Master's Thesis in Marketing
How do the organization’s corporate citizenship activities affect employees'
propensity to engage in organizational citizenship behavior? Do different
types of corporate citizenship activities affect it differently?
University of Amsterdam
Supervisor: Karin Venetis Student name: Tomas Bagdonas Student number: 10733701 Submission date: 29 January, 2015 Submission type: Final Version
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Statement of Originality
This document is written by Tomas Bagdonas who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
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Abstract
As increasingly more studies are being written on Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and the positive effects it has on firm performance (Podsakoff et. al., 2009), a need to define OCB's antecedents arises. As an answer to this call, in this study two very known antecedents of Organizational Citizenship Behavior have been tested - Job Satisfaction (JS) and Organizational Identification (OI). In addition to this, Corporate Citizenship (CC), which has never been tested in this context before, has been introduced as a novel, but possible antecedent of OCB, because literature exists that supports the relationship between all four types of CC activities (Economic, Legal, Ethical and Discretionary) and JS and separately between CC activities and OI. Therefore, one of the goals of this study is to empirically test whether CC is indirectly related to OCB.
However, this study will also go a step further, because what is really interesting is to find out whether the relationship between CC and OCB is so strong as to persist even after the removal of the mediators. Therefore, the main contribution of this study is in empirically testing whether Corporate Citizenship is directly related to Organizational Citizenship Behavior.
In order to empirically answer the research question, an online survey has been conducted and a total of 238 usable answers has been recorded. Strikingly and despite the past literature support, no relationship was found between JS and OCB, whereas the relationship between OI and OCB was confirmed. Furthermore, the results revealed that Legal and Discretionary CCs are related to JS, but not to OI, whereas Ethical CC is related to OI, but not JS. Lastly, Economic CC has shown no significant relationships at all, whereas the main research hypotheses were proven only in terms of Legal and Ethical CCs, as they were the only ones directly related to OCB.
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Table of Contents
Statement of Originality ... 2
Abstract ... 3
Table of Contents ... 4
List of Tables and Figures ... 6
1. Introduction ... 7
2. Theoretical Framework ... 12
2.1. Introduction ... 12
2.2. Organizational Citizenship Behavior ... 12
2.2.1. The Effects of Organizational Citizenship Behavior ... 13
2.2.2. The Antecedents of Organizational Citizenship Behavior ... 14
2.3. Corporate Citizenship ... 17
2.3.1. The Effects of Corporate Citizenship ... 20
2.3.2. Corporate Citizenship Relation to Job Satisfaction... 21
2.3.3. Corporate Citizenship Relation to Organizational Identification ... 24
2.3.4. Corporate Citizenship Relation to Organizational Citizenship Behavior ... 26
2.3.5. Job Satisfaction relation to Organizational Identification ... 29
2.4. Conceptual Model ... 30
3. Research methodology ... 31
3.1. Introduction ... 31
3.2. Empirical Research Goals ... 31
3.3. Data Collection Method ... 31
3.4. Sampling ... 34
4. Data Analysis ... 36
4.1. Descriptive Statistics ... 36
4.1.1. Sample Statistics ... 36
4.1.2. Recoding of Counter Indicative Items ... 39
4.1.3. Normality ... 39
4.1.4. Scale Means and Reliability Testing ... 40
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4.2. Hypotheses testing ... 43
4.2.1. Regression Analysis ... 43
4.2.2. Process Multiple Mediation Analysis ... 47
4.3. Conclusion ... 50
5. Discussion ... 53
5.1. Discussion of the Findings ... 53
5.1.1. Hypotheses Related to Job Satisfaction and Organizational Identification ... 54
5.1.2. Hypotheses Related to Economic Corporate Citizenship ... 55
5.1.3. Hypotheses Related to Legal Corporate Citizenship... 56
5.1.4. Hypotheses Related to Ethical Corporate Citizenship ... 57
5.1.5. Hypotheses Related to Discretionary Corporate Citizenship ... 58
5.2. Theoretical Implications ... 59
5.3. Managerial Implications ... 60
5.4. Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research ... 61
5.5. Conclusion ... 64
References ... 66
Appendices ... 77
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List of Tables and Figures
Figure 1. Conceptual Model... 30
Table 1: Sample statistics ... 38
Table 2: Correlation Matrix. Cronbach alphas are visible on the diagonal... 41
Table 3: Regression analysis for 4 types of CC to OCB ... 44
Table 4: Regression analysis for 4 types of CC to JS. ... 45
