other by defining task performance as “activities that are formally recognized as part of the jobs… activities that contribute to the organisation’s technical core either directly by implementing a part of its technological process, or indirectly by providing it with needed materials or services” (p. 73). According to Borman and Motowidlo (1993), task performance alone was not adequate for effective functioning of an organisation. Instead, contextual performance which is “extra-technical proficiency components of behaviour that contribute to organisational effectiveness by shaping the psychological and social context, in turn facilitating task activities and processes” was also necessary (Coleman and Borman, 2000, p. 25-26).
According to Borman and Motowidlo (1993), contextual performance (CP) and task performance differ from each other for three reasons. First, task activities depend on the job and therefore vary across jobs. However, contextual activities show similarity across jobs. Second, task activities are more roles prescribed when compared with contextual performance; therefore task activities are included in performance appraisal forms. Third, the two concepts differ in terms of their antecedents. While the antecedents of task performance are more related to cognitive ability, the antecedents of contextual performance involve dispositional variables. Motowidlo and Van Scotter (1994) provided evidence that support task performance should be distinguished from contextual performance and they both dependently contribute to overall performance.
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Examples of contextual activities are volunteering to carry out tasks that are not included in the formal contract, and helping and cooperating with others to accomplish tasks. What Borman and Motowidlo (1993) defined as CP blended many concepts in itself. Borman and Motowidlo benefited from Smith, Organ and Near’s (1983) organisational citizenship behaviour, Brief and Motowidlo’s (1986) prosocial organisational behaviour, and Organ’s (1988) sportsmanship, and courtesy dimensions while defining contextual performance. In addition to these, Borman, and Motowidlo used the model of soldier effectiveness of Borman, Motowidlo, Rose, and Hanser’s (1985).
This model identifies performance constructs relevant to first-tour soldiers that are important for unit effectiveness. Borman and Motowidlo (1993) attempted to summarize all these concepts in five contextual performance dimensions which are persisting with enthusiasm and extra effort as necessary to complete own task activities successfully, volunteering to carry out task activities that are not formally part of own job, helping and cooperating with others, following organisational rules and procedures, endorsing, supporting, and defending organisational objectives (Borman and Motowidlo, 1997). Van Scotter and Motowidlo (1996) attempted to improve the construct of contextual performance defined by Borman and Motowidlo (1993).
They divided the concept into two subcategories: interpersonal facilitation and job dedication. Interpersonal facilitation refers to cooperative, considerate and helpful behaviours that assist co-workers’ performance and are performed to accomplish an organisational goal. Job dedication consists of self-disciplined, motivated behaviours such as working hard, taking initiative to solve a problem at work, and following rules to support organisational objectives. Although Organ (1997) acknowledges the overlapping of the dimensions of contextual
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performance and OCB, Organ and his colleagues (2006) insist on the fact that the definition of contextual performance is vague. What is meant by the phrase “support the social and psychological environment” is not clear and it may cause problems while studying with other cultures than US.
For instance, Chinese managers value harmony in the workplace which promotes social environment, but such behaviours do not necessarily lead to organizational effectiveness. Therefore, although Organ (1997) revised his definition of OCB in line with contextual performance by not referring to the reward system and extra-role behaviours, he still emphasizes that the name (i. e. Contextual Performance) and the definition does not clearly embrace what is meant by OCB. Specifically however, OCB and contextual performance share their defining attributes as they both consist of behaviours other than those needed to perform routine functions of the job. Both also require that these behaviours contribute to the overall success of the organisation.
Additionally, they also agree on the theme that these behaviours are discretionary and each employee chooses the amount and degree to which they will perform them. However, while contextual performance and OCB share good part of their content domain, there are some important differences between the two constructs. One of such is that OCBs are not formally rewarded, which is not the case for contextual performance.
More so, contextual
performance does not require that the behaviour be extra-role, only that it be non-task. However, these differences are slight and quite easy to miss. A review of the literature by Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Paine, and Bachrach (2000) identified a major weakness of this stream of research on OCB.
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The authors argued that the literature has focused more on understanding the relationship between OCB and other constructs, rather than carefully defining the nature (dimensions) of citizenship behaviour itself. Podsakoff et al. (2000) warned that unless more attention is paid to the conceptualization of OCB and its measures, we are in danger of developing a stream of literature that may prove of little worth to the field in the long run. Thus, the conceptualization of OCB could be manifested in a better way by discussing the dimensions of OCB in the succeeding section.
2.5
Antecedents of Organizational Citizenship Behaviour
In this section, we review research on antecedents of citizenship behaviour. Early OCB research focused primarily on dispositional and attitudinal predictors, whereas more recent research has broadened its perspective by considering social ties and networks as antecedents at the meso level as well as contextual and organisational antecedents at the macro level. Since earlier reviews provide excellent summaries of the literature (Organ, 1997; Organ and Ryan, 1995; Podsakoff et al., 2000), we emphasize more recent advancements in the literature.
2.5.1 Dispositions Since OCB is discretionary, it is more strongly influenced by personality and attitudinal factors than by ability, knowledge, or training (Podsakoff et al., 2000). In view of this condition, it is most likely that individual disposition would greatly influence his/her willingness or otherwise to exhibit citizenship behaviour, even when the fellow possesses every skills and ability to do same. Specifically, agreeableness and conscientiousness (Tett and Burnett, 2003) which are personality traits within the Big Five model suggests that
65
attitudes and perceptions moderate the relationship between personality and work behaviour (Kamdar and Van Dyne, 2007).
In their recent meta-analysis on antecedents of OCB, Ilies and colleagues (2006) demonstrated that satisfaction mediated the effects of agreeableness and conscientiousness on organization-targeted behaviors. Moreover, both job satisfaction and positive affect mediated the effects of agreeableness and conscientiousness on individually-targeted behaviors. Another recent study investigated the interactive effects of personality traits and experienced states on intraindividual patterns of citizenship behavior (Ilies et al., 2006b).
Results using experience sampling methodology demonstrated that agreeableness moderated the intraindividual relationship between state positive affect and daily reports of citizenship behavior: highly agreeable employees exhibited more consistent patterns of citizenship behaviour, such that their performance of OCB was less dependent on their state positive affect. Building on the work of Campbell and colleagues (1993), Motowidlo et al. (1997) argued that personality would influence performance (comprised of contextual performance and task performance) through its influence on contextual knowledge or contextual work habits.
Johnson (2003) noted, however, that this proposition has only received partial empirical support: Specifically, Schmit et al. (1996) reported that extroversion mediated the effect of contextual knowledge on contextual performance, but not for conscientiousness and agreeableness. Finally, Organ and colleagues (2006) suggested that ‘personality might influence manner or motive more than the substance of OCB’ (p. 85). Specifically, they argued that dispositional traits may not explain differences in enacted levels of OCB, but they
66
might explain why some individuals engage in citizenship. According to this line of reasoning, agreeable people are not predisposed to engage in citizenship behaviour more frequently. Instead, their desire to mitigate the discomfort of coworkers or friends leads to higher levels of OCB. We discuss motivational antecedents of citizenship behaviour in greater detail below.
2.5.2 Attitudes Since the early work of Organ (1977) and Bateman and Organ (1983), attitudes have received a great deal of attention as predictors of citizenship behaviours. Job satisfaction has consistently been identified as one of the strongest predictors of OCB, irrespective of the intended beneficiary (Ilies et al., 2006; Podsakoff et al., 2000). Moreover, organizational commitment (Organ and Ryan, 1995; Podsakoff et al., 2000), justice and fairness perceptions (Colquitt et al., 2001; Organ and Ryan, 1995; Podsakoff et al., 2000), and state positive affect (Ilies et al., 2006) are other affective and cognitive constructs associated with OCB. Interestingly, and consistent with our emphasis on OCB-O and OCB-I, organizational commitment and procedural justice perceptions were more strongly associated with OCB-O (Colquitt et al., 2001; Organ and Ryan, 1995) and interpersonal justice was more strongly associated with OCB-I (Colquitt et al., 2001).
2.5.3 Motivations Most motivational approaches to citizenship behaviour differ from approaches which focus primarily on attitudinal antecedents. Research on attitudes and OCB is typically based on social exchange theory and assumes that individuals perform OCB as a reaction to positive treatment at work (Rioux and Penner, 2001). In contrast, research on individual motivations as antecedents to OCB positions discretionary behaviours as proactive efforts directed toward
67
satisfying basic human needs (Penner et al., 1997; Rioux and Penner, 2001). For example, Krebs (1991) argued generically that helping behaviour (i.e., OCB-I) is based on a combination of egoistic and altruistic motives.
Helping others, thus, provides personal benefits that enhance the helper’s welfare and wellbeing. Krebs and others (Hornstein, 1991; Kenrick, 1991), however, acknowledge the inherent difficulties of disentangling egoistic and altruistic motivational factors which trigger discretionary behaviours. Noting similarities between OCB and volunteering, Van Dyne and Farmer (2004) differentiated expressive functional motives and instrumental functional motives that lead to helping others (OCB-I). Expressive motives include helping for expression of role identity, ego protection, and self-enhancement. Instrumental motives, on the other hand, include economic and cost-benefit considerations.
To date, however, there is little empirical research on the motivational antecedents of citizenship. One notable exception is Rioux and Penner’s (2001) measure of motives for engaging in OCB – the CMS or Citizenship Motivation Scale. This scale has a three-factor structure, consisting of: prosocial values (being motivated by helping others); organizational concern (being motivated by a sense of pride for being associated with the organisation); and impression management (being motivated by looking good to obtain rewards). Of these three motives, organisational concern and prosocial values predicted OCB. More importantly, organisational concern was more strongly associated with OCB directed at the organisation and prosocial values were a stronger predictor of OCB directed at individuals.
Although Bolino (1999) emphasized conceptual similarities between OCB and impression management, Rioux and Penner’s (2001) self-report scale for impression management
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motives was not related to OCB. More recently, however, Bowler and Brass (2006) demonstrated that impression management can motivate citizenship behaviour, especially when citizenship is targeted at employees with influential friends in the organisation. [
2.5.4 Task Characteristics Podsakoff and Mackenzie (1997) suggested that task characteristics directly impact OCB and that they also moderate the effect of OCB on group performance. Consistent with this, Motowidlo et al. (1986) owed that high task demands reduced OCB-I. Podsakoff and colleagues’(2000) meta-analysis reported that task routinization reduced OCB-I. In contrast, job autonomy (Farh et al., 1990) and intrinsically satisfying tasks (Podsakoff et al., 2000) enhanced OCB. Recently, Bachrach et al. (2006) noted an increase in research on task characteristics and citizenship. Much of this research differentiates between OCB-I and OCBO (Van der Vegt and Van de Vliert, 2005). For example, Bachrach and colleagues examined the moderating effect of task interdependence on the relationship between helping behaviour (OCB-I) and group performance.
Interestingly, they reported a non-monotic effect of helping on group performance in the low task interdependence condition such that both low and high levels of helping led to lower group performance. Andersen and Williams (1996) demonstrated that employees seek and receive more interpersonal help (OCB-I) in task environments characterized by high task interdependence. These results suggest the benefits of additional work on task characteristics and citizenship.
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2.5.5 Social Relationships Like research on task characteristics and OCB, we observe an increasing trend in research on social relationships and citizenship behaviour. Bowler and Brass (2006) argued, for example, that our understanding of interpersonal citizenship behaviour is incomplete without considering the social relationships in which work is embedded. Specifically, they proposed that attitudinal, dispositional, and motivational approaches to citizenship behaviour fail to account for the social environment surrounding citizenship. Moreover, Dovidio et al. (2006) suggested that quality of interpersonal relationships is a powerful predictor of human behaviour which should add to our understanding of discretionary work behaviour. In line with this reasoning, we now review employee relationships with supervisors and co-workers as predictors of citizenship. Here, we focus primarily on OCB-I because interpersonal relationships have special relevance to OCB-I.
2.5.6 Relationships with Supervisors as Antecedents of OCB Meta-analytic findings demonstrate that leadership and relationships of employees with their supervisors are powerful predictors of citizenship behaviour. This includes leader supportiveness, transformational leadership, and contingent rewards (Podsakoff et al., 2000). Interestingly, dyadic relationships between leader and followers are more strongly related to OCB than universal leadership behaviours, such as transformational and transactional leadership (Organ and Ryan, 1995; Podsakoff et al., 2000). In fact, leader-member exchange (LMX) is one of the most powerful predictors of OCB. Based on their review of previous research on OCB, Podsakoff and colleagues (2000) find that LMX was not only the strongest predictor of OCB among leadership behaviours, but among all predictors considered in their
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analyses,
including
individual
characteristics,
task
characteristics,
organizational
characteristics, and leadership behaviours.
A recent meta-analysis by Ilies and colleagues (2007) shows particularly strong relationships between LMX and interpersonal citizenship. In addition, research demonstrates that employees reciprocate high-quality LMX relationships with OCB-I directed specifically at the leader (Kamdar and Van Dyne, 2007). Moreover, again consistent with trait activation theory (Tett and Burnett, 2003), the results of Kamdar and Van Dyne demonstrate that LMX weakens the effects of personality on OCB-I. Other research shows LMX mediates and moderates the effects of other predictors on OCB. For example, Wang et al. (2005) demonstrated that leader-member exchange fully mediated the effect of transformational leadership on citizenship.
Also, Sparrowe et al. (2006) showed that LMX moderated the effect of leader influence tactics on employee helping behaviour. The majority of research on the relationship between leadership and citizenship behavior has focused on the positive effects of leadership behaviours on citizenship. Taking a different approach, Tepper et al. (2004) investigated potential negative consequences of abusive leadership on citizenship behaviour. Results demonstrated that in the presence of abusive supervision, performance of OCB eventually led to lower levels of co-worker job satisfaction.
