Page 1 of 24

Journal for Studies in Management and Planning

Available at http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/

e-ISSN: 2395-0463

Volume 02 Issue 2

February 2016

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 136

Evaluating the Impact of Employee Engagement Drivers on

Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Moderating Role of Human

Resource Information System

Zaheer Abbas1, Siddiqa Ehsan2, Mehboob Ali3, Nisa4, Muhammad Salman Saeed5,

Sagheer Abbass

6

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the present study is to

examine the relationship between employee

engagement drivers and organizational

citizenship behavior whereas role of human

resource information system was used as

moderating variable. A survey was

conducted and 250 questionnaires were

distributed among the employees of service

and manufacturing sector of major cities of

Pakistan from which 152 responses were

received. Regression analysis and analysis of

variance were used to measure the results.

There was significant relationship between

employee engagement drivers and

organizational citizenship behavior. Results

indicated that two of the employee

engagement drivers i.e. job characteristics

and communication had a positive significant

impact on organizational citizenship

behavior. And role of human resource

information system did not moderate the

relationship of employee engagement drivers

and organizational citizenship behavior. A

slight variation was also observed from

responses from different age groups.

Keywords: Employee engagement drivers,

Organizational Citizenship Behavior,

Moderating role of human resource

information system, Regression analysis.

1.1 INTRODUCTION

This is a knowledge based economy, every

organization is struggling to increase profits,

improve customer satisfaction, and want

improvement in the quality of goods and services,

while decreasing costs. Now organizations have

started to understand that having a strong brand,

new products and latest technology alone does

not help them to compete in the market. In the

current business scenario, it is generally accepted

that loyal and skilled employees are the assets of

an organization. It would be unacceptable if

organization loss such employees. Organizations

need committed involvement of loyal and skilled

persons within the organization to develop and

implement strategies that improves both

effectiveness and efficiency. There is the need

that employees feel ownership that the company

is mine. In recent years companies realize that

wages and benefits are important, but

compensation alone is not enough to keep and

retain the skilled and experienced workforce

(Saradha.H, 2010). “Attracting and retaining

skilled employees is challenging because these

workers usually have several other job options”

(Butler & Waldroop, 1999). However, it is not

enough having employees with the necessary

skills to helps organization achieve its goals. It is

vital to manage these skilled employees so that

they perform well, and are engaged in their work

and their organization. “It is not sufficient that

they just show up; they need to be functioning at

the peak level of their potential” (Rothbard,

2001).

Ulrich (2007) said the “success of organizations

comes from three essential qualities of

employees: competence, commitment or

engagement, and contribution”. It is important

that employees emotionally respond to their work

and organization leads toward success of

organization. Thus, employee engagement is an

Page 2 of 24

Journal for Studies in Management and Planning

Available at http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/

e-ISSN: 2395-0463

Volume 02 Issue 2

February 2016

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 137

important topic for management and human

resource development. Kahn (1990) defines

engagement as “the harnessing of organization

members’ selves to their work roles; in

engagement, people employ and express

themselves physically, cognitively, and

emotionally during role performances”. Today,

organizations expect their employees to

collaborate smoothly with others, take

responsibility for their own professional

development, to be committed to high quality

performance standards and to be proactive and

show initiative (Saradha.H, 2010). Highly- engaged employees are expected to do better

work performance compared to employees who

are not highly-engaged. The performance of

highly-engaged employees goes beyond formal

job requirements. Several studies have confirmed

that behavior that goes beyond formal job

requirements can facilitate organizational

performance through the impact on

organizational contexts, organizational culture,

and individual productivity (Podsakoff P. M.,

MacKenzie, Paine, & Bachrach, 2000). The

concept of work behavior that is beyond the

requirement of job is called organizational

citizenship behavior. Organ (1988) defined

organization citizenship behavior as "individual

behavior that is discretionary, not directly or

explicitly recognized by the formal reward

system, and that in the aggregate promotes the

effective functioning of the organization".

As discussed above that highly engaged

employees do more than what is required so there

is a possibility that engaging employees will lead

towards the development of organizational

citizenship behavior so the aim of this study is to

find out the relationship between employee

engagement drivers and organizational

citizenship behavior, with a moderating role of

human resource information system. The human

resource information system (HRIS) is “the

composite of databases, computer applications,

hardware and software necessary to

collect/record, store, manage, deliver, present,

and manipulate data for human resources”

(Broderick & Boudreau, 1992). The information

stored and manipulated about the employees of

the organization make them possible to access the

required information any time with the help of

human resource information system.

This paper focused on five major drivers of

employee engagement i.e. Job characteristics,

management and leadership support, reward and

recognition, workplace well-being and

communication. Five constructs of organizational

citizenship behavior, focused in this study, were:

altruism, conscientiousness, courtesy,

sportsmanship and civic virtue. Four potential

roles of human resource information system used

as moderating variable, were i.e. enable

information responsiveness, enable information

autonomy, feedback & control and relative

advantage.