Table 5: Regression analysis for 4 types of CC to OI. ... 46
Table 6: Regression analysis for mediators JS and OI to OCB. ... 46
Table 7: Process multiple mediation output for economic corporate citizenship. ... 48
Table 8: Process multiple mediation output for legal corporate citizenship. ... 49
Table 9: Process multiple mediation output for ethical corporate citizenship. ... 50
Table 10: Process multiple mediation output for discretionary corporate citizenship ... 50
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1. Introduction
Relevance of the topic. Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) is trending these
days, as managers are looking for ways to engage their employees in Organizational Citizenship Behaviors, which constitute voluntary employee behaviors that are not part of one's job tasks, but improve the performance of the organization. (Organ, 1997) Such interest in OCB is due to numerous past papers, that support the claim that OCB positively affects firm performance (Nielsen, Hrivnak & Shaw, 2009; Yi, Nataraajan & Gong, 2011), whereas Podsakoff et. al. (2009) adds that OCB relates positively to customer satisfaction, firm productivity, efficiency, profitability and a variety of other unit-level performance indicators. Lastly, a study by Gallup (2013) claim that a lack of Organizational Citizenship Behavior negatively affects employee work quality and raises health care costs.
On the other hand, the question of causes of Organizational Citizenship Behavior did not receive that much attention from the academia, despite the well grounded need for such studies. (Podsakoff et. al., 2009) For example, a study by Gallup (2013) found that 70% of employees in the US are not engaged at work, of which 20% are actively disengaged. They further add that such a lack of engagement incurs costs of 450 to 550 billion dollars annually in US alone: Enough reasons to want to find out more about what stimulates Organizational Citizenship Behavior.
Consequently, the purpose of this study is in empirically defining the antecedents of Organizational Citizenship Behavior. From the literature, two groups of antecedents have been identified. These are Job Satisfaction (JS) (Chiu & Chen, 2005; Foote & Tang, 2008) and Organizational Identification (OI) (van Dick et. al., 2006; Feather & Rauter 2004), both of which have already been established as having strong links to OCB. In addition to this,
8 Corporate Citizenship (CC), which has never been studied in this context before, due to its novelty, will be tested as a possible antecedent of OCB, because the theoretical base has been found that supports the relation between each of the 4 types of CC activities (Economic, Legal, Ethical and Discretionary) and each of the mediators: Job Satisfaction and separately, Organizational Identification. As a result, and keeping in mind that literature suggests that both mediators (JS and OI) are related to OCB, a base for expecting an indirect relationship between CC and OCB has been developed.
However, in this study it was decided to go even further and test whether the relationship between CC and OCB could be so powerful that it would remain even after the removal of the mediators JS and OI. As a result, the main contribution of this study will be the testing of the direct relationship between Corporate Citizenship and Organizational Citizenship Behavior.
As already mentioned, Corporate Citizenship is a very new and still heavily under-researched concept. It further relates to Economic, Legal, Ethical and Discretionary activities adopted by the organization in order to improve the wellbeing of the organization, its stakeholders and society as a whole. (Maignan & Ferrel, 2000; Valor, 2005) However, it is not just the lack of research that stimulates new CC oriented studies, because CC is also an important concept in itself. For example, two identical international surveys conducted by Nielsen in 2013 and 2014, showed that, respectively, 50% and 55% of world consumers would be willing to pay extra for the same product or service, if it was produced by a socially responsible firm. (nielsen.com, 2013; nielsen.com, 2014)
On the other hand, a study of 40 000 consumer interviews across 6 countries showed that currently CC practices are being adopted only by the leading firms in their respective industries (e.g. Apple, Google, BMW) while most of the other companies still keep away from the CC.
9 (Burson-Marsteller, Landor, PSB and BAV, 2012) This is because CC is under-researched not only in relation to OCB, but overall, as the aggregate amount of CC related studies is lacking. (Maignan & Ferrell, 2001) Moreover, multiple authors (Kim et.al., 2010; Maignan & Ferrell, 2001; Swaen & Maignan, 2003) are calling for more research aimed at explaining the effects of CC on the firm and employee performance, which is closely related to the main goal of the current study.