2.5.7 Relationships with Co-workers as Antecedents of OCB Social relationships with peers also predict OCB (Bowler and Brass, 2006; Ng and Van Dyne, 2005; Van der Vegt et al., 2006). Consistent with social exchange theory (Blau, 1964), employees reciprocate quality relationships with co-workers by providing more interpersonal
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citizenship (Anderson and Williams, 1996; Kamdar and Van Dyne, 2007; Settoon and Mossholder, 2002). Likewise, interpersonal relationship quality (Andersen and Williams, 1996), intensity of friendship (Bowler and Brass, 2006), team member exchange (Kamdar and Van Dyne, 2007), group cohesiveness, and cooperative group norms (Ng and Van Dyne, 2005) are positively related to OCB-I.
Research evidence suggests that relationships among co-workers (TMX) are strong proximal predictors of OCB-I that constrain expression of dispositional traits, thus reducing the effect of personality on citizenship (Kamdar and Van Dyne, 2007). Investigations are ongoing for the determination of potential negative consequences of social relationships on citizenship behaviour. For example, Ng and Van Dyne (2005) showed that group task conflict reduced OCB-I in work groups, and Twenge et al. (2007) demonstrated that social exclusion reduced prosocial behaviour (i.e., OCB-I).
Reflecting on this finding, Twenge and colleagues suggested that social exclusion temporarily interfered with emotional responses and thus impaired empathic reactions to coworkers, which in turn, reduced prosocial behaviour. Finally, Van der Vegt and colleagues (2006) used a relational approach in their study of expertness diversity and interpersonal helping. Results demonstrated that team members who were not perceived as experts received less help, which lead to increased team member frustration, and reduced intra-group learning.
2.6 Consequences of OCB The consequences of organisational citizenship behaviour have not been studied as extensively as antecedents of citizenship (Scott, 2007), perhaps because most empirical
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studies focus on OCB as a valuable outcome in and of itself. A few studies, however, consider OCB as the predictor of other outcomes. Most of these studies focus on OCB as a predictor of individual, group, and organisational performance. This tendency is not surprising due to the managerial bias of early work on OCB (Organ, 1997). Looking ahead, we view this as a major opportunity to expand our understanding of the nomological network of OCB.
Specifically, we draw on research in social and personality psychology which provides strong evidence that helping behavior has important implications for those who do the helping. We begin this section with a review of the literature on consequences of OCB for individual, group, and organisational performance. We then review the limited existing research on consequences of citizenship for those who perform OCB, and make suggestions about future research on consequences of OCB for individuals, with special emphasis on individual wellbeing.
2.6.1. The Consequences of OCB for those who Perform OCB Organ’s (1988) original conceptualization of OCB assumed that OCB was positively intended and in aggregate would have positive consequences for organisations. More recent research has continued this focus, including potential benefits for the well being of other individuals, groups, organisations, and society in general (e.g., Penner et al., 2005). Consequently, a considerable amount of research has investigated the effects of OCB on intended beneficiaries (individuals, groups, organisations). Unfortunately, however, there is little research on the consequences of performing OCB for those who perform OCB.
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We are aware of only two studies that have considered satisfaction as an outcome of performing OCB (Bateman and Organ, 1983; Park and Van Dyne, 2006). Thus, we suggest that scholars have not fully recognised the positive implications of performing OCB for the actor – the person who performs OCB.
2.6.2 Consequences
of
OCB
for
Individual
and
Group
Performance, and
Organizational Effectiveness The conceptualization of job performance has been expanded to include citizenship behaviour and contextual performance (Johnson, 2003; Motowidlo, 2003). Although this redefinition could be interpreted as reducing the need for empirical research on OCB and job performance, and even though Podsakoff and Mackenzie (1997) summarized eight conceptual reasons to support the assumed relationship between citizenship behaviour and performance, surprisingly few studies have examined this relationship empirically. At the individual level of analysis, Mackenzie and Podsakoff demonstrated positive effects of citizenship for those who exhibit OCB as well as for those who are the targets of citizenship.
For example, those who exhibit OCB are rated as higher performers by supervisors (MacKenzie and Podsakoff, 1999; MacKenzie et al., 1991; 1993). From a conceptual perspective, Podsakoff and MacKenzie (1997) argued that OCB helps new employees become productive more quickly, and helps to spread ‘best practices’ in organisations, thus enhancing the performance of those who learn these best practices. Moving to higher levels of analysis, research has demonstrated relationships between OCB and unit performance in terms of customer service quality and sales performance, as well as performance quality and quantity.
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Several studies have demonstrated significant relationships between citizenship and unit sales (MacKenzie et al., 1998; Podsakoff et al., 1997; Podsakoff and MacKenzie, 1997).Walz and Niehoff (1996) showed citizenship was related to operating efficiency and customer service quality. Looking specifically at OCB-I and OCB-O, George and Bettenhausen (1990) demonstrated that group prosocial behaviors (OCB-I) were positively related to store sales. Explanations for these findings include enhanced coordination and reduced need for maintenance activities in units where employees regularly contribute OCB and enhanced coordination (Podsakoff and MacKenzie, 1997).
Finally, at the macro level of analysis, Schnake and Hogan (1995) demonstrated that OCB was related to organisational flexibility and efficiency. Together, these studies provide support for relationships between citizenship behaviour and performance on the micro, meso, and macro levels. Unfortunately, studies which differentiate between OCB-I and OCB-O have produced inconsistent results. Podsakoff and MacKenzie (1997) commented that the relationship between helping (OCB-I) and performance may be stronger than the relationships for civic virtue and sportsmanship (OCB-O) with performance.
Another study, however, reported a significant negative relationship (−0.49) between helping (OCB-I) and sales performance (Podsakoff and MacKenzie, 1994). In contrast, other research has reported positive relationships between helping (OCB-I) and group and organizational outcomes (e.g., sales performance, operating efficiency, customer satisfaction, and quantity/quality of performance: MacKenzie et al., 1996; Podsakoff et al., 1996; Walz and Niehoff, 1996). Finally, Ng and Van Dyne (2005) showed that the relationship between group helping (OCB-I operationalized with both average and minimum levels) and group performance failed to reach significance.
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Podsakoff et al (1997) noted that differences might be due to the nature of the work being performed such that task interdependence influences whether OCB contributes to or detracts from performance. Consistent with this, Bachrach and colleagues’ (2006) findings show that task interdependence influenced the effectiveness of helping. Perhaps other inconsistent findings are due to group norms and/or organisational culture. Clearly, more research is needed to address the inconsistent findings about relationships for OCB-I and OCB-O with outcomes. This ensuing debate will usher us into our next line of discussion on organisational resilience.
2.7 The Concept of Resilience Resilience is a theoretical concept, a metaphor, a result of interactions between people and the environment, a property of a dynamic system (Carpenter, et al., 2001), a measurable social and cultural construct (Mallak, 1998b) and a paradigm (Paton and Johnston, 2001). The first use of the term resilience is contested but can be attributed to ecology, physics or psychology (Manyena, 2006). In ecology, it was introduced through Hollings’ (1973) seminal work: Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems. Holling described resilience as, “…a measure of persistence of systems and their ability to absorb change and disturbance and still maintain the same relationships between populations or state variables”. (Holling, 1973:14)
Kasperson and Kasperson (2005) discuss examples of the influence of random events on natural systems and suggest that we can better understand resilience if we “…shift the emphasis towards assuming change and then try to explain stability” (Kasperson and Kasperson, 2005: 255). Holling (1973) also notes that traditional analysis within the field of ecology has been inherited from developments in physics. In physics resilience is “…the
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ability for a material to get back to its initial shape following an external shock” (Lecoze and Capo, 2006: 3). Zimmerman and Arunkumar (1994: 2) refer to psychological resilience and argue that it refers to “…fending off maladaptive responses to risk and their potential negative consequences”.
Another common understanding of resilience is the ability to bounce back (Coutu, 2002). Holling (1996) discusses the difference between resilience in engineering versus resilience in ecology. He describes resilience in engineering as the stability of equilibrium near a steady state and argues that, in engineering, resilience can be measured as the speed of return to equilibrium. Judging from these views, the term “resilience,” can be described as a word that denotes both strength and flexibility; implies the ability to adjust to “normal” or anticipated stresses and strains and to adapt to sudden shocks and extraordinary demands.
According to Klein et al. (2003) resilience can be traced back to the Latin word resilire which means “to jump back”. The general character of the word resilience has led to a wide application of the concept; it can be found in many disciplines, such as engineering/safety systems, ecology, risk management, psychology, and sociology, environmental science (Fiksel, 2006). To understand its meaning clearly, a discipline by discipline approach shall be applied. Table 2.2 as found in appendix 11 depicts ten disciplines-based definitions of resilience and the authors behind them as developed by Bran and Jax (2007).
These ten definitions together represent the intension of the term resilience. Even though they are all related to the original, descriptive concept of resilience, as introduced by Holling (1973), the term has been transformed considerably. The conceptual development of resilience has been recently reviewed by Folke (2006), who made a distinction between an
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early interpretation of resilience, which focuses on the robustness of systems to withstand shocks while maintaining functions, i.e., ecosystem or ecological resilience, social resilience, and a subsequent interpretation, which refers more to the interplay of disturbance and reorganization within a system as well as to transformability, learning and innovation, i.e., social-ecological resilience.
Resilience factors emerge at different levels: individual (psychosocial and biological), family, school, neighborhood, and the macro level of social and economic structures. Going to specifics, in psychology, mental illness and child development studies, resilience is used invariably as a normative concept. It refers to manifestations of competence in children despite exposure to stressful events (Garmezy et al., 1984), the positive end of distribution of peoples’ response to stress and adversity (Rutter, 1987), the successful adaptation following exposure to stressful life events (Werner, 1989) or the ability to cope and do well in life despite difficulties (Gunnestad, 2006). Resilience of an individual therefore is the person’s ability to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.
Similarly, resilience in family studies is also normative, it refers to properties that help families to resist disruptions in the face of change and to adapt in the face of crisis situations (McCubbin and McCubbin, 1988); the abilities to overcome adversities, survive stresses, and rise above disadvantages (Valentine and Feinauer, 1993); or qualities that enable a family to maintain equilibrium as they experience crises (Hawley and Dehaan, 1996). In hazard studies, a city, a community or a region is called resilient if it has the capacity to reduce or avoid losses, contain the effects of disaster and recover with minimal social disruptions (Tierney and Bruneau, 2007; Cutter et al., 2008); or recover its level or trajectories of
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population, economic activity and or built environment to a state before perturbing events processes (Vale and Campanella, 2005).
In climate change studies, Timmerman (1981) defined resilience as the measure of a system’s or part of a system’s capacity to absorb and recover from the occurrence of a hazardous event. In economic studies, recovery to pre-shock levels and trajectories of economic performance are considered as measures of resilience (Hill et al., 2008). In national security studies, resilience is defined as an ability of a nation-state, to cope with, adapt and preserve social cohesion when it is confronted by external and internal stresses caused by sociopolitical change and /or violent disturbances such as a terrorist attack (Long, 2008). The current upsurge in the activities of the dreaded Islamic sect, Boko Haram stands as perfect example in Nigeria.
Although Folke (2006) points to the change in the specific meaning of resilience, our own interpretation of the conceptual development of resilience highlights the distinct use of the construct of resilience within the gamut of social science discipline. However, before narrowing into discussing organizational resilience, we shall first discuss the origin of resilience.
2.7.1 Origin of the Resilience Concept The resilience perspective emerged from ecology in the 1960s and early 1970s through studies of interacting populations like predators and prey and their functional responses in relation to ecological stability theory (Holling, 1961; Morris, 1963; Lewontin, 1969; Rosenzweig, 1971; May, 1972). Ecologist C.S. Holling in his paper on resilience and stability in ecological systems illustrated the existence of multiple stability domains or multiple basins
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of attraction in natural systems and how they relate to ecological processes, random events (e.g. disturbance) and heterogeneity of temporal and spatial scales (Holling, 1973).
He introduced resilience as the capacity to persist within such a domain in the face of change and proposed that ‘‘resilience determines the persistence of relationships within a system and is a measure of the ability of these systems to absorb changes of state variables, driving variables, and parameters, and still persist’’ (Holling, 1973:17). The resilience perspective began to influence fields outside ecology like anthropology where Vayda and McCay (1975) challenged Rappaport’s (1967) concept of culture as an equilibrium-based system, in ecological economics in relation to biological diversity (Perrings et al., 1992), non-linear dynamics (Common and Perrings, 1992) and the modeling of complex systems of humans and nature (Costanza et al., 1993).
Furthermore, the concept of resilience has also received attention in environmental psychology (Lamson, 1986), cultural theory (Thompson et al., 1990), human geography (Zimmerer, 1994), property rights and common property research (Hanna et al., 1996), and has been actively taken up in the social–ecological literature (Walker and Salt, 2006), and also other social Sciences (reviewed by Scoones, 1999; Abel and Stepp, 2003; DavidsonHunt and Berkes, 2003). More recently, it was brought into the business management literature (Coutu, 2002; Hamel and Välikangas, 2003; Reinmoeller and van Baardwijk, 2005; (King, 1995), judging from the foregoing our main interest and next line of discussion is on organizational resilience.
