ISSN 0798 1015

Vol. 40 (Number 7) Year 2019. Page 17

Impact of Employee Engagement on Organizational Citizenship Behavior: An Overview

Impacto de la participación de los empleados en el comportamiento de la ciudadanía organizacional: una visión general

SAHOO Smruti Rekha 1; MOHANTY Sasmita 2

Received: 29/10/2018 • Approved: 05/02/2019 • Published 04/03/2019

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Methodology

3. Literature and Findings

4. Conclusion

Bibliographic references

1. Introduction

1.1 Employee Engagement

Understanding employee behavior at work place has taken on centre stage in the contemporary researches on human resource. The significance of emotions and cognition at work place can be fathomed from the fact that many new concepts and frameworks have been developed in the last decade around this ( see Lerner and Keltner, 2000; Shields and Kappas, 2006; Eder et al., 2007; Gross et al., 2011; Samur et al., 2018 ). Employee engagement is such a phenomenon which is corollary to researches on employee social behavior at work place. It essentially defines the in depth the workers’ psychological involvement with employer and work. It is comparatively new concept in the field of Human Resource Management spanning more than two decades (Rafferty et al. ,2005; Melcrum Publishing, 2005; Ellis and Sorensen, 2007). Employee engagement is, however, different from job involvement in that it relates to how the employee uses emotions and cognition that accompany both job satisfaction and commitment (May et al., 2004). On the Basis of extra role behavior (discretionary effort) and commitment of an employee, engagement is a two way reciprocal process among employee and enterprise (Rafferty et al. 2005).

Engagement is a multidimensional concept as employees can be engaged emotionally and cognitively as well as physically. Emotional engagement implies at the meaningful link with colleagues empathy and concern for co workers’ feelings. Contrarily, cognitive engagement implies at precise consciousness about mission and responsibility at work place (Kahn, 1990)

The most oft cited meaning of employee engagement is that it is “a positive, fulfilling, work- related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption” (Schaufeli et al. 2002). When employees are appropriately engaged with work, then the results become positive (Gorgievski et al., 2010). While employees show their productivity and creativity and also walk extra mile for satisfying their requirement then it is beneficial for individuals and organizations (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Employee engagement is an intellectual, emotional and positive instrument and commitment of an individual indicates the success of an organization. These two factors influenced to extra role behavior (Perrin, 2005 as cited in Endres and Mancheno-Smoak, 2008; Gibbons 2006; Kore Access, 2008). Engagement is a psychological presence and it comprises two components i.e. attention and absorption. Here attention indicates the cognitive availability and idea about job responsibility whereas absorption implies engross themselves in job and have intensity to focus on role (Rothbard, 2001, p.656)

1.2 Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)

Organizational climate helps achieving the objective of organization and ensuring the maximum utilization of human resource. Successful implementation of human resource systems reflect on growth and development of an individual as well as organization (Rafiei, 2015). Employee pro social behavior is spontaneous which refers to intentional behaviors that result in benefits for co-workers and employer (Feigin et al. 2014; Eisenberg and Miller 1987). Pro social behavior is seen in several forms such as kindness, volunteerism without expectations of any kind for extra benefit. It increases motivation and encourages employees to altruistic behavior (Katz and Kahn, 1966). Currently the concept is improved and giving a new conception into true sense which is recognized as Organizational Citizenship Behavior (Organ, 1983). If an employee exhibits organizational citizenship behavior, it shows contribution or dedication of employee as organizational citizens.

Organizational citizenship behavior is one of the part of pro social behavior which provides benefits to organization as well as employees (Dovidio et al. 2006). Organizational citizens have persistence, ability and flexibility to cope with the additional work efforts without any hope of reward in return (Feigin et al., 2014). In this case, employees’ self realization and motivation is clearly seen through their dedication and potentiality towards the organization (Jaksic, 2013).

2. Methodology

A set of literatures are collected from secondary sources that is from articles, magazines and journals etc. The representations are based on relationship among employee engagement and OCB from 20th century.

2.1 Limitation of the study

The paper focuses on research studies carried out in the service sector completely setting aside manufacturing and other sectors as out of scope. Therefore, the results are limited in their generalizations. Secondly there were scattered studies made by researchers prior to the phases taken in this paper. However considering the minimality of such studies and their limited scope of generalization to service sector those studies are not included. 