To sum up, proving that CC is an antecedent of OCB, would be a great aid to the practitioners in the field of OCB as they would finally get a hands-on tool that they could use to manage employee's propensity to engage in OCB, which has been proven by multiple studies to be strongly related to superior firm performance. (Podsakoff et. al., 2009; Nielsen, Hrivnak, & Shaw, 2009; Yi, Nataraajan and Gong, 2011) In addition to this, it will be an interesting study for the academia, not only because CC has never been paired with OCB before, but also because CC being such a new concept, is in constant need of more research aimed at explaining its effects. (Kim et.al., 2010; Maignan and Ferrell, 2001 and Swaen and Maignan, 2003)
Main research question. The main research question of the thesis is the following: How
do the organization’s Corporate Citizenship activities affect employees' propensity to engage in Organizational Citizenship Behavior? Do different types of Corporate Citizenship activities affect it differently?
Sub-questions. In order to answer the main research question the following
sub-questions were set up in regard to the literature to be reviewed:
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What established effects does Organizational Citizenship Behavior have on firm performance?
What are the known antecedents of Organizational Citizenship Behavior
What is Corporate Citizenship and what types of it exist?
What established effects does Corporate Citizenship have on employees?
How does Corporate Citizenship relate to Organizational Citizenship Behavior?
Theoretical and Practical value of the research.
The value of the research is in empirically testing whether Corporate Citizenship is an antecedent of Organizational Citizenship Behavior. This will be accomplished in two steps. Firstly, the indirect relationship between CC and OCB, as mediated by Job Satisfaction and separately by Organizational Identification, will be empirically tested. Though such a question has never been researched before, there is enough literature support for the indirect route, particularly that CC is related to JS and OI and similarly that JS and OI are related to OCB. Therefore, the purpose of step one is in establishing empirically that the theoretical way of thinking is correct. Secondly, we will look at CC to OCB relationship from a different angle and try and prove empirically that CC is directly related to OCB. This has never been accomplished or even attempted previously, therefore a substantial theoretical contribution is expected.
In addition to this, establishing the link between CC and OCB should be of interest to both, academics and practitioners, because as is stressed in the introduction of the thesis and subsequently in the literature review, while it is well documented that OCB leads to better firm performance (Kim, 2006), there still is a lack of research on the antecedents of OCB. Moreover, past research linked OCB to such antecedents as Organizational Identification (van Dick et. al., 2006; Feather & Rauter, 2004) and Job Satisfaction (Chiu & Chen, 2005; Foote & Tang, 2008),
11 both of which are hard to manipulate. Corporate Citizenship, on the other hand, can be fully controlled by the company in terms of the activities that the management decides to pursue. In this way, associating CC to OCB would provide a hands-on tool for managers looking for ways to influence employee OCB.
On the other hand, there is little research done on the effects of CC on firm performance and employee behavior. Therefore, this study would prove to be a substantial addition to the academic field of Corporate Citizenship as much as to the Organizational Citizenship Behavior.
Logical sequence of the thesis. The research material will be presented as follows. First
the introduction chapter in which the topic’s relevance, problem statement and research objectives are presented. Secondly the literature review chapter will present literature on Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Corporate Citizenship. Thirdly the methodology chapter will present methods of data collection and analysis. Fourthly the empirical findings chapter will present empirical data findings and outcomes analysis. And lastly the discussion chapter will provide suggestions for further research and will describe research implications and limitations.
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2. Theoretical Framework
2.1. Introduction
In this chapter, we will first discuss Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and its importance for the firm. Secondly, two known OCB antecedents (Job Satisfaction (JS) and Organizational Identification (OI)) will be discussed and related hypotheses will be offered. Next, the concept of Corporate Citizenship (CC) will be thoroughly presented and links from CC to OCB will be made together with subsequent hypotheses. At the end of the chapter, the
theoretical framework will be presented visually as a conceptual model.