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2.7.2 Organisational Resilience Earlier in this work, it was indicated that resilience are of different levels. In fact this categorization recognizes the levels as: individual, group or family, organisational, community/society or state resilience. The majority of research into organisational resilience has been qualitative and descriptive (Somers, 2007). Serville et al. (2008: 2) define organizational resilience as the ability of an organization to “…survive, and potentially even thrive, in times of crises”. This definition seems vague and inapplicable in terms of measurement. Therefore it is more appropriate to seek further and practicable way to define resilience. The perspective for defining organization resilience appropriately is the commonly used systems approach, and more specifically that of complex adaptive systems (McManus et al., 2007).
A system is a coordinated set of tangible or intangible elements and management and control elements organized within functional units based on common, established goals (Robert, 2010), or a collection of different but interrelated parts that function as a whole to achieve set objectives. Most definitions of resilience have employed the system concept to it. Examples, Resilience is defined as the intrinsic ability of a system or an organization to adjust its functioning prior to, during, or following changes and disturbances, so that it can sustain required operations under both expected and unexpected conditions (Hollnagel, 2010), or a system’s capacity to maintain or restore an acceptable level of functioning despite perturbations or failures (Pinel, 2009:71).
Going by the definition of resilience offered in the preceding paragraph, we find that resilience is: “…the capacity of a system to undergo disturbance or perturbation.” Perturbations are disturbances that emanate from the environment towards a system. By
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environment, we refer to everything that exists beyond the boundaries of that system and possesses the potential to harm or help the system. The boundaries of a business system are often difficult to grasp as a business can be dispersed over several locations. Zaiger–Roberts (1994) offers a way to consider the boundary of any system in terms of three criteria: time, territory and task: A business generally operates between certain hours (e.g., 9am to 5pm), thus the business exists during its business hours or at a specific time that work is actually being undertaken (e.g., when I am at my computer at home). A business typically operates in certain locations (territories) where the employees of the business reside. Location can be a fixed address (a building), a person working from home, or indeed the space utilized while traveling to another location (in a train or plane). A business exists in the territory (location) where employees are doing work. The third element to define the boundary of a business system is its (primary) task; that is, what the business seeks to achieve (i.e., offer products and/or services of a certain kind). A business exists when the primary task of the business is being undertaken by employees in a certain place.
Time, territory and task act as ribbons hanging from a maypole, where the maypole is the business itself. Employees hang onto these ribbons (time, territory and task) and when doing so, the task (work) of the business system is deemed to be occurring at a specific time in a specific territory (place). For example, if I am in a train reviewing papers for work, then the task of the organization is being undertaken, even if the location is transient. The environment that surrounds a business is everything that might impact the time, territory and task of the business. Environment, however, can extend a long way. Under chaos theory we
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know that small perturbations in one region may eventually impact a system in unpredictable ways (Capra, 1996: 132).
Therefore, it is necessary to consider different spheres of influence. Such spheres of influence can be considered as ever–widening concentric circles surrounding the business: local, national and global spheres of influence. The local sphere of influence includes those conditions (variables) that have an immediate impact on the operation of the business. Local conditions might be considered “in–house” perturbations as they occur within the realm of a single business operation. Local perturbations might include problems with the technical system (e.g., machine failure, a business fire), the social system (e.g., employee illness or strike) or the economic system (e.g., fraud).
The national sphere of influence includes those conditions (variables) that might impact the industry or marketplace within which the business is operating. Porter’s five forces (buyers, suppliers, substitutes, new entrants, industry rivalry) offer a way of examining some of these perturbations (Fleischer and Bensouusan, 2003), however, Porter examines influences from the marketplace only. National perturbations might include: demand fluctuations (i.e., consumer interest in product/services), productivity fluctuations (e.g., a national strike or a road disaster preventing employees from reaching their place of work) and micro-economic fluctuations (e.g., interest rate fluctuations, changes to political governance. The PEST model-political, economic, social, technological-might also be appropriate here (Fleischer and Bensoussan, 2002).
The global sphere of influence includes those conditions (variables) that impact all business organisations in a universal way. Such impacts might be subtle, take some time for their
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effects to germinate or be felt immediately (e.g., in the case of a world war or terrorist activity, such as the bombing of the world trade centre). Within a business system global effects might include: resource fluctuations (e.g., the supply of oil), labor fluctuations (e.g., skill shortages) and macro–economic fluctuations (e.g., trade restrictions, embargoes, stock market crash). Considering the ways and manner the environment influences the business organisations and in view of interrelatedness and interdependency of organisational parts, a perturbation or change in any part becomes a cause for concern to the entire super system, in this case, the business organisation..
As a result of this fact, organisation needs to have a total knowledge about itself and its environment. This may have informed the definition of organisational resilience as: “a function of an organisation’s overall situation awareness, keystone vulnerability and adaptation capacity in a complex, dynamic and interdependent system” (McManus, 2008). McManus, (2008) used this definition to identify three dimensions of organisational resilience, situation awareness, and management of keystone vulnerably and adaptive capacity.
2.7.3 Dimensions of Organizational Resilience. Tierney et al. (2003) measured organisational and community resilience and conceptualized physical and social resilience into: (1) Robustness: the ability of elements, systems, and other units of analysis to withstand stresses and demands without suffering damage, degradation or loss of function (2) Redundancy: the extents to which elements, systems, or other units of analysis exist that meet functional requirements in the event of disruption, degradation, or loss of functionality of primary systems (3) Resourcefulness: the capacity to identify problems, establish priorities, and mobilize resources to avoid or cope with damage or
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disruption; the ability to apply human and material resources to meet priorities and achieve goals; and (5) Rapidity: the capacity to meet priorities and achieve goals in a timely manner.
A similar attempt and in fact most referenced measures of organizational resilience is found in the study by McManus (2008). McManus studied organizational resilience in New Zealand where he defined organisational resilience as:
“a function of an organisation’s overall
situation awareness, keystone vulnerability and adaptation capacity in a complex, dynamic and interdependent system” (McManus, 2008).
In a recent New Zealand study benchmarking business resilience, Stephenson, et al (2010) identified two predominant dimensions which included thirteen indicators of organisational resilience. However, we consider their dimension as an offshoot of McManus’ (2007) who developed fifteen indicators .The key terms of McManus’ definition, has emerged as what many regard as validly researchable measures of organisational resilience which we shall also adopt in our study. Accordingly, he alongside other scholars have explained each of these terms in very clear terms as we shall recap within the theme of dimensions of organisational resilience
2.7.3.1 Situation Awareness The term situation awareness was first used in connection with the military where pilots are required to understand, assimilate and act on large volumes of information in order to perform their roles (Endsley, 1995). Endsley et al., (2003: 13) define situation awareness as: “…being aware of what is happening around you and understanding what that information means to you now and in the future”.
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They go on to note that the term is usually applied to operational situations. One example of this is Masys (2005) application to airline operation and safety which argues that situation awareness is distributed across teams, groups and organizations, as well as human and machine agents. Masys (2005) draws on Stout and Salas (1998) and argues that situation awareness (SA): “…should be regarded as an essential requirement for competent performance in dynamic environments, with inaccurate and incomplete SA often leading to dangerous and life-threatening consequences”. (Masys, 2005: 548)
Crichton et al. (2005) echo this when they discuss incident command skills in the oil industry. They argue that situation awareness is a vital command skill in a crisis because the first step in decision making is to evaluate the situation. Roth et al. (2006) discuss the importance of shared situation awareness as an informal cooperative strategy between railroad workers which “…facilitates work, and contributes to the overall efficiency, safety, and resilience…of railroad operations” (Roth, et al., 2006:967). This informal cooperative strategy, which occurs within the organization’s culture, is the mechanism through which the organization shares or communicates their situation awareness.
McManus (2007) described this as the measure of an organisation’s understanding and perception of its entire operating environment. The ability of an organisation to look forward for opportunities, identify crises and their consequences accurately and also understand the trigger factors for crises. Situation awareness also includes organisational awareness of the resources it has available, its minimum operating requirements and the expectations, obligations and limitations in relation to its community of stakeholders, both internally (Staff) and externally (Customers, suppliers, consultants etc).
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2.7.3.2 Keystone Vulnerability The term vulnerability has many different definitions and applications; social and cultural (Etkin, et al., 2004), infrastructure (Ezell, 2007), business (Chang and FalitBaiamonte, 2003), IT networks (Martin, 2001), children (Engle, et al., 1996), and ecological systems (Adger, et al., 2005). When proposing the management of keystone vulnerabilities as a dimension of organisational resilience, McManus (2007) focuses on organisational vulnerability. Turner (1978) made the first theoretical
analysis
of
organizational vulnerability to technological disasters emphasizing the role of organisational norms and values.
Several authors have also utilized case study and survey research to identify organisational vulnerabilities which have contributed to organisational losses or failure during and after disasters. Kroll et al (1990) identify organisational size as a vulnerability when they discuss how small businesses suffered more severe losses during and after the Loma Prieta earthquake. Durkin (1984) and Alesch and Holly (1998) identify predisaster economic health as a vulnerability during and after the 1984 Coalinga earthquake and the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Alesch and Holly (1998) also identify the owner’s entrepreneurial skills, or lack of, and the effect of the disaster on demand for the organization’s products or services as vulnerabilities.
Chang and Falit-Baiamonte (2003) review research conducted at the University of Delaware Disaster Research Center using large scale survey research and highlight a number of vulnerabilities observed during and after floods, hurricanes and earthquakes. These vulnerabilities include disruption to infrastructure, difficulties with supplies and shipments, drops in demand, and pre-disaster economic health (Chang and Falit-Baiamonte,
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2003:60).
One may then question of what characterize vulnerabilities as keystone
vulnerabilities. McManus (2007) discusses this and notes other uses of the term keystone: ecological and architectural.
She goes on to define keystone vulnerabilities as: “…components in the organisational system, which by their loss or impairment have the potential to cause exceptional effects throughout the system; associated components of the system depend on them for support”. (McManus, 2007:14). And management of keystone vulnerability as: the identification, proactive management, and treatment of vulnerabilities that if realized, would threaten the organization’s ability to survive.
2.7.3 .3 Adaptive Capacity Dalziell and McManus (2004:6) define adaptive capacity as: “…the ability of the system to respond to changes in its external environment, and to recover from damage to internal structures within the system that affect its ability to achieve its purpose”.
Starr et al. (2003b: 3) discuss the importance of adaptation and note that the aim is to “…create advantages over less adaptive competitors”. This suggests that adaptive capacity is also linked to competitiveness. Adaptive capacity was also later defined as the measure of the culture of the organisation that allows it to make decisions in a timely and appropriate manner both in day to day business and also in crises periods (McManus, 2007). Adaptive capacity considers aspects of an organisation such as the leadership and decision making structures, the flow of information and knowledge and the degree of creativity and flexibility that the organization promotes or tolerates. Therefore, the rapidity and swiftness with which organisations operate can be attributed as a function of its adaptability.
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Having earlier established Organisational Citizenship Behaviours as a necessary resource of organisations and as an emerging research direction that requires attention, we shall therefore at this juncture examine the hypothesized relationships between the dimensions of Organisational citizenship behaviours and the measures of corporate resilience. This debate forms the crux of this sub section, and will direct us to derive the study hypotheses accordingly.
2.8 Organisational Citizenship Behaviours and Corporate Resilience Organisational Citizenship Behaviour OCB which is traditionally called “good soldier” syndrome(Turnipseed, 2002), has been perceived in this work as on-the-job, work related behaviour, which according to Organ (1988) are not related to the formal organisational reward system, and promotes the effective functioning of the organisation. Ever since Organ wrote, several scholars have attempted to identify the antecedents of OCB whereas, only a handful have considered how OCB promotes organisational outcomes. Among the earliest researchers of OCB and Organisational outcomes of effectiveness is Karambayya (1989; Kays, 2001). Karambayya found that employees in high performing work units exhibited more citizenship than those in low performing work units.
Due to the dearth of researches on OCB and organisational outcomes, especially resilience, common knowledge makes it clear that for an organisation to be counted as a performing organisation or an effective one for that matter, it must first of all survive and be alive. This is exactly where resilience comes in; hence the relevance and applicability of researches on organisational citizenship and performance or effectiveness in our current context. Therefore, in furtherance of the debate about OCB and Organisational effectiveness, Podsakoff, Ahearne
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and MacKenzie, (1997) tested whether OCB actually improved the effectiveness of machine crews in a paper mill and found that helping behaviour and sportsmanship had a significant effect on performance quality).
Similarly, Walz and Niehoff (1996) investigated the relationship between OCB and the effectiveness of fast food restaurants. They found that different dimensions of OCB were positively related to different indicators of organisational effectiveness: OCB explained 15 percent variance in operating efficiency, 39 percent variance in customer satisfaction and 43 percent variance in food cost percentage (cost of food raking into account wastage). These contributions of OCB to effectiveness have also been stretched further by the description of OCB as indispensible to organisation, and as part of performance (Barksdale and Werner, 2001; Griffin, Neale, 2000; Rotundo and Sackett, 2002; Viswesvaran and Ones, 2000).
Recently, OCB has been associated with enhancing organisational effectiveness because they “lubricate the social machinery of the organisation” (Smith et al., 1983 : 654), whereas Bolino et al., are of the thinking that social capital is the lubricant that makes organization function and that OCB contributes to the creation of structural, cognitive and relational forms of social capital (Bolino, Turnkey and Bloodgood, 2000), The crux of their argument is that employees who exhibit helping behaviors to others enhance structural social capital by strengthening their relationships. This in principle improves information flow, organizational learning and the execution of organizational activities.