3. Literature and Findings

3.1 Research on Organizational citizenship behavior and Employee engagement:

The researches on OCB and employee engagement are comparatively nascent and can be categorized into three phases from 1960s- 80s, 1980s-20s and 20s onwards. Before 1960s the employee morale (attitude, satisfaction, and overall outlook of employee) is highly distinguished whereas workers are counted as the part of operating cost without any consideration of typical operations. During 1960s-80s, social issues changed the mode of human resource and increase the level of pen and paper work and reporting information to higher authority. In this phase human resource plays main role in typical operations.  In the phase of 1980 till the first decade of new millennium, the term organizational citizenship gradually entered the discourse on organizational study in a phased manner first as “willingness to cooperate” (Katz, 1964; Katz and Kahn, 1966) to a more formal organizational citizenship behavior later. The concept employee engagement introduced in the stage of 1990s found recognition by the industry and academic alike as a branch of research for enhancing organizational performance. Researchers and practitioners established the relationship among employee engagement and OCB in different sectors. Rurkkhum (2010) in a research on employee engagement and five dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior in Thai organizations found that all four dimensions (altruism, civic virtue, conscientiousness and sportsmanship) except dimension courtesy of organizational citizenship behavior indicate positive relation with employee engagement. George and Joseph (2015) studied the connection in between employee engagement and OCB on employees working in travel organizations. The outcomes reveal that employee engagement positively influences the OCB. Ullah et al. (2018), established the relationship among employee engagement, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). This study reveals that employee engagement is positively significantly related with organizational commitment. Consequently, it is found that employee engagement has positive significant relation with organizational citizenship behavior (Allen and Meyer, 1990; Saks, 2006). Saradha and Patrick (2011) researched the association among OCB and employee engagement in IT industry. The outcome shows that employee engagement has low significant relation with organizational citizenship behavior. Owor (2015) researched the relationship between HR practices and OCB with a mediating role of employee engagement in the in soft drinks Company in Uganda. The study shows that employee engagement is also significantly positively correlated with organizational citizenship behavior. Furthermore, this study reveals that organizational citizenship behavior is predicted by five of nine antecedents of HR practices and employee engagement. And also it shows that employee engagement act as mediator role in between HR practices and OCB. Ariani (2013) investigated the impact of supportive leadership and employee engagement on organizational citizenship behavior. This research shows that employee engagement doesn’t show any mediator role in between supportive leadership and organizational citizenship behavior.  Furthermore, Ariani (2013) researched the association between three constructs i.e. employee engagement, counter productive work behavior (CWB) and organizational citizenship behavior. The study shows that employee engagement is significantly positively related with organization citizenship behavior while there is negative relationship between employee engagement and CWB as well as relationship between OCB and CWB. Abed and Elewa (2016), studied on the relation between organizational support, work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior about the nurses’ perception in different Hospitals. The outcome of this study is that all the three constructs i.e organizational support, employee engagement and organizational citizenship behavior positively significantly correlated with each other. Furthermore the result indicates a positive significant relationship in between work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior. Roberson and Strickland (2010) established the association among charismatic leadership, OCB and work engagement. This study investigates a mediating role linking with charismatic leadership to organizational citizenship behavior through work engagement. From this study it is confirmed that charismatic leadership, organizational citizenship behavior and work engagement is significantly positively correlated with each other. In addition, this study indicates that work engagement also act as mediating role in between leadership (charismatic) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Amadi et al. (2017) investigated the association in between employee engagement and OCB in Maritime Firms of Nigeria and this study found that employee engagement has a positive significant relationship with organizational citizenship behavior. This research also confirms that organizational citizenship behavior can be improved through the appliance of cognitive and emotional engagement between employees in Maritime firms.

3.2 Findings

Table-1
Summary of Literature

4. Conclusion

Employee pro-social behavior is reflected in a positively engaged work place. Though many studies have reflected on pro social behavior (extra role behavior) of employee only few have centered on positive link between organizational citizenship and engagement. If employee is positively engaged with work they manifest creativity and extra role for the organization. Employee engagement is a strong forecaster or predictor of organizational citizenship behavior which shows the extra role behavior. Organizational citizenship behavior means that employees are engaged they have willingness to go extra mile. The studies that are taken depict a strong linkage between the dimensions of engagement and OCB. Certain dimensions as, absorption, dedication and vigor and under employee engagement are found to be more vociferous in predicting organizational citizenship behavior. Consequently, if these dimensions are stressed upon then a modification can be brought out in the way that employees are engaged. Contrarily the dimensions such as altruism, sportsmanship, courtesy, consciousness and civic virtue under organizational citizenship behavior are seen to be positively related to engagement. These studies however are limited in their scope of application to only service sector ignoring completely other organizations. Future researches in this field could focus on extension of these dimensions into different sectors.

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1. Research Scholar, Institute of Business and Computer Studies, Siksha O Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar, Odisha-751030, India, Email: smrutirekha001@gmail.com

2. Associate Professor, Institute of Business and Computer Studies, Siksha O Anusandhan (Deemed to be University), Bhubaneswar, Odisha-751030, India, Email: sasmitamoh@gmail.com