2.2. Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) is a rather new phenomena as the base of its literature has been written in the 80s, starting with Smith, Organ and Near (1983) who
differentiated two elements of OCB. One, related to helping your colleagues (Altruism) and the other, impersonal form of conscientious citizenship (Generalized Compliance). (Smith, Organ and Near, 1983) Few years later, one of the central pieces of literature in the field of OCB was written by D. Organ, who, in his book, defined OCB 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." (Organ, 1988, p.4., in Organ, 1997, p.85)
Following, Smith, Organ and Near's (1983) attempt to identify dimensions of OCB, Organ has identified 5 dimensions of OCB in 1988, which were later adapted and edited by Morrisson in 1994. The following 5 dimensions of OCB are taken from Morisson (1994, p. 1550)
13 "Altruism consists of behaviors that help a specific other person."
"Conscientiousness consists of behaviors that go "well beyond the minimum requirement" in the areas of attendance, obeying rules, taking breaks and so forth."
"Civic virtue consists of behaviors reflecting responsible participation in, involvement with, and concern about the life of the employing organization."
"Sportsmanship is willingness to tolerate less than ideal circumstances without complaining."
"Courtesy consists of behaviors aimed at preventing work-related problems with others."
2.2.1. The Effects of Organizational Citizenship Behavior
The reason OCB has gained so much interest from the academia and the practitioners, is the ingrained capacity of OCB to improve firm's performance. Podsakoff and MacKenzie (1994) have researched the relationship between sales people OCB and overall sales agency
performance and found a strong relationship between the two. However, they have also determined that significant differences exist between manager's evaluations of different dimensions of OCB and the actual impact of dimensions of OCB on unit performance. This difference was most eminent in terms of Altruism, as managers considered it to be the most important, while in fact it was the least contributing dimension. (Podsakoff and MacKenzie, 1994) On the other hand, in a subsequent study, Podsakoff, Ahearne, and MacKenzie (1997) found that Altruism had a strong effect on product quality.
In support of the latter, Walz and Niehoff (2000) empirically proved that employee Altruism relates to higher revenue to full-time equivalent, higher operating efficiency, increased customer satisfaction and higher perceived company quality. Moreover, in their conclusion they empirically proved Organ's (1988) assumption that collective OCB has a strong impact on firm
14 performance. (Walz & Niehoff, 2000) This point is especially important for the current study, because it will not look at the different dimensions of OCB, but rather test the relationship between 4 types of CC and an aggregated, overall OCB.
Although the finding by Walz and Niehoff (2000) was one of the earliest confirmations of the initial OCB assumption by Organ (1988), that overall OCB leads to better firm
performance, the results were successfully replicated multiple times in the recent past. To start with, Podsakoff et. al. (2009) determined that an aggregated OCB relates positively to a variety of organizational performance indicators at a unit-level, such as customer satisfaction, firm productivity, efficiency and profitability, while at the same time relating negatively to costs and unit-level turnover. In the same research, individual-level relations were pursued as well, which indicated that OCB has a negative impact on absenteeism, turnover intentions and actual
intentions, while having a positive impact on employee performance. (Podsakoff et. al., 2009) Similar results regarding the relationship between overall OCB and firm performance were found in the studies conducted by Nielsen, Hrivnak, and Shaw (2009) and Yi, Nataraajan and Gong (2011).
To sum up, the latter chapter illustrates the importance of OCB on individual and unit-level performance, thus proving the significance of studying the antecedents of OCB, so that managers could stimulate OCBs more effectively. This is also one of the future research study directions pointed out by Podsakoff et. al. (2009).
2.2.2. The Antecedents of Organizational Citizenship Behavior
In the past literature, a number of OCB antecedents were identified. However, for the purpose of this study only two antecedents will be tested. These are Job Satisfaction (JS) and Organizational Identification (OI). This choice has been made, not only because these two
15 variables are the most researched in the context of OCB, but also because many of the other identified antecedents of OCB can be classified as relating to either Job Satisfaction or Organizational Identification.
To start with Job Satisfaction, one of the key academics in this field is Edwin Locke, who defined JS as "the pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job as
achieving or facilitating the achievement of one's job values." (Locke, 1969) Since then on, the field of Job Satisfaction has gained a lot of attention as numerous papers were written aiming to explain the antecedents of JS, the causes of differences of JS among individuals in and between organizations, as well the effects of JS. One of the reasons for such interest in JS, is because even back in 1970s, it has been established that JS is positively related to employee life quality and better firm performance. (Kalleberg, 1977).