More so, Organ et al., (2006) buttress that OCB might benefit the organisation by reducing the variability in its performance through employees voluntary behavior of picking up the slack for workers who are absent or who have heavy work load (helping behaviour), cross training (self development) so that workers can fill in for each and above all, go above and
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beyond call of duty in performing their work (conscientiousness). They also argue that OCB can increase managerial productivity when employees (1) provide valuable suggestions for improving unit performance (civic virtue or voice), (2) avoid creating problems for coworkers (courtesy). In fact, it has also been noted by Borman and Motowildlo, (1993); Podsakooff and Mackenzie, (1994) and (1997); Krllowicz and Lowery (1996) that OCB leads to organisational effectiveness by freeing up various types of resources for more productive purposes. If OCB can lead to effectiveness or organisational performance, then it is not inappropriate to ponder that OCB can as well lead to organisational resilience, bearing in mind that it is only a living organisation that performs. The argument so portrayed above forms the crux of this section of our work, hence triggering the discussion that unearths how our study hypotheses are derived from the operational conceptual framework in figure 2.1
Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB)
Contextual
Corporate Resilience
Factors
(CR) Altruism
Situation awareness
Conscientiousness Perceived Organisational Politics
Civic virtue Courtesy
(SA) Keystone Vulnerabilities Management
Sportsmanship
(KVM) Self development
Figure
2.1:
Operational
Adaptive Capacity (AC)
Conceptual
Framework
Citizenship Behaviour and Corporate Resilience.
of
Organisational
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2.8.1 Altruism and Corporate Resilience The difficulty in determining or conceptualizing organisational resilience has in no ways blurred or diminished the need for it in the organisation. Also the widespread interest in organisational citizenship behaviours stems primarily from the belief that it enhances organisational positive outcomes.
One of such behaviours is “Altruism or Helping
behaviour”. Studies have shown that helping behaviours is an important form of citizenship behaviour (Borman and Motowildo, 1993, 1997; George and Brief, 1992). This behaviour involves voluntarily helping others with or preventing the occurrence of work-related problems. According to Organ, altruism consists of discretionary behaviours which are aimed at helping specific persons with an organizationally relevant task or problem.
These behaviours have equally been described as voluntary actions that help another person with a work problem-instructing a new hire on how to use equipment, helping a coworker catch up with a backlog of work, fetching materials that a colleague needs to perform his/her job effectively but cannot procure on his/her own and helping an absent or sick colleague with his/her job through efforts beyond role requirements are all parts of altruistic behaviours.
We can therefore argue unequivocally and emphatically that behaviour like these are capable of enhancing pleasantness of work setting, and thereby create love, trust, shared norms, harmony, perceived obligation and a sense of mutual identification among employees and above all improve communications within the system. These virtues, we think can conspire in creating a good working environment that is devoid of rancor and acrimony and can transcend in concreteness by resulting in employees’ positive feelings about their job and consequently build a feeling affective commitment that can be very useful during trouble periods.
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It is therefore consequent on this thinking that we are poised to hypothesize that: H1:
There is a significant and positive association between Altruism behaviour and situation awareness in Nigerian organisations.
H2:
There is a significant and positive association between Altruism behaviour and reduced keystone vulnerability.
H3:
There is a significant and positive association between Altruism behaviour and adaptive capacity of Nigerian organisations.
2.8.2 Conscientiousness and Corporate Resilience Conscientiousness consists of behaviours that go beyond the minimum role requirements of organisation (Law et al., 2005). This dimension of OCB has been called general compliance by Smith et al., (1983); Organisational obedience by Graham (1991); and following organisational rules and procedures by Borman and Motowildo (1993). It also contains some aspects of Van Scotter and Motowildo’s (1996) job dedication construct. This dimension appears to capture a person’s internalization and acceptance of the organisation’s rules, regulations and procedures, which results in a scrupulous adherence to them, even when no one observes or monitors compliance.
The reason this behaviour is regarded as a form of citizenship behaviour is that even though everyone is expected to obey the company regulations, rules and procedures at all times, many employees simply do not. Therefore an employee who religiously obeys all rules and regulations even when no one is watching is regarded as a good citizen. This kind of employee will come to work in strict punctuality, get involved in housekeeping, conserve organisation’s tangible and intangible resources and gets involved in related matters of internal maintenance. (e. g., workers making efficient use of time allocated to them for jobs).
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some scholars have argued that conscientious employees who maintain predictable work schedules increase the reliability of the service; and that such reliability will help retain customers and increase word-of- marketing (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991).
Considering the vitality of this dimension as noted above, we are of the thinking that having employees who display such behaviours will not only bring about the conservation of time that would have ordinarily been spent on control and monitoring but will bring about strong maintenance of the organisational system .With our mind focused in this direction, we therefore hypothesize that: H4
There is a significant and positive association between conscientiousness behaviour and situation awareness in Nigerian organisations.
H5
There is a significant and positive relationship between conscientiousness and reduced keystone vulnerabilities in Nigerian organisations.
H6
There is a significant and positive association between conscientiousness behaviour and adaptive capacity of Nigerian Organisations.
2.8.3 Civic Virtue and Corporate Resilience Civic virtue can be described as an act of keeping up with developments happening in the organisation (being constructively involved in the political process of the organisation). It includes the responsibilities that employees have as citizens of an organisation (Graham, 1991). It represents a macro level interest in or commitment to the organisation as a whole. This is shown by a willingness to participate actively in its governance (e.g., attend meetings, engage in policy debates, express one’s opinions about policies and strategies the organisation ought to follow), to monitor its environment for treats and opportunities (e.g.,
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keep up with changes in the industry that might affect the organisation) and to look out for its best interests (e.g, reporting fire hazards or suspicious activities), even at great personal costs.
These behaviours reflect a person’s recognition of being part of a larger whole in the same way that citizens are members of a country and accept the responsibilities which that entails. It goes further to imply that employees who are civic virtuous will avoid every act that have the tendency of endangering the organisation and perform those that are advantageous to the organisation. Examples, such employees will not play truancy with official hours, will not hoard innovative initiatives and will always deliver his assigned duties as if they were his personal enterprise. What more do organisations need than this category of workers who could be trusted with anything. It is in the light of this debate that we hypothesize that: H7
There is a significant and positive association between Civic virtuous behaviours and Situation awareness of Nigerian Organisations.
H8
There is a significant and positive association between Civic virtuous behaviours and reduction of keystone vulnerabilities of Nigerian organisations.
H9
There is a significant and positive association between Civic virtuous behaviours and adaptive Capacity of Nigerian organisations.
2.8.4 Courtesy and Corporate Resilience Courtesy as dimension of OCB has to do with the prevention of problems by keeping others informed of your decisions and actions, which may affect them, and passing along information to those who may find it useful. Put it differently, it is being mindful and respectful of others’ rights by always alerting them of changes that may affect their work which by your position are known to you. This behavior will engender a feeling of respect for one another and consequently amount to conflicts minimization. This is so because it is a
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thing of social exchange, “be courteous to me and I will reciprocate similarly”, the circle continuous and multiplies into very positive relationships that can knit the social and working fabrics of the organisation firmly together.
Example of these behavior in a workplace could be when workers inform each others on time about postponements of
events, changes in time or venues, when workers as colleagues
relate pleasantly with each other by revealing to one another how they got their achieved work success, inform each other of changes in deadline for responding to any management directives among many others. With these in mind, we are enthused to argue that courtesy as a dimension of organisational citizenship behaviour has the tendency of affecting corporate resilience by proposing that: H10:
There is a significant and positive association between courteous behaviours and situation awareness of Nigerian organisations.
H11.
There is a significant and positive association between courteous behaviours and reduced keystone vulnerabilities in Nigerian organisations.
H12:
There is a significant and positive association between courteous behaviours and adaptive capacity of Nigerian organisations.
2.8.5 Sportsmanship and Corporate Resilience Sportsmanship has been defined as willingness on the part of the employee that signifies the employee’s tolerance of less-than-ideal organisational circumstances without complaining and blowing problems out of proportion. Organ et al. (2006) further define sportsmanship as an employee’s “ability to roll with the punches” even if they do not like or agree with the changes that are occurring within the organization.
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By reducing the amount of complaints from employees that administrators have to deal with, sportsmanship conserves time and energy. Going by this meaning, it is then arguable that employees who exhibit sportsmanship behaviour are likely to not only accommodate changes, but operate with expected and unexpected changes in high spirits. Leaning on this debate, we hypothesize that: H13
There is a significant and positive association between Sportsmanship behaviour and situation awareness of Nigerian organisations.
H14
There is a significant and positive association between Sportsmanship behaviour and reduced keystone vulnerabilities of Nigerian Organisations.
H15
There is a significant and positive association between sportsmanship behaviour and adaptive capacity of Nigerian organisations.
2.8.6 Self development and Corporate Resilience According to George and Brief (1992: 155) self development behaviours might include “seeking out and taking advantage of advanced training courses, keeping abreast of the latest developments in one’s field and area, or even learning a new set of skills so as to expand the range of one’s contributions to an organization. When employees engage in self development behaviours, they are likely to improve their knowledge base to give themselves enough value to function effectively in this knowledge era. Eventually however, the organisation becomes the ultimate beneficiary of such added values because such individuals are likely to record improved job delivery in addition to many other positive outcomes in the organisation. It is based on this perception that we are poised to submit that self development is associated with resilience using these hypotheses: H16:
There is a significant and positive association between self development behaviour and situation awareness in Nigerian organisations.
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H17:
There is a significant and positive association between self development behaviour and reduced keystone vulnerabilities in Nigerian organisations.
H18:
There is a significant and positive association between self development behaviour and adaptive capacity of Nigerian organisations.
2.8.7 Mediation effect of Perceived Organisational Politics on the Causal Relationship between Organisational Citizenship Behaviour and Corporate Resilience According to Baron and Kenny (1986) cited in Green et al (2006:409) a mediator is a “variable that accounts for significant portion of the relationship between a predictor variable and criterion variable”. In our study however, the hypothesized causal relationship between Organisational citizenship behaviour and Corporate Resilience are presumed to happen within the mediating influence of perceived organisational politics. Studies have long argued that politics is an epidemic phenomenon in organisations and that it deserves more attention and empirical examination (e.g., Gandz & Murray, 1980; Mayes & Allen, 1977; Mintzberg, 1983; Pfeffer, 1981, 1992).
The importance of organisational politics (OP) lies in its potential consequences and effect on work outcomes. Theoretical arguments suggest that politics often interferes with normal organisational processes (e.g., decision making, promotion, and rewards) and damages productivity and performance on individual and organisational levels. Empirical attempts to support this notion have proved equivocal. Some studies found a negative relationship of OP to job attitudes or stress-related responses (e.g., Drory, 1993; Ferris et al., 1996a, 1996b). Some other works suggested that politics enhances withdrawal behaviors and turnover
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intentions (e.g., Bozeman et al., 1996; Cropanzano, Howes, Grandey and Toth, 1997), yet, others found no such relationship (e.g., Parker, Dipboye, and Jackson, 1995).
Organisations as social entities that involve a struggle for resources are enmeshed with personal conflicts, and a variety of influence tactics executed by individuals and groups to obtain benefits and goals in different ways (Molm, 1997). Estimating the political climate of a work unit is a complex task but it is crucial for a better understanding of organisations. OP is usually defined as behaviour strategically designed to maximize self-interests (Ferris, Russ, and Fandt, 1989) and therefore contradicts the collective organisational goals or the interests of other individuals. This perspective reflects a generally negative image of OP in the eyes of most others and sometimes contrary to the interests of the entire organisation or work unit.
This behavior was frequently associated with manipulation, defamation, subversiveness, and illegitimate ways of overusing power to attain one’s objectives. On their reasoning, Gandz and Murray (1980) suggest that organisational politics can be defined as “a subjective state in which organisational members perceive themselves or others as intentionally seeking selfish ends in an organisational context when such ends are opposed to those of others”. In the literature, different kind of behaviours which are directed towards serving the self interest of employees and managers at all levels, are considered as a part of organizational politics (Allen et al., 1979; Gandz and Murray, 1980). As it is difficult to determine whether a behavior is self-serving or not by employing an objective criterion, research on organizational politics mainly depends on people’s perceptions (Harris et al., 2007). However, this is not seen as a problem for research accuracy, since people feel and act according to their perceptions (Lewin, 1936).
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According to Kacmar and Carlson (1997), perceptions of organisational politics (POP) represent the degree, to which respondents view their work environment as political in nature, promoting the self interest of others, and thereby unjust and unfair from the individual point of view. When people perceive their environment as highly politicized, they feel threatened. Thus, negative work attitudes such as turnover intentions (e.g., Miller et al., 2008; Poon, 2003), low worker satisfaction (e.g., Miller et al., 2008; Parker et al., 1995; Poon, 2003; Vigoda and Cohen, 2002; Witt et al., 2000) and low organisational commitment (e.g., Vigoda and Cohen, 2002; Witt, 1998) as well as occupational stress (e.g., Ferris et al., 1996; Harris and Kacmar, 2005; Poon, 2003) will arise.
Poon (2006) mentions the inverse relationship between justice and politics perceptions and states that people may not know whether their efforts will be evaluated fairly or not, or they are uncertain about the accuracy of reward system, when they perceive their environment as highly politicized. In addition to its role as an independent variable, the indirect (moderating) effects of POP have been examined in predictive models of employee attitudes. For example, it is found that POP weakens the relationship between trust-in supervisor and helping behaviours of employees to coworkers (Poon, 2006), and between the accountability and job satisfaction (Breaux et al., 2008).
When employees perceive high level of POP in their work environment but treated fairly by their supervisors, they will think that fair treatment is quite rare in their organisation and perceive it as a more valuable asset comparing to employees who perceive low level POP in their work environment. Hence, they tend to respond the fair treatment by showing their willingness to take more responsibility and work harder. By this way, the relationship
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between the leader and the employee becomes closer and goes beyond the formal requirements. Based on this argument, this study proposes that: H19
The association between organisational citizenship behaviours and corporate resilience is mediated upon by perceived organisational politics (POP).