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Nearly four decades ago, Katz (1964) identified

the importance of a set of discretionary and

impulsive behaviors that are above the defined

role requirements, but are highly important for

organizational effectiveness. Smith, Organ, &

Near (1983), in a report of empirical research on

the characteristics and antecedents of such

behaviors, termed these contributions as

"organizational citizenship behavior”. Later

Organ (1988) has defined organizational

citizenship behavior as “individual behavior that

is discretionary, not directly or explicitly

recognized by the formal reward system, and that

in the aggregate promotes the effective

functioning of the organization. By discretionary,

we mean that the behavior is not an enforceable

requirement of the role or the job description, that

is, the clearly specifiable terms of the person’s

employment contract with the organization; the

behavior is rather a matter of personal choice,

such that its omission is not generally understood

as punishable” (Organ, 1988). However, Organ

(1997) refined this definition as “conceptualizing

organizational citizenship behavior as any form

of performance that supports the social or

psychological environment in which the work

tasks are embedded”. Organizational citizenship

behavior was first examined by Organ and his

colleagues (Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983). After

that, many related concepts have emerged, such

Page 3 of 24

Journal for Studies in Management and Planning

Available at http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/

e-ISSN: 2395-0463

Volume 02 Issue 2

February 2016

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 138

as extra-role behavior (Van Dyne, Cummings, &

Parks, 1995), organizational spontaneity

(George, 1992), organizational citizenship

performance (Borman, 2004), voice behavior

(LePine & Van Dyne, 1998) and pro social

organizational behavior (Brief & Motowidlo,

1986). These terms are related, but often

emphasize different features.

OCB typically refers to “behaviors that positively

impact the organization or its members”

(Poncheri, 2006). It can be affected by

incorporating a perception of perfection in

employees regarding their job task (Todd, 2003).

There is credible proof that “OCB is an outcome

consistent with a social exchange relationship”

(Deckop, Mangal, & Circa, 1999). The concern

for the organization is closely related to OCB as

it will directly affect the working of the

organization (Dick, Grojean, Christ, & Wieseke,

2006). But it is also evidenced that citizenship

behaviors give better results in long term rather

than in short time span (Daniels, Joireman, Falvy,

& Kamdar, 2006). Shapiro.et al (2004) considers

OCB to be “an extra-role behavior” i.e. it is a

behavior which is not explicitly defined by the

organization and is completely dependent upon

the consent of the employees.

OCB represents “a set of desirable organizational

behaviors, which demonstrate multi-dimensional

relationships with positive organizational

consequences” (Walz & Niehoff, 1996).

Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, and Bachrach

(2000) distinguished 30 different forms of

organizational citizenship behavior. Initial

versions of OCB measures based on interviews

by Smith, Organ, & Near (1983), yielded two

major factors: altruism and compliance. Organ

(1988) suggests that additional noticeable

dimensions of organizational citizenship

behavior might include “courtesy” (actions that

help to avoid problems for coworkers),

sportsmanship (facing the behaviors of others

with a positive attitude), and civic virtue (Active

participation in organization’s extra role

activities) (Farh., Zhong., & Organ., 2004).

Form the above given definitions it can be seen

that the term organizational citizenship behavior

is very wider. Multiple terms are used in contrast

with organizational citizenship behavior. This

paper focuses on five major constructs identified

by organ (1988) i.e. altruism, conscientiousness,

sportsmanship, courtesy and civic virtue that lead

to organizational citizenship behavior. These

constructs together with their meanings are

discussed as follows.

2.2 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Kahn (1990) was one of the founders in applying

the concept of engagement to the workplace

(Avery, McKay, & Wilson, 2007). Kahn (1990)

defines personal engagement as “the harnessing

of organization members’ selves to their work

roles; in engagement, people employ and express

themselves physically, cognitively, and

emotionally during role performances”, Personal

disengagement refers to “the uncoupling of selves

from work roles; in disengagement, people

withdraw and defend themselves physically,

cognitively, or emotionally during role

performances” (Kahn, 1990). “Engagement

means to be psychologically present when

occupying and performing an organizational

role” (Saks., 2006).

The word engagement is defined by various

authors. To make things difficult, employee

engagement has been defined in many different

ways and the definitions and measures often

sound like matching with the other better and

established constructs like organizational

commitment and organizational citizenship

behavior (Robinson, Perryman, & Hayday,

2004); (Saks., 2006). “Mostly engagement has

been defined as emotional and intellectual

commitment to the organization” (Baumruk,

2004) (Richman, 2006) (Shaw, 2005) “or the

amount of discretionary effort exhibited by

employees in their jobs” (Frank, Finnegan, &

Taylor, 2004). In a Society for Human Resource

management article, Lockwood (2005) defined

engagement as “a state by which individuals are

emotionally and intellectually committed to the

organization or group” (Lockwood & SPHR,

2005). Engagement refers to a state where an

employee is either positively involved committed

and attached with all the matters of the

organization, or try to involve in the well being of

the organization. Wellins and Concelman

suggested that engagement is ‘‘an amalgamation

of commitment, loyalty, productivity and

ownership’’ (Wellins & Concelman, 2005). Krug