Since then, many definitions of Job Satisfaction have been developed, from which, one of the best is the following: Job Satisfaction is "an affective reaction to one’s job, resulting from the incumbent’s comparison of actual outcomes with those that are desired." (Cranny, Smith, and Stone (1992) in Weiss, 2002, p. 174). Recently, JS has been linked to a better firm performance in numerous studies. (Jian, Wei & Deci, 2012; Brown & Peterson, 1993; Judge et. al., 2001) However, in this study, we are not interested in the terminal effects of Job Satisfaction, but rather we are going to look if JS could be the mediator in the CC to OCB relationship.
Regarding Job Satisfaction as an antecedent of OCB, it has been identified to relate positively to one dimension of OCB (altruism) as early as in 1983 by Smith, Organ, and Near. In the same study leader supportiveness was identified to be a predictor of the second OCB
16 under Job Satisfaction, because in the same study leader supportiveness was identified to have an indirect relationship with altruism, mediated by Job Satisfaction. (Smith, Organ & Near, 1983)
Another antecedent of OCB that is described as "uniquely related" to job satisfaction (Van Knippenberg & Sleebos, 2006. p. 571) is organizational commitment. (Organ & Ryan, 1995) Finally, multiple other authors identified job satisfaction to be an antecedent of OCB. (Organ & Ryan, 1995; Chiu & Chen, 2005; Foote & Tang, 2008). Therefore, it is proposed that,
H1. Job Satisfaction has a direct relationship with Organizational Citizenship Behavior.
Second OCB antecedent to be measured in this study, is Organizational Identification (OI), which can be defined "as a perceived oneness with an organization and the experience of the organization's successes and failures as one's own." (Mael & Ashforth, 1992, p. 103) OI has gained interest in the past couple decades because it has been linked with extra-role behavior and job involvement (Riketta, 2005), task performance and work motivation (van Knippenberg, 2000), interpersonal communication and work effort (Bartel, 2001) and multiple other individual and unit-level constructs. However, in this study, we are not going to dig deeper into OI's
terminal effects as the purpose of the study is to test OI as a mediator between CC and OCB.
Regarding the latter, Organizational Identification has been proven to be directly predictive of OCB by multiple authors in the past (van Dick et. al., 2006; Feather & Rauter, 2004; O'Reilly & Chatman, 1986). In addition to this, there is a group of OCB antecedents, that can also be classified under organizational identification, one of which is organizational justice. It was identified as an antecedent of OCB by Colquitt, (2001); Farh, Earley and Lin, (1997) and further related to organizational identification by Lipponen et.al. (2004). Moreover, perceived
17 fairness, which was determined by Organ and Ryan (1995) to be directly related to OCB, is also related to Organizational Identification through its' connection with procedural justice. (Niehoff and Moorman, 1993) Consequently, it is hypothesized that,
H2. Organizational Identification has a direct relationship Organizational Citizenship Behavior.
However, the main goal of this study is not in validating the results of the previous research, but rather going a step further and introducing another possible antecedent of OCB, which has never been studied in relation to OCB before. This new variable is Corporate
Citizenship (CC) and though literature supporting its indirect relation to OCB (whether through Job Satisfaction or Organizational Identification) exists, the purpose of this study is to expand the horizons of known literature and empirically test whether CC can be a direct predictor of OCB.
2.3. Corporate Citizenship
The concept of Corporate Citizenship (CC) evolved from the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) which can be traced back to Bowen in 1953 (in Maignan, Ferrell & Hult, 1999, p. 11) who was one of the first to have claimed that business people are obliged to create policies in respect to societal objectives and values. Since then the concept of CSR has gone a long way, to become a strategic tool for managers, who understood that engaging in CSR activities that customers find important can positively influence their attitudes towards the company. (McWilliams, Siegel & Wright, 2006)
Over the last few decades, CSR has been gaining more attention from the practitioners as well as academics, who, nevertheless, up till this day, have not agreed upon one unified
18 definition of CSR. In fact, in 2008 Dahlsrud conducted a meta analysis of multiple CSR related studies with a goal of finding out a definition of CSR that is the most frequently used and the most representable. In his study, Dahlsrud found that 37 definitions, all of which were related to each other to some extent, are being used by academics. From these definitions, the one that has been mentioned the most frequently is the following: CSR is "a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis". (Commission of the European Communities, 2001, in Dahlsrud, 2008, p. 7).