So far in this study, we have been able to establish the theoretical foundation by the identification and use of social exchange theory as the underlying baseline social theory that explains the hypothesized relationships in the study. Our study concepts have equally been situated within the purview of relevant literature at the same time shown how we arrived at our hypotheses. Stemming from this effort, we proceed to define the methodologies relevant to our study.
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CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Underlying Philosophical Assumptions This sub section focused on the philosophical implications of our research. Philosophical framework of social researchers affects their understanding and perception of all social phenomenon and behavior. For example, philosophy affects research topics, research design and methodology (Saunders, et. al., 2006). Researchers make a number of philosophical assumptions while choosing their topics and approaches. Creswell (2003) has identified four classical components of a philosophical perspective. The first one is alternative claims about what exists, namely, ontology. Ahiauzu (2006) avers that ontology concerns assumptions which have to do with the very essence of social reality. It clarifies researchers’ belief that the phenomenon they study exists independently or its existence depends on whether human beings believe on it. The two parallels in ontology are realism and nominalism. The second one is epistemology. This has to do with knowledge creation (i.e, assumptions about grounds of knowledge). It pertains to assumptions about how one understands the world and communicates same to fellow humans (Ahiauzu, 2010). The two epistemological splits are positivism and antipositivism. Axiology which has determinism and volunteerism as dimensions adopts the methodology of ideographic and nomothetic. Whereas the ideographic approach is based on the view that one can only understand the social world by obtaining first-hand knowledge of the subject under investigation, and getting close to one’s subject and exploring its detailed background and life history, the nomothetic approach on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of basing research on systematic
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techniques including the testing of hypotheses in accordance with the cannons of scientific rigors. Bryman and Bell (2001) pointed out that the epistemological and ontological considerations and their associated methods are the most essential issues for social research. Positivism and interpretism are two main epistemological positions that advocate the application of the methods in the study of social reality (Benton and Crais, 2001). On the reverse, objectivism and constructivism are two important ontological positions that assert social phenomenon and their meanings have an existence, which is independent of social actors (Bryman and Bell, 2001). According to Falconer and Mackay (1999), consistency in research approach is attained when epistemology; axiology and methodology are consistent with the underlying ontological assumptions of the social world. In this study of ours, the dominant method was the nomothetic approach (quantitative). Furthermore, the ideographic method (qualitative) was adopted to leverage the dominant method. Consequently an emergence of a hybrid of nomothetic and ideographic approach otherwise christened concurrent methodological paradigm triangulation is inevitable. Therefore, this relates to the very essence of critical realism that dwells on the multiplicity of views about social reality.
3.2 Research Design Having pinpointed our guiding philosophical assumptions, this part of our thesis was dedicated to the research design of our interest. Research design which involves a series of
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rational decision-making was defined as a master plan specifying the methods and procedures for collecting and analyzing research data (Zikmund, 1994). Our study is a cross-sectional survey. According to Sekeran (2003), a cross-sectional study is that which data are gathered just once, perhaps over a period of days or weeks or months. Similarly, Saunders et al, (2003) defined it as involving the study of a particular phenomenon (or phenomena) at a single time and it often employs the survey strategy. A survey on the other hand is the collection of standardized information from a sample selected as being representative of a particular group or population (Harambus and Heald, 1980). Accordingly, the said group may be the population as a whole, a particular class, ethnic, gender or age group, or individual with certain characteristics in common. However, the purpose of a cross-sectional survey is to generate a body of data in connection with two or more variables and to examine and identify patterns of association (Bryman and Bell, 2003). Drawing from the foregoing scholarly argument, we can assert that the crosssectional survey approach fits our intent; hence we have adopted same for this study.
3.3 Population of the Study Population refers to the entire group of people, events, or things of interest that the researcher wishes to investigate (Sekaran, 2003: 265). Consequently, the population of our study consisted of functional domestic airline operators that are registered with the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). Going by this status, we focused on both the head and branch offices of Arik, Aero, IRS, Dana and Overland airlines offices located in Lagos, Kaduna, Abuja and Port Harcourt; which represents the relevant zones delineated by the FAAN .
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Because of the nature of our investigation, we have chosen to include only top members of those organisations to comprise our study population because it is in that cluster that we have those who are intellectually and officially qualified to attend to our research instruments because some of the responses sought are not issues commonly dealt with by every cadre of staff, rather those that are privy to corporate matters were deemed as most qualified to do so.
Therefore, by the reason of this aforementioned, we have focused attention on officers with job titles such as regional manager, station manager, operations managers, heads of departments, unit heads and duty managers or supervisors. All those within these categories constituted the elements of our study population. Going by records sourced from the human resource departments of these companies backed by data obtained as at 26th of February, 2013 from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, the regulatory agency of all civil airline operations in Nigeria, our population is one hundred and eighty; cutting across the five organisations we have studied.
3.4 Sample Size and Sampling Techniques A sample is a subset of the population, comprising some members selected from it, while sampling is the process of selecting a sufficient number of elements from the population (Sekaran, 2003: 267). Therefore, a study of samples and an understanding of its properties or characteristics would make it possible for us to generalize such properties or characteristics to the population elements. In this study therefore, we have adopted the Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table to determine our sample size. From our population, the table placed our sample size at one hundred and eighteen (118).
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3.5 Methods of Data Collection Data can be obtained from primary and secondary sources. Primary data refer to those obtained firsthand by the researcher on the variables of interest for the specific purpose of the study, whereas secondary data refer to information gathered from already existing sources (Sekaran, 2003:219). This position corroborates that of Ahiauzu, (2006: 124). Accordingly primary data can be obtained from individuals, focus groups,
panels of respondents;
specifically set up by the researcher and other unobtrusive sources, but the mode of collection may be through questionnaire, interviews and observations. On the other hand, secondary data can be collected from company records or archives, government publications, industry analysis offered by the media, websites and many others. In the current study, our primary data were obtained via questionnaire and in-depth interviews. These techniques fits the concurrent methodological triangulations approach because it enabled us apply nomothetic and ideographic methods accordingly.
3.6 Measurement of Study Variables Measurement of the variables in the theoretical framework is an integral part of research and an important aspect of research design. According to Sekaran (2003: 175), “unless the variables are measured in some ways, we will not be able to test our hypotheses and find answers to complex research issues”. Similarly, Cicourel (1964:7) argues that research hypotheses and measurement scales are critical for understanding what will be considered as knowledge in any given era. The measurement task involves operationalization and instrumentalization of variables. In our study therefore, we shall be measuring organizational citizenship behavior in a causal
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relationship with corporate resilience as well as the mediating forces of perceived organisational politics (POP). In doing this, we have adopted the scaling methods, particularly the ordinal scale in eliciting data and for statistical demonstrations. Again, the demographic variables were measured using nominal and interval scales.
3.8 Reliability and Validity Tests According to Babbie (1986: 109), reliability is a matter of whether a particular technique applied repeatedly to same object would yield the same result each time. Similarly, Anyanwu (2000) asserts that reliability is the ability of a particular measuring instrument to yield similar results when applied to the same situation at different times. Judging by the foregoing expositions, it becomes sine qua non to extensively subject every research instrument to such test if its findings must be relied upon. In this study, reliability test was conducted using Nunally’s (1978) Cronbach’s alpha. This measure has a benchmark of 0.7 as a minimum threshold. Cronbach’s alpha is a reliability coefficient that indicates how well the items in a set are positively correlated to one another. Validity on the other hand is the degree to which a measuring instrument measures what it is designed to measure. Tables 3.1 and 3.2 show the reliability tests for our independent and dependent variables.
Table 3.1: Reliability for Organisational Citizenship Behaviour Cronbach's Alpha .970
N of Items 16
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Table 3.2: Reliability for Corporate Resilience
Cronbach's Alpha
N of Items
.974
14
Table 3.3: Reliability for POP Cronbach's Alpha .967
N of Items 15
Going by Nunally’s (1978) Cronbach’s alpha which measure has a benchmark of 0.7 as a minimum threshold, these variables already have Cronbach alphas of .970 and .974 respectively which are far and above the approved benchmark. By implication therefore, they are both highly reliable. Validity on the other hand is of divers types, example: (1) content validity: content validity is concerned with ensuring that the measuring instrument covers adequately the scope of the study. This we achieved by identifying all relevant dimensions, asking the relevant questions and vetting of questions by a panel of judges. The use of statistically valid measurement scales also enhanced our content validity since research instrument were subjected to expert vetting, professional opinions and supervisors’ approval. We also conducted a pilot study which aided us to perfect and fine tune the instrument to enhance clarity. Construct validity is the ability of an instrument to measure the
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actual meaning of a construct or concept and this was justified by our model fit test in chapter four.
3.9 Data Analyses Techniques According to Zikmund (1994:97), data analysis is the application of logic to understand and interpret the data that have been collected on a subject. In this study, we used frequencies and descriptive statistics like measures of central tendencies (i.e. mean scores) and dispersion (i.e. standard deviation) for our primary data management. For our secondary data, we adopted inferential statistics such as Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficients because it has an appropriable inferential nature and Regression coefficients because it enabled us establish the trend of mediation relation that prevailed between the mediating factor, the causal and dependent variables. We also used the version 17.0 of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) in cleaning, coding and analyses of our quantitative data; whereas the computer –assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS), the NUD.IST Vivo known as Nvivo (Gibbs, 2002) (version 8.0) was used to carry out our qualitative data analysis.
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CHAPTER 4 PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA 4.1 Survey Report and Data Processing 4.1.1 Fieldwork: According to Sarantakos (2005) cited in Asawo (2009), data analysis begins from where data collection ends. For us in this study, our fieldwork lasted for a period of five months, that is from 12th March, 2013 to 20th July, 2013. During this active research period, we established direct and indirect contacts with our proposed respondents. The researcher personally administered copies of the questionnaire to accessible subjects in Port Harcourt International Airport (Head of Eastern Region), Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja (Head of North Central Region), Murhtala Muhammed International Airport (Head of South West Region) and used research assistants and friends to cover Mallam Aminu kano International Airport (Head of Northern Region). The retrieval also followed the similar trend.
From the personnel units of the organizations we covered and records available at Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, the regulatory agency of all Airline operations in Nigeria, our population of study was 180, but the sample size is 118. The details of the questionnaire administration, collection and retrieval patterns during the field work are presented in Table 4.1. The table indicates the number of copies of the questionnaire that was distributed, the rate of responses as well as usability and rejection rates of the instrument.
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Table 4.1a: Response Rate for Field Data Collection Activities
Number of
Percentage of
occurrences
occurrences
Copies of Questionnaire distributed
123
100%
Copies of Questionnaire retrieved
102
82.9%
Copies of Questionnaire not retrieved
21
17.07%
Minus uncompleted copies of Questionnaire
10
8.13%
Total response rate
92
74.80%
Minus completed but not usable copies of
3
2.44%
89
72.36%
Questionnaire Completed and analyses- compliant copies of Questionnaire Source: Field Work Table 4.1 indicates that a total of 123 copies of the research Questionnaire were distributed, out of which a total of 102 copies were retrieved, representing 82.90% of actual distribution rate. 21 copies representing 17.07% of the questionnaire were not retrieved due to difficulties posed from the respondents end. 10 copies, representing 8.13% of the Questionnaire were however retrieved but not completed.
The subjects who were unable to properly complete their instrument adduced several reasons ranging from unsteady job posting to very busy schedules and overall time constraints as being responsible for their inability to respond accordingly. Our constant visits, phone calls
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or mail reminders were not able to turn the situation otherwise. This development left us with 89 or 72.36% as our useful response rate. Adopting the data preparation procedures suggested by Sarantakos (2005: 264), we swung into action in cleaning (editing) and coding of data obtained from the field.
4.1.2 Data Preparation and Entry The first steps we took were to check and clean (edit) the data to ensure they met conditions that will minimize or foreclose errors where possible and allow usability. According to Kothari (2004:122), editing of data is a process of examining the collected raw data to detect errors and omissions and to correct same when possible. We equally set a limit for blank responses to questionnaire items. Our tolerable limit was that if more than two questions were not responded to in each section of the questionnaire, such questionnaire must be rejected. Hence every unanswered item within the set limit was simply treated as “undecided response”.
This action of ours is in tune with Sekaran (2003: 303) who avers that “one way to handle blank responses to an interval – scaled item with a midpoint and consequently to maintain a consistent sample size through the analysis is to assign the midpoint in the scale as a response to that particular item”. Since our questionnaire was designed in 5-point Likert Scale ranging from strongly Agree, to agree, undecided, disagree, and strongly disagree, all unanswered items were treated as undecided. We proceeded to ascertain if the responses obtained were appropriately filled. Through this exercise, we observed that few of the respondents only ticked “strongly agree or strongly disagree” in all questions, perhaps as a strategy to dismiss us. This led to rejection of 3 copies of the questionnaire and giving us a total of 89 being 72.36% of our sample size as usable copies of the questionnaire.
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After the cleaning and checking process, we forged on to code our data into shapes that will enable the operation of SPSS software. Accordingly, coding has been defined as “the categorization of behaviors or elements into limited number of categories” (Surllivan 2001:296), “the process of converting verbal responses to numerical codes” Sarantakos (2005: 364) or a systematic reorganization of raw data into format that is machine readable (Neuman, 2000:314); and it involves assigning of numerals to answers so that responses can be put into a limited number of categories for efficient analysis (Kothari, 2004:123).
We used the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 17.0) and we undertook the two basic steps in data entry. These are (1) variables definition and (2) coded data entry. This first process which was completed in the variable view of the SPSS Window was very significant in avoiding a gap in communication between the researcher and the computer with regards to the empirical referents and measures of the study variables. An absence of this activity; that is, lack of concise description of items and variables by researcher to the computer, will result in technical disconnection of ideas. After this stage, we proceeded to enter the data view of SPSS Window in the grid format with each row representing a respondent’s view (Neuman, 2000:314). We shall next begin with the presentation of our demographics data.
4.2 Sample Characteristics In this respect, the demographic nature of our respondents covered factors such as their gender, age, years of experience, and highest academic attainment. Because of the nominal
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status of data relating to respondents’’ historical materialism, we applied frequency tables, pie and bar charts in presenting them.
4.2.1 Respondents Age: to obtain data relating to the age brackets of our respondents, participants were asked questions and given options to choose which age brackets fits those most. Their responses are here presented using frequencies, percentages and pie chart respectively. Table 4. 1 shows result. Table 4.1b: Age of Respondents
Cumulative Frequency Percent
Valid Percent Percent
Valid 25 - 39 years 25
28.1
28.1
28.1
40 - 54 years 61
68.5
68.5
96.6
55 and above 3
3.4
3.4
100.0
Total
100.0
100.0
89
Source: Field Work Table 4.1 reveals that out of the 89 respondents, 25 (28.1%) are within the age bracket of 2539 years, whereas 61(68.5%) are within 40-54 years, and 3 (3.5%) are within 55 years and above in age. By implication therefore, majority of our respondents are organizational members who are above 39 years and less than 54 years of age. This must have been the case because we did not focus on the lower level workers.
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Figure 4.1: Figure 4.1 Pie Chart showing Respondents Age brackets
4.2.2 Respondent’s Gender: to gather data relating to this subheading, participating organizational members were asked to state their gender. We examined their responses using frequencies, percentages, pie and bar charts to show results in Table 4.2
Table 4.2: Respondents’ Gender
Valid
Cumulative
Frequency
Percent
Percent
Percent
60
67.4
67.4
67.4
Female
29
32.6
32.6
100.0
Total
89
100.0
100.0
Valid Male
Source: Field Work Table 4.2.2 reveals that out of the total of 89 respondents, 60(67.4%) were males, whereas 29 (32.6%) of the respondents are females. This huge margin in the ratio of male to female employee members who participated in our study may not be unconnected to the fact that
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working in the Airline sector involves a lot of travelling, of which women who are willing and disposed to doing such jobs operate within the lower levels of their firms and mostly when they are young and single. Our pilot study revealed that most single ladies work as air hostesses. This category of persons ab initio did not really fall within our study population.
.
Figure 4.2: Showing a Pie Chart of Respondents Gender distribution
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Figure 4.3: Clusters of Association of Respondents’ Gender and Job Titles
4.2.3 Highest Educational Attainment of Respondents: considering the fact that education can hardly be separated from career growth, since our focus is on higher level employees; we enquired from respondents to know their highest education attainment. Table 4.3 shows the level of educational attainment obtained by our respondents. Table 4.3 : Respondents’ Highest Academic Degree Attained
Cumulative Frequency Percent
Valid Doctoral Degree 2
Valid Percent Percent
2.2
2.2
2.2
26
29.2
29.2
31.5
Bachelors degree 50
56.2
56.2
87.6
Others
11
12.4
12.4
100.0
Total
89
100.0
100.0
Masters Degree
Source: Field Work
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Table 4.3 reveals that employees with Bachelors degree were greatest in number, representing a whopping 52.6% of the respondents. Those with doctoral degree were least in number; they comprised 2.2%% of the entire respondents. Masters degree holders represented 29.2% while those with other unclassified qualifications represented 12.4% of the total number of respondents. This result shows that respondents possess reasonable academic experience which gave them clues for abstract reasoning that have
enabled them to
understand and respond to our instrument .
Figure 4.4 Pie Chart showing Respondents Education Attainment
4.2.4: Respondents years of Experience: respondents years of experience or length of service as a demographic item is in fact of vital consideration in this study because, it is a major source of employees’ knowledge about the life and health of their organization. To know about organizational resilience, one would have spent a reasonable number of years with that organization because such issues are not on the surface of daily operations in the organization that anyone can just dabble at. As a result of this fact, our instrument failed to provide for any period that is less than five years because such period may not be sufficient
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for one to know the health of the organization or understand the difference between employees exhibiting citizenship behavior and those involved in mere impression management tactics or better still, eye service providers. Table 4.4 provides us with clues to the respondents’ tenure and consequent years of experience in their organizations. Table 4. 4 Respondents’ Length of Service in this Organization
Cumulative Frequency Percent
Valid Percent Percent
8
9.0
9.0
9.0
5 - 10 years
52
58.4
58.4
67.4
11 and above
29
32.6
32.6
100.0
Total
89
100.0
100.0
Valids less than 5 years
Source: Field Work Table 4.4 shows that 52 respondents (58.8%) which are of majority have spent between five to ten years in their jobs. This figure is followed by those who have spent eleven year and above; 29 (32.6%). Only 8 respondents, (9.0%) of the respondents have spent less than five years working in their respective organizations. This means that the numbers of years spent by our respondents in their various organizations is long enough for the acquisition of requisite industry experience to warrant reasonable and reliable responses to our questions.
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Figure 4.5: Clusters of Association of Respondents’ Gender and Length of Service
This chart depicts that in the cluster of males, there are more persons who have worked in their organizations for a period of five to ten years. The next level is the category of males who have worked for a period of eleven years and more, this cluster is closely followed by that of females who have worked for the period of five to ten years. Those who have worked for less than five years make up the least cluster for both sexes.
4.2.5 Respondents’ Job Title In this part, participants were asked to state their current job title. This was necessary because it enabled us know those if our instrument has been administered to the appropriate personnel; considering the fact that we had categorically proposed elsewhere that only those who have reached positions of having some staff report to him or her would be competent to answer our questions. Table 4.5 depicts the outcome of this inquiry.
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Table 4. 5: Respondents’ Job Title?
Cumulative Frequency
Percent Valid Percent
Percent
Valid Director/CEO 3
3.4
3.4
3.4
Manager
12
13.5
13.5
16.9
Supervisor
29
32.6
32.6
49.4
Unit Head
45
50.6
50.6
100.0
Total
89
100.0
100.0
Source: Field Work Table 4.5 reveals that 45 respondents (50.6%) of the respondents operate with the title of Unit Heads. Those who work as supervisors are 29 in number, (32.6%) of the participants. Next to this category are those who go by the title of Managers, they are 12 in number (13.5%) of the total number of participants. The least group are those who are addressed as Directors/CEO, they are 3, representing 3.4% of the actual usable sample.
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Figure 4.6 Pie Chart showing Respondents’ Job Title
Figure 4.7: Clustered Bar Chart of Job Title and Job Tenure of Respondents
4.2.6: Interpretation of the Results of Demographic Data Having obtained data addressing the historical materialism of the respondents, we shall therefore dedicate this section for detail interpretations of the meaning we have so far made of their responses.
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4.2.6.1 Age of Respondents Our finding with respect to age of respondents is that a large chunk of the respondents are above forty years of age. This is not surprising particularly because the airline sector is one where industry relevant experience is highly connected to career growth. No matter ones level of education, a lot of experiential period would be relevant for one to rise to top or middle management level. The time spent in gathering experience goes pari pasu with one’s chronological age. The average Nigerian who obtains first degree at about age twenty five to thirty, spends some years searching for job, and spends some more years growing in the job would hardly attain top or middle positions at any age less than forty. This is suggestible as accounting for our result.
4.2.6.2 Gender of Respondents Our findings indicate that there are more men than women who work in the aviation industry in Nigeria. In fact the ratio is 60:29 of the total respondents. This could be explained by two possible factors. First, Nigeria is predominantly a patrilineal society where the men folks are mostly recognized in virtually all spheres of life. As a result of this, males are seen as breadwinners and women as bread eaters. According to Amadi (1982), Nigeria is a ‘man’s country’, even though she has many outstanding women. Second factor could be that women are mostly involved in that sector as air hostesses or front desk clerks. For the former, many of them may after all leave the job the moment they are married because of the magnitude of travelling involved. It is not new to say that regular traveling for a married woman is not what many men or families are willing to tolerate.
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4.2.6.3 Educational Attainment of Respondents Our findings reveals that majority of the respondents are adequately educated. As it is shown in table 4.3, the largest part of the respondents possess a bachelors degree, next to that are those with Masters degree, surprisingly too, a few has PhD degrees. Despite the fact that we did not examine the lower level workers where perhaps there would have been those with low certificates, the industry is one that does not tolerate mediocrity because it is a very high risk sector where expertise must be sort at every bit of its operations. This shows that our respondents are intellectually sound elements who could not have muddled facts in their responses.
4.2.6.4 Years of Respondents’ Job experience The result shows that greater percentage of our respondents have been with their organization for a period of more than ten years. This result implies further that airline firms have good retention programs which made it possible for people to put in such number of years in one place. In essence, turnover rate is low in those organizations.
4.2.6.5 Respondents Job Title Our findings reveal that greatest numbers of the respondents are unit heads, followed by supervisors, managers and few in the category of CEO/Director. The reason is that the organizations’ structures allow fewer persons at the top, more persons are found at the middle level.
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4.3 Univariate Data Analyses Univariate analysis is basically the process of describing individual variables in a study. According to Sullivan (2001), univariate statistics are used to describe the distribution of a single variable through the use of simple frequency tables. According to Saunders et al (2003:338), commencing initial analysis is best done “by looking at individual variables and their respective components”. Earlier in this study, that is, in chapter one, we clearly delineated our study variables as organizational citizenship behavior-Predictor variable, corporate resilience- Criterion variable and organisational politics as contextual variable.
In operationalizing the variable, it was indicated that the predictor variable has altruism, conscientiousness, civic virtue, sportsmanship and self development as empirical referents, while the criterion variable has adaptive capacity, management of keystone vulnerability and situation awareness as measures. In this part of the study, we shall focus attention in using univariate statistics to analyze the various variables one after another.
4.3.1 Analysis on Organisational Citizenship Behaviour For the purpose this study, we adopted 5point likert scale in our questionnaire, having response categories in the order of SA =5, A=4, N=3, D=2 and SD=1. Going by this, the interpretation of our mean is according to Asawo’s (2009) categorization where all responses with mean value (x) between 1-2 as being low, 2.5-3.5 as being moderate, 3.5 – 4.5 as high and 4.5 above as very high
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4.3.1.1 Altruism Table 4. 6: Statistics on Altruism
(Altruism1)
(Altruism2)
(Altruism3)
Valid
89
89
89
Missing
0
0
0
4.1124
3.9101
3.7978
Std. Deviation
.88470
1.20265
1.14990
Minimum
1.00
1.00
1.00
Maximum
5.00
5.00
5.00
N
Mean
Source: SPSS Output In response to item one, respondents affirmed that employees in their organization help orient new agents even when it is not mandatory in the company. This is accounted for by the high mean score (x) of 4.1. Similarly, it was agreed that staff members in their organisations lend helping hends to others who have heavy work load in doing some of their work. This is also confirmed by the high mean score (x) of 3.9. More so, the third item got similar approval as respondents agreed that people in their organisations are willing to give up their time to help others with work – related challenges. The mean score (x) of 4.0 also speaks volume of this status.
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4.3.1.2 Civic Virtue Table 4.7: Statistics on Civic Virtue
(Civic Virtue1) N
Valid
(Civic Virtue2)
(Civic Virtue3)
89
89
89
0
0
0
Mean
4.0674
4.1685
4.2247
Std. Deviation
.83663
.91993
.91394
Minimum
1.00
1.00
1.00
Maximum
5.00
5.00
5.00
Missing
Source: SPSS Output In response to item one, respondents affirmed that employees in their organisation keep up with developments in the company. This is accounted for by the high mean score (x) of 4.1. Similarly, it was agreed that staff members in their organisations attend organisation functions that are not compulsory, but that help the company image. This is also confirmed by the high mean score (x) of 4.2. More so, the third item got similar approval as respondents agreed that people in their organisations are willing to risk disapproval in order to express their beliefs about what is best for the company. The mean score (x) of 4.2 also speaks volume of this status.
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4.3.1.3: Conscientiousness Table 4.8: Statistics on Conscientiousness
N
Valid
(Conscientiousness1) (Conscientiousness2)
(Conscientiousness3)
89
89
89
0
0
Missing 0 Mean
3.8989
4.1011
4.0899
Std. Deviation
1.09798
.85340
.83449
Minimum
1.00
1.00
1.00
Maximum
5.00
5.00
5.00
Source: SPSS Output Table 4. 8 show that, first staffs conscientiously abide by rules and regulations of their organisations. The mean score (x) to this effect is 4.0 on approximation; this is reasonably high. The second item in the category also got affirmative response that staffs turn in results of their assignments on time in the organisation. This item also got a high mean score (x) of 4.10. On the third item, respondents are of the view that staffs return phone calls and other enquiries timely. This item got a mean score (x) of 4.09, which is also a high one.
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4.3.1.4 Sportsmanship Table 4.9: Statistics on Sportsmanship
(Sportsmanship1)R
(Sportsmanship2)R
(Sportsmanship3)R
89
89
89
0
0
4.1910
4.0562
4.1573
Std. Deviation .92781
.89645
.96412
Minimum
1.00
1.00
1.00
Maximum
5.00
5.00
5.00
N
Valid
Missing 0 Mean
Source: SPSS Output Table 4.9 shows results on questions that were all reverse coded. However, our interpretation of the results reveals that staff members do not waste organisation’s time in complaining about trivial matters. The mean score (x) to this respect was high at 4.19. The second item also shows that staffs make problems appear bigger than they really are. There is also a high mean score (x) of approximately 4.1 to this respect. Lastly, respondents agreed that staff focus more on positive sides to the situations before them rather than dwelling on its wrong sides. This item also got a high mean score of 4.16.