The concept of CC does not have such an extensive body of academic literature as CSR, as CC has only been invented by business practitioners in the 90s. One of the earliest
conceptualization efforts of CC, by Maignan, Ferrell & Hult (1999) defined Corporate
Citizenship as "the activities and organizational processes adopted by businesses to meet their social needs". (Maignan, Ferrell & Hult, 1999, p.456). However, the problem of this and all other subsequent definitions of CC is that they fail to properly differentiate CC from CSR. Having said that, many authors use these two constructs interchangeably and even Valor (2005) who conducted a study aiming at finding out the differences and similarities between CC and CSR, had to confirm that theoretically the differences are few. On the other hand, while practically CSR has to do mainly with the management of externalities, CC is more extreme, proactive and going beyond the management of externalities and into " understanding and managing company’s wider influences of the society for the benefit of the company and the society as a whole" (Andriof & Marsden, 1999, in Valor, 2005, p. 196)
Nevertheless, though for the purpose of this research, we will measure CC and not CSR, the scope of the literature review is not limited to CC literature only, because as already
19 mentioned, the differences between CC and CSR are too few. Moreover, in this research CC will be measured with a measure developed by Maignan & Ferrel (2000) who based it on the concept of CC developed by Carroll (1998) in "The Four Faces of Corporate Citizenship". In the latter paper, Carroll defined CC in terms of 4 types of responsibilities, which are "Economic, Legal, Ethical and Philanthropic". (Carroll, 1998) However, these 4 types of responsibilities
correspond completely with the 4 main corporate social responsibilities that Carroll conceptualized back in 1979 and then improved upon in 1991. This once again proves how closely related are the concepts of CC and CSR.
Consequently, for the purposes of this study and in accordance with Maignan and Ferrel (2000) and Carroll (1998) we will define CC in terms of the extent to which a business meets these four types of responsibilities:
Economic responsibilities, which "include the obligations for businesses to maintain economic growth, and to meet consumption needs. " (Maignan & Ferrel, 2000, p. 284). Legal responsibilities, which " imply that businesses must fulfill their economic mission
within the framework of legal requirements. " (Maignan & Ferrel, 2000, p. 284). Ethical responsibilities, which "require that businesses abide by moral rules defining
appropriate behaviors in society. " (Maignan & Ferrel, 2000, p. 284).
Discretionary responsibilities, which "include those business activities that are not mandated, not required by law, and not expected of businesses in an ethical sense." (Maignan & Ferrel, 2000, p.284)
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2.3.1. The Effects of Corporate Citizenship
Recently, corporate citizenship has become a more significant construct for academics and practitioners, as more studies linking CC activities with various performance variables have been published. For example, the importance of CC for the management is emphasized by the fact that nearly 70% of all enterprises listed in the Spanish Stock Exchange had some
information regarding CC or CSR on their web pages. (Capriotti & Moreno, 2007). This is related to another study, which discovered that publishing reports about the superior CSR performance in comparison to that of the competitors, allows a firm to reduce the costs of its equity capital. (Dhaliwal, et. al. 2011)
In addition to this, Gardberg and Fombruin argue that CC activities are strategic investments "that can create intangible assets that help companies overcome nationalistic barriers, facilitate globalization and outcompete local rivals". (Gardberg & Fombrun, 2006, p.329) In support to this, even back in 1997 Mullen claimed that charitable giving to the society by the corporation can result in significant added value to the corporation from the communities helped, while Maignan and Ferrell (2001) added that CC could be used to market the firm to the employees and customers. In support of this claim Swaen and Maignan (2003) elaborated about the antecedents and consequences of CC. Among the antecedents, stakeholder pressures,
company's market orientation and manager's values and ideas were mentioned. These and other antecedents shape the face of CC of a company, which in turn has numerous positive effects on the company (e.g. Increased performance), its employees (e.g. Increased satisfaction and commitment) and consumers (e.g. Increased loyalty). (Swaen & Maignan, 2003; Maignan, Ferrell & Hult, 1999) On the other hand, while CSR was identified as relating to firm market
21 value through the mediator of customer satisfaction (Luo & Bhattacharya, 2006), McWilliams & Siegel (2000) found no direct effect of CSR on firm financial performance,
To sum up, even though more research on the consequences of CC needs to be done before definite conclusions about the importance of CC can be made, we already see that there is a growing interest in this field. Moreover, one of the directions which is interesting, though not yet touched upon by the academia, is the defining of the relationship between Corporate
Citizenship and Organizational Citizenship Behavior. Since establishing this relationship is the goal of this research, a large contribution to the current body of literature is expected.