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4.3.1.5 Courtesy Table 4.10: Statistics on Courtesy
N
Valid
(Courtesy1)
(Courtesy2)
89
89
Missing 0
0
Mean
4.0787
4.0337
Std. Deviation
.89474
.85877
Minimum
1.00
1.00
Maximum
5.00
5.00
Source: SPSS Output Table 4.10 is a two-item instrument. Respondents agreed that staff in their organizations do touch base with other members of the organisation prior to the initiation of actions that will affect those others members. The mean score (x) of 4.08 affirms to this. Secondly, it was reported that staff members take deliberate steps to prevent things capable of causing problems with other members of the organisation; the mean score (x) for this is 4.03 which also is high.
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4.3.1.6 Self Development Table 4.11: Self- Development (Self-Development1)
(Self-Development2)
Valid
89
89
Missing
0
0
Mean
4.0899
4.1011
Std. Deviation
.80680
.94201
Minimum
1.00
1.00
Maximum
5.00
5.00
N
Source: SPSS Output Table 4.11 through its item one show that staff of aviation companies attends self improvement courses at their cost. This response got a high mean score (x) of 4.09. Likewise, it was agreed that staff put themselves to personal studies and skill development rigors at the advantage of their organisations. This item also attracted a high mean score (x) of 4.10. From the foregoing, we have been able to examine all five empirical referents of organisational citizenship behaviour. However, we shall proceed to undertake a summary of the cumulative view on organisational citizenship behaviour in the aviation sector. Table 4.12 present a summary of respondents’ cumulative view concerning the exhibition of organizational citizenship behaviour in the domestic aviation sector in Nigeria.
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Table 4. 12: Statistics on OCB
N
Valid
89
Missing
0
Mean
4.0684
Std. Deviation
.78244
Minimum
1.17
Maximum
4.89
Source: SPSS Output Table 4.12 has a high mean value of 4.07, which is an indication that there is a high rate of organisational citizenship behaviours in the aviation sector.
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4.3.2 Analysis on Corporate Resilience 4.3.2.1 Situation Awareness Table 4. 13 Statistics on Situation Awareness
(SitAware1) (SitAware2) (SitAware3) (SitAware4) (SitAware5) (SitAware6)
N
Valid
89
89
89
89
89
89
0
0
0
0
0
3.8876
3.9438
4.0787
4.1011
4.0449
Std. Deviation 1.10978
1.12248
1.00408
.91979
.89246
.91590
Minimum
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
Maximum
5.00
5.00
5.00
5.00
5.00
5.00
Missing 0 Mean
3.8652
Source: SPSS Output Table 4. 13 shows that respondents are of the opinion that staff members are aware of their internal roles and responsibilities in their organisations; this item got a high mean score (x) of 3.87. The next response was also in the affirmative that staff members are aware of the roles and responsibilities our organisation owes its stakeholders; this item got s mean score (x) of 3.89, which also high. The third item enquired whether staff members are aware of the hazard types associated with the organisations’ operations and a mean score (x) of 3, 94 was recorded. The fourth item sought to know if staff members are aware of the links their organisation have with external stakeholders, and the response was also strong in the affirmative with a
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mean score (x) of 4.08. The next item also got positive response that they are aware of the obligations and limitations
of their organisations in relation to business interruptions
insurance and other insurance packages available to their organisations, the mean score (x) here is 4.10. The last item in this category had positive responses to the effect that staff members are aware of the minimum operation requirements of their organisations and how to prioritize them in the attempt to meet stakeholders’ expectations; the mean score (x) here was also high at 4.05 on approximation. 4.3.2.2 Management of Keystone Vulnerability Table 4.14 Statistics on Management of Keystone Vulnerability
(KVM1)
(KVM2)
(KVM3)
(KVM4)
Valid
89
89
89
89
Missing
0
0
0
0
Mean
4.0225
4.0899
4.1573
4.1798
Std. Deviation
.89160
.84800
.99885
1.00636
Minimum
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
Maximum
5.00
5.00
5.00
5.00
N
Source: SPSS Output Table 4.14 shows that respondents consented that their organisations participate in planning activities; such as risk management, business continuity and emergency management. The response here had a mean score (x) of 4.02. The second question of whether the organisations
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carries out internal and external
emergency training for staff and critical stakeholders also
got a positive response with a mean score (4.09), which is equally high. The third item sought to know if the organisations had enough resources to meet with expected operating minimum requirements during crises , the participants echoed in the affirmative with a high mean score (x) of 4.16. The last item got the participants responding that their organisations had expectations about the availability and effectiveness of external resources during crises. This is also confirmable by the high mean score of 4.18 associated to that item. Table 4.13 Statistics on Adaptive Capacity
(ACapacity1)
(ACapacity2)
(ACapacity3)
(ACapacity4)
Valid
89
89
89
89
Missing
0
0
0
0
Mean
4.1236
4.0112
4.1011
4.0899
Std. Deviation
.97492
.87249
1.00051
.92491
Minimum
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
Maximum
5.00
5.00
5.00
5.00
N
Source: SPSS Output Table 4.13 is a frequency table showing responses on the four items that make up the research instrument on adaptive capacity. Respondents are in agreement that there organisations have been involved with other critical organisations to ensure the availability of expertise and resource in event of crises. The response has a high mean score (x) of 4.12. the
135
second item which sought to know whether the aviation companies experience the negative impact of silo mentality and possess the strategies to mitigate such also got a high mean score (x) of 4.01.
The third item was concerned with whether there are effective and clear pathways of communication among those in the organisations and with those outside the organisations on day to day basis, the response was also in the affirmative; attracting a high mean score (x) of 4.10. The respondents also were in agreement that their organisations have the capability to change its strategies and operations with ease at the slightest indication of occasion that demands such reaction, this item has a mean score (x) of 4.09; which is also high enough. Based on these results, we can suggest that there are sufficient self - built and externallysupported mechanisms at the disposal of these organisations with which they are able to adapt in times of turbulence and other related operational challenges. Having considered the extent and nature of the three measures of corporate resilience viz., situation awareness, management of keystone vulnerability and adaptive capacity which have been found to be high in the aviation sector, we shall now present a cumulative opinion of respondents regarding the state of corporate resilience in the aviation. See table 4.14
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Table 4.14: Descriptive Statistics on Corporate Resilience N
Valid
89
Missing
0
Mean
4.0602
Std. Deviation
.83308
Minimum
1.19
Maximum
4.86
Source: SPSS Output Table 4.14 shows that the mean score (x) is 4.06, which means that there is high resilience in the aviation companies studied. We shall now examine next the contextual factors that are envisaged as mediating the relationship between the predictor and criterion variables.
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4.3.3 Analysis on the Contextual Factors 4.3.3.1 Perceived Organisational Politics Table 4.15: Frequency Table regarding responses to the items relating to Perception of Organisational Politics. Table 4.15a :Statistics on Perception of Organisational Politics (OrgPol1)
(OrgPol2)
(OrgPol3)
(OrgPol4)
(OrgPol5)
Valid
89
89
89
89
89
Missing
0
0
0
0
0
Mean
4.2022
4.0562
4.1348
4.1124
3.8090
Std. Deviation
.96742
.92146
.97923
.87176
1.14690
Minimum
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
Maximum
5.00
5.00
5.00
5.00
5.00
N
Table 4.15 Perception of Organisational Politics Continued (OrgPol6)
(OrgPol7)
(OrgPol8)
(OrgPol9)
(OrgPol10)
Valid
89
89
89
89
89
Missing
0
0
0
0
0
Mean
3.8090
3.8652
4.0899
4.0674
4.1011
Std. Deviation
1.15676
1.04654
.86129
.88930
.92987
Minimum
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
Maximum
5.00
5.00
5.00
5.00
5.00
N
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Table 4.15 Perception of Organisational Politics Continued (OrgPol11)
(OrgPol12)
(OrgPol13)
(OrgPol14)
(OrgPol15)
Valid
89
89
89
89
89
Missing
0
0
0
0
0
Mean
4.0674
4.0899
4.1461
4.1573
4.0899
Std. Deviation
.82293
.79259
.91142
.96412
.90001
Minimum
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
Maximum
5.00
5.00
5.00
5.00
5.00
N
Source: SPSS Output Tables 4.15 have revealed responses regarding the fifteen items measuring perceived organisational politics. For the first item, respondents agreed that people in their organisations attempt to build themselves up by tearing others down. This item got a high mean score (x) of 4.20. The second item addressed the issue of whether there has always been an influential group in the organisations that no one can cross, the responses attracted a mean score (x) of 4.05. The third item, though reverse coded sought to know if employees are encouraged to speak out frankly even when they are critical of well establish ideas; a mean score of 4.13 was obtained.
Next item also addressed the issue of whether there is no place for yes-men around the organisations, and if good ideas are desired even when it means disagreeing with superior, also reverse coded; the response showed the opposite with a mean score (x) of 4.11. Number five item sought to know if agreeing with powerful others is the best alternative in those
139
organisations, this item also scored a mean (x) of 3.81. Following this is the item that enquired about whether it is best not to rock the boat in the organisation, this item got a mean score (x) of 3.81. The seventh item asked whether it is sometimes easier to remain quiet than to fight the system, this also attracted a mean score of 3.87. Following this is the item that asked whether telling others what they want to hear is sometimes better than telling the truth, the responses also got a high mean score (x) of 4.09. The ninth item enquired if it was safer to think what one is told than making up one’s mind, the responses here attracted a mean score (x) of 4.07.
The tenth item asked whether employees have never seen pay and promotion policies of the company being applied politically, the responses was also in the negative, with a mean score of 4.10. The eleventh item bordered on whether employees cannot remember when a person received a pay increase or promotion that was inconsistent with the published policies, the answer was also in the negative with a mean score (x) of 4.07.The twelfth item enquired whether none of the raises employees have received are consistent with policies on how raises should be determined, the mean score to this item was 4.09. The thirteenth item asked whether the stated pay and promotion
policies have nothing to do
with how pay raises and promotions are determined, the respondents were in affirmative with a mean score (x) of 4.15. the fourteenth item sought to know if policies are irrelevant when it comes to pay raises and promotions, the respondent also concurred to this with a mean score (x) of 4.16. The fifteenth and last item in this category asked whether promotion are not valued because they are politically determined, the respondents consented to this with a mean score (x) of 4.09. In essence are in agreement that pay and promotion are politicized in their organisations.
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4.3.4 Interpretation of Results and Findings from Univariate Analysis We have been able to present results of our univariate analysis in the preceding sub-section. However, we shall herein direct efforts at interpreting the results so far presented and consequently catalogue the findings that emanates from the univariate analysis. Our research instrument adopted the 5point Likert Scale with responses categorized as: SA=5, A=4, N=3, DA=2, SDA=1. The base mean value (x) of our Likert Scale is 2.50. The key for interpreting this mean score (x) is as follows: (a) ≤ 1.00 = Very low, almost non applicable; 1.10 to 2.00=low, minutely sufficient; 2.10 to 3.00 = moderate, barely sufficient; 3.10 to 4.00 = high, vastly sufficient; 4.10 to 5.00 = very high, extremely sufficient.
4.3.4.1 Organisational Citizenship Behaviour Sixteen items relating to the five empirical referents of altruism, civic virtue, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy and self developments are the constituents of our predictor variable. In this sub section, we shall interpret the results of our univariate analysis in line with our presentations in section 4.3.1.
4.3.4.1.1 Altruism Altruism as an empirical referent of organisational citizenship behaviour had three items that focused on it in this study. The result presented in section 4.3.1.1 implies that employees in the domestic aviation sector display altruistic behaviors among themselves (x1 = 4.1, x2 = 3.91, x3 = 3.80). Going by this, most respondents agreed that employees in their organisations are in the habit of helping their fellows who are either new in the job, are pressed with time or
141
are not present at work in tackling work – related problems without having any ulterior motives. We can therefore infer that employees in the domestic aviation sector are good at exhibiting citizenship behaviour via altruistic tendencies, which though are targeted at individual members of the organisation but is ultimately beneficial to the entire organisation. This position is further validated by the result in table 4.16, which provides the overall mean score (x) of altruism as 3.94, which is relatively high when compared to our base mean of 2.50. Table 4.16 Descriptive Statistics of Altruism
N
Valid
89
Missing
0
Mean
3.9401
Std. Deviation
.94356
Minimum
1.00
Maximum
5.00
Source: SPSS Output 4.3.4.1.2 Civic Virtue Civic Virtue as a form of organisational citizenship behaviour was measured using three items of the research questionnaire. The result points to the fact that employees in the domestic aviation sector exhibit more of civic virtue behaviours than altruistic ones (x1 = 4.07, x2 = 4.17, x3 = 4.23). This result is suggestive that employees participate actively in the
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life and culture of their organisations by making suggestions willingly, attending non compulsory company events or keeping abreast with events in the organisation. Going by the base mean of 2.50 applied in this study, it means this behavior is in sufficient dosage in those organisations. Table 4.17 presents a summary of our findings on the magnitude of civic virtue behavior in the domestic aviation sector. It suggests the behavior is high giving the means score (x) of 4.15 using a base mean of 2.50.