2.3.2. Corporate Citizenship Relation to Job Satisfaction
To start with, past literature suggests that each type of Corporate Citizenship activities could be related to Job Satisfaction, which consequently would suggest that CC is indirectly related to OCB through Job Satisfaction. The following is the literature in support of the
relationship between each of the 4 types of Corporate Citizenship activities and Job Satisfaction, succeeded by relevant hypotheses.
Firstly, Economic CC is related to JS, because firm performance (Antoncic & Antoncic, 2011; Bagozzi, 1980; Sheridan & Slocum 1975) as well as individual job performance
(Christen, Iyer & Soberman; 2006) have been identified as antecedents of Job Satisfaction. In addition to this, employee job involvement, task autonomy and innovativeness required were all identified as relating to employee job satisfaction. (Bauer, 2004; Becherer, Morgan & Richard 1982; Dubinsky & Skinner 1984) Lastly, role clarity has been identified to be an antecedent of JS as well. (Kohli, 1985) These factors relate strongly to what is the essence of Economic CC (employee productivity and firm profitability (Maignan & Ferrel, 2000)) and thus, support the
22 relationship between Economic Corporate Citizenship and Job Satisfaction. Hence, our next hypothesis:
H3a. Economic Corporate Citizenship has a direct relationship with Job Satisfaction.
Further, Legal CC relates to Job Satisfaction, because it is confirmed that the nature of the interaction between the management and the employees significantly affects employees' job satisfaction. (Jaworski & Kohli, 1991) Moreover, arbitrary punishment has been negatively related to job satisfaction. (Schul, Remington, & Beri 1990) Furthermore, even back in the 70s, pay and promotion opportunities have been identified as antecedents of Job Satisfaction by Churchill, Ford, and Walker, (1974). These findings were later replicated by Kosteas (2010) who claimed that employees were more satisfied with the job if they had received a promotion in the last two years or even if they were expecting to receive one in the upcoming two years. Similar results were found in regard to performance pay, where employees expressed more job
satisfaction when they were getting paid per performance rather than hourly, as that seemed to be more fair in comparison to other employees. (Cornelissen, Heywood & Jirjahn, 2011)
All of these sources relate to the parts of the Legal CC measure, which have to do with whether or not managers comply with the law and whether or not internal policies to reduce pay and promotion discrimination are in place. (Maignan and Ferrel, 2000) As a result, the literature provides enough support to present the following hypothesis:
H3b. Legal Corporate Citizenship has a direct relationship with Job Satisfaction.
Thirdly, we argue that there is a relationship between Ethical Corporate Citizenship and Job Satisfaction. To start with, Ethical CC has to do with being a trustworthy organization,
23 having transparent decision making procedures and having promises and deliveries aligned. (Maignan and Ferrel, 2000) For example, regarding the latter point, Williams and Hazer, (1986) argue that Job Satisfaction has been higher for those individuals for whom pre-enrollment
expectations were met. Furthermore, interaction with colleagues and supervisors relate positively to Job Satisfaction. (Becherer, Morgan and Richard, 1982) This point speaks directly to the measure of Ethical CC, which suggests that a good corporate ethical citizen is a firm which ensures that employees and supervisors treat each other fairly. (Maignan and Ferrel, 2000) In response to this, multiple authors suggest that the presence of corporate ethical values positively affects employee Job Satisfaction. (Valentine, et. al., 2011; Wang & Hsieh, 2012; Goldman & Tabak, 2010) As a result, enough support is found for our following hypothesis:
H3c. Ethical Corporate Citizenship has a direct relationship with Job Satisfaction.