Table 4.17 Descriptive Statistics on Civic Virtue
N
Valid
89
Missing
0
Mean
4.1536
Std. Deviation
.81658
Minimum
1.33
Maximum
5.00
Source: SPSS Output
4.3.4.1.3 Conscientiousness Conscientiousness as a form of organisational citizenship behaviour was measured using three items of the research questionnaire. The result proves that the conscientiousness levels of employees in those organizations are barely sufficient (x1 = 3.90, x2 =4.10, x3 =4.09). This result suggests that employees in these organisations strictly adhere to rules and procedures
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of the organisation even when they are under no one’s watch. Through this behavior, employees go beyond their role requirements to show extreme dedication and commitment to duties. This view is clearly supported by the descriptive statistics of conscientiousness in table 4.18 which provides a nutshell report on the overall level of conscientiousness in the domestic aviation sector of Nigeria. The cumulative outcome of the conscientiousness test in view of our base line mean value (x) is barely high at the mean score of 4.03.
Table 4.18 Descriptive Statistics on Conscientiousness
N
Valid
89
Missing
0
Mean
4.0300
Std. Deviation
.82211
Minimum
1.00
Maximum
5.00
Source: SPSS Output
4.3.4.1.4 Courtesy Data on Courtesy were generated using two items on the research question. The result reveals a barely high level of courtesy behavior (x1 = 4.08, x2 = 4.03). This means that employees in those organisations touch base with others before embarking on actions that will affect them.
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This view is clearly reported in the descriptive statistics of courtesy survey in table 4.19, which has a cumulative mean score (x) of 4.06 which is also high.
Table 4.19 Descriptive Statistics on Courtesy
N
Valid
89
Missing
0
Mean
4.0562
Std. Deviation
.82379
Minimum
1.00
Maximum
5.00
Source: SPSS Output
4.3.4.1.5 Sportsmanship Sportsmanship as an empirical referent of organisational citizenship behaviour was measured using three items on the questionnaire instrument. We found that this form of behaviour was high among employees of the respondents’ organisations (x1 = 4.19, x2 = 4.06, x3 = 4.16). This implies that employees present a citizen- like posture of tolerating the inevitable inconveniences and impositions of work without whining and grievances. Meaning that even in the face of stark inconvenience and discomfort, employees still go on with their jobs without making mountains out of molehills. This position is clearly supported by the
145
descriptive statistics of sportsmanship in table 4.20, which has a high cumulative mean of 4.14.
Table 4.20 Descriptive Statistics on Sportsmanship
N
Valid
89
Missing
0
Mean
4.1348
Std. Deviation
.84793
Minimum
1.00
Maximum
5.00
Source: SPSS Output
4.3.4.1.6 Self -Development This measure is the last form of organisational citizenship behaviour presented in our literature review and conceptual framework respectively. It was measured using two items on the questionnaire instrument. Our result shows that employees in these organisations agreed that they engage themselves in self-development (x1 =4.09, x2 = 4.10). This means that employees make deliberate efforts in adding values to selves in other to improve job performance in their various organizations. This response is clearly reported in the descriptive statistics of self development survey in table 4.21, which has a high mean of 4.10.
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Table 4. 21 Descriptive Statistics of Self -Development
N
Valid
89
Missing
0
Mean
4.0955
Std. Deviation
.82873
Minimum
1.00
Maximum
5.00
Source: SPSS Output.
4.3.4.2 Corporate Resilience Corporate resilience research instrument had fourteen items measuring respondents’ views on the three measures of Situation Awareness, management of Keystone Vulnerability and adaptive Capacity. The outcomes are hereunder interpreted.
4.3.4.2.1 Situation Awareness Situation awareness scale comprised six items. The result shows a high level situation awareness among the organisations surveyed (x1 = 3.87, x2 = 3.89, x3 = 3.94, x4 = 4.08, x5 = 4.10, x6 = 4.04). By this result, it can be inferred that those organisations understand in clear
147
terms the environment in which they operate; that is, they know the resources they need today and tomorrow and where to find them, the expectations stakeholders place on them as well as its minimum operational requirements. From table 4.22 below, it can be observed that organisations overall situation awareness has a cumulative mean of 3.99, this is relatively high considering the benchmark of 2.50 base mean score.
Table 4. 22 Descriptive Statistics on Situation Awareness
N
Valid
89
Missing
0
Mean
3.9869
Std. Deviation
.87228
Minimum
1.33
Maximum
5.00
Source: SPSS Output.
4.3.4.2.2 Management of Keystone Vulnerability Data on Management of Keystone Vulnerability were generated through four items on the research instrument. The result reveals a high level of control over keystone vulnerability
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areas of the organization (x1 = 4.02, x2 = 4.09, x3 = 4.16, x4 = 4.18).
By this result,
respondents were bold to say that their organisations are committed to managing keystone vulnerability areas as a way to remain resilient in operation. This means that the domestic airline operators have the habit of controlling components whose loss or impairments has the potential to cause exceptional consequences in the organisations. Table 4. 23 amply affirms the view that Nigeria domestic airline operators do not take chances when it comes to checking and putting to shape every vulnerable parts of their operations to avert dangers that may lurk therein. The high cumulative mean value (x) of 4.11 giving the base mean value of 2.50 speaks volume.
Table 4. 23 Descriptive Statistics on Management of Keystone Vulnerability
N
Valid
89
Missing
0
Mean
4.1124
Std. Deviation
.84360
Minimum
1.25
Maximum
5.00
Source: SPSS Output 4.3.4.2.3 Adaptive Capacity
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Adaptive capacity was one of the three measures of corporate resilience as discussed in our literature review. This item was however investigated through four items in our questionnaire. Ensuing result indicates that high level of adaptive capacity prevails in the organizations surveyed (x1 = 4.12, x2 = 4.01, x3 = 4. 10, x4 = 4.09). Going by this result, it is inferable that Nigerian domestic airline operators have the potentials to cope with disturbances and changes while retaining critical functions, structures, and feedback mechanisms. This feature is very important for the survival of any organisation in this fast changing and turbulent business atmosphere that permeates the globe today. Table 4.24 is the SPSS output of descriptive statistics on the aggregate views of respondents on the adaptive capacity item of our research questionnaire.
Table 4.24 Descriptive Statistics on Adaptive Capacity
N
Valid
89
Missing
0
Mean
4.0815
Std. Deviation
.86584
Minimum
1.00
Maximum
5.00
Source: SPSS Output. From table 4.24, it can be deduced that the adaptive capacity of the organisations studied is high, going by the aggregate mean value (x) of 4.08. We therefore observe in this study that
150
Nigerian domestic airline operators are highly adaptive to the dictates of environmental forces.
4.3.4.3 Contextual Factor 4.3.4.3.1 Perceived Organisational Politics Perception of organisational politics is the sole mediating variable in this study. The construct was measured using Kackmar and Carlson’s (1997) tool. This instrument has fifteen items in all which our respondents reacted to. The outcome shows that organisational politics is perceived to be high among the Nigerian domestic airline organisations (x1 = 4.20, x2 = 4.06, x3 = 4.14, x4 = 4.11, x5 = 3.81, x6 = 3.81, x7 = 3.07, x8 = 4.09, x9 = 4.07, x10 =4.10, x11 =4.07, x12 = 4.09, x13 = 4.15, x14 = 4.16, x15 = 4.09 ). Put differently, majority of the respondents consented strongly that organisational politics is perceived as prevalent in their organisations. This connotes that employees in these organisations apply political behaviors to achieve their goals within the system. Because, their responses have shown that there exist an atmosphere of general politicking in those organisations where members go along to get along and pay and promotions are determined with yardsticks other than pure merit and the who you know phenomenon which in Igbo parlance is popularly described as Ima Mmadu. This result may not be perplexing though because that situation is a predominant characteristic of the Nigeria state. Table 4. 25 show the aggregate view of respondents on this variable with a high mean score (x) of 4.05. The next direction of this study is the bivariate analysis.
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Table 4.25 Descriptive Statics on Perceived Organisational Politics
N
Valid
89
Missing
0
Mean
4.0532
Std. Deviation
.78696
Minimum
1.27
Maximum
4.93
Source: SPSS Output
4.4 Bivariate Analysis The preceding section was used to deliver our findings regarding the univariate analysis, however, our next line of action would be the presentation as well as the interpretation there from, of the data relating to the interlace between the predictor variable and the criterion variable. In so doing, we shall put to mind Saunders et al’s (2003: 338) suggestion that the research questions and objectives should be of utmost consideration as one explores data.
In determining the statistical technique to suit our purpose, we considered Kothari (2004: 138) who argued that when there exists association or correlation between two variables, correlation technique should be used and when there exists cause and effect relationship between two variables in the case of the bivariate population or between one variable on one side and two or more variables on the other side in case of multivariate population, regression
152
technique is appropriate. This was the basis for our choice of the Spearman Rank Oder Correlation to test our hypothesized relationships in our study. This section will therefore be used to present answers to our research questions and hypotheses. We shall commence by first presenting a proof of existing relationships.
4.4.1: Scatter Plot showing Relationship of Variables According to Newman (2000: 323) cited in Asawo (2009), Scatter gram is one of the techniques used in deciding whether a bivariate relationship does exist between intervalscaled variables. In our bid to determine the existence and trend of this relationship, we plotted a scatter diagram as presented in Figure 4.8. Organisational Citizenship Behaviour as a criterion variable is plotted on the X axis whereas Corporate Resilience as the criterion variable is on the Y axis.
Figure 4. 8a: Positive Associations between Organisational Citizenship Behaviour and Corporate Resilience
153
The apparent pattern of the cases in the scatter plot sloping upwards from left to right is an indication of existing linear and positive relationship between organisational citizenship behaviour and corporate resilience. We shall now proceed to analyze the data on our research questions.
4.4.2: Presentation of Results on the Analysis of Data on Research Questions and Testing of Hypotheses. We had proposed seven research questions and nineteen hypotheses in chapters one and two of this study to seek explanation to the association between Organisational Citizenship Behaviour and Corporate Resilience as well as the mediating influence of Perceived Organisational Politics in such association. The Spearman Rank Order Coefficient is calculated using the SPSS to establish the association among the empirical referents of the predictor variable and the measures of the criterion variable. We used this to answer research questions one to six. The Spearman Rank Order Correlation is considered appropriate for measuring ordinal data (Sullivan, 2001, Baridam, 2001, and Nachmias and Nachmias, 1996); this status of the tool justifies its adoption to test the association among our study variables. Correlation coefficient can range from -1.00 to +1.00. The value of -1.00 represents a perfect negative correlation while the value of +1.00 represents a perfect positive correlation.
A value of 0.00 represents a lack of correlation. In testing hypotheses one to eighteen, the following rules were upheld in accepting or rejecting our alternate hypotheses: all the coefficient r values that indicate levels of significance (* or **) as calculated using SPSS were accepted and therefore our alternate hypotheses rejected; when no significance is indicated in the coefficient r value, we reject our alternate hypotheses. Our confidence
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interval was set at the 0.05 (one tailed) level of significance to test the statistical significance of the data in this study.
Similarly, our research question seven and hypothesis nineteen were handled by the use of Multiple Regression Analyses. This is used because the variables involved are more than two and can no longer be appropriately managed using the Spearman Rank Order Correlation. In line with this, Judd and Kenny (1981) recommended certain steps to be taken while testing for regression. Steps 1- regress the mediator on the independent variable, 2- regress the dependent variable on the independent variable; and 3- regress the dependent variable on both the independent variable and the mediator. Accordingly, Baron and Kenny (1986) suggest that for mediation to be seen as having occurred, first, the independent variable must affect the mediator in the first equation; second, the independent variable must be shown to affect the dependent variable in the second equation; and third, the mediator must affect the dependent variable in the third equation. If these conditions all hold in the predicted direction then the effect of the independent variable on the dependent must be less in the third equation than in the second. Chrobot – Mason (2003: 39) illuminated these conditions by stating that “the third condition that must be met to ascertain a mediating effect is that the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable should be weaker or non-significant when the proposed mediator is in the regression equation than when it is not.
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4.4.2.1: Association between Altruism and Corporate Resilience The result of the Spearman Rank Order correlation coefficient for the association between altruism and corporate resilience is herein presented in table 4.26. In addition to the correlation matrix obtained for the first research question, the table also extends to provide the result of the statistical test of significance (p-value), which makes it possible for us to answer the question and further generalize our finding to the population of the study. Table 4.26: Correlation Matrix for Altruism and Corporate Resilience
Altruism KeyStone AdaptCapacity SitAware
Spearman's rho
Atruism
.822**
.625**
.536**
.
.000
.000
.000
89
89
89
89
1.000
.605**
.533**
.000
.
.000
.000
89
89
89
89
Correlation 1.000 Coefficient
Sig. (1tailed)
N
KeyStone
Correlation .822** Coefficient
Sig. (1tailed)
N
Table 4.26: Correlation Matrix for Altruism and Corporate Resilience
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Continued AdaptCapac Correlation .625** ity
.605**
1.000
.649**
.000
.000
.
.000
89
89
89
89
.533**
.649**
1.000
.000
.000
.000
.
89
89
89
89
Coefficient
Sig. (1tailed)
N
SituationA Correlation .536** ware
Coefficient
Sig. (1tailed)
N
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (1-tailed). * Correlation is significant at the level of 0.05 (1-tailed) Source: Research Data
The results in table 4.26 indicate that there is a significant and positive association between altruism, and management of keystone vulnerability, adaptive capacity and situation awareness. Altruism is significantly and positively correlated to management of keystone vulnerability (r = 0.822, p = 0.000 < 0.01). Also, altruism is significantly and positively correlate to adaptive capacity (r = 625, p = 0.000