Lastly, it is argued that Discretional Corporate Citizenship relates to Job Satisfaction, because employees are more satisfied with their jobs if they are able to balance work and personal life, which is partly what Discretionary CC is all about. (Baptiste, 2007; Maignan and Ferrel, 2000) In addition to this Anik et. al. (2013) have determined that pro-social employee bonuses (aiding a charity rather than giving monetary bonuses to employees) lead to increased employee satisfaction. The last hypothesis regarding CC and JS relationship is, thus, the following:
H3d. Discretionary Corporate Citizenship has a direct relationship with Job Satisfaction.
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2.3.3. Corporate Citizenship Relation to Organizational Identification
Next, the literature in support of the relationship between each of the 4 types of Corporate Citizenship activities and Organizational Identification will be presented.
Firstly, it is argued that Economic CC has a direct relationship with OI, because
organizational performance (perceived market and financial performance) has been identified as a direct antecedent of Organizational Identification. (Carmeli, Gilat & Waldman, 2007)
Moreover, firm prestige, which often results from superior firm performance, has been
associated with OI as well, thus aiding an extra theoretical support for our following hypothesis. (Smidts, Pruyn & Van Riel, 2001)
H4a. Economic Corporate Citizenship has a direct relationship with Organizational Identification.
Secondly, the research proposes that Legal Corporate Citizenship has a direct relationship with OI. This proposition is based on the work of Kreiner and Ashforth (2004) who suggest that individualism at work is negatively related to OI, whereas equality (in terms of pay, promotion and other benefits) could be positively related to OI. This relates strongly to the essence of Legal Corporate Citizenship as defined by Maignan and Ferrel, (2000) who claim that a good legal citizen must ensure that no pay, promotion or other discrimination is taking place at work. Lastly, Lipponen et.al. (2004), claim that organizational justice relates positively to OI. All of these studies lend support to the following hypothesis.
H4b. Legal Corporate Citizenship has a direct relationship with Organizational Identification.
Thirdly, it is expected that Ethical Corporate Citizenship will prove to be related to OI. Such an expectation is based upon the studies of Carmeli, Gilat and Waldman (2007) and, Mael
25 and Ashforth (1992), both of which have determined that organizational prestige and
organizational distinctiveness lead to organizational identification. As already mentioned, a good ethical citizen, represents a firm that has a good, trustworthy reputation, operates transparently and is fair towards its customers and employees. (Maignan & Ferrel, 2000) In support of this, Edwards and Cable (2009) have found out that employee-supervisor trust relates positively to OI, while DeConinck (2010) and Walumbwa et. al. (2011) suggest that the ethical climate in an organization is directly related to the employee's propensity to identify with an organization. Hence, the following hypothesis:
H4c. Ethical Corporate Citizenship has a direct relationship with Organizational Identification.
Lastly, it is suggested that Discretionary Citizenship is directly related to Organizational Identification. Such an assumption is based on the work of Mael and Ashforth (1992) who claim that organizational distinctiveness relates to OI. As indicated by Maignan and Ferrel (2000), discretionary CC is about companies going above and beyond the expectations of the society and includes such activities as partnerships with schools, charitable giving and encouraging work-life balance, all of which could possibly distinguish one firm from the others in the area. Moreover, Kim et. al. (2010) argues that firm's charitable and society aiding activities positively influence employees' propensity to identify with the firm. Similar results were discovered by other
researchers as well, among which Walumbwa et. al. (2011). Therefore, we suggest the following hypothesis:
H4d. Discretionary Corporate Citizenship has a direct relationship with Organizational Identification.
26
2.3.4. Corporate Citizenship Relation to Organizational Citizenship Behavior
As has already been indicated, the main goal of this study is to prove a direct relationship between 4 types of CC activities (Economic, Legal, Ethical and Discretionary) and an aggregated OCB. (Maignan and Ferrel, 2000) This is important for the academia, because while theoretical indirect links between CC and OCB can be expected, based on the available literature that was previously presented in this study, it is still unclear whether the link between CC and OCB could be so strong as to exist even without any mediators. This section is further dedicated to providing the literature in support of the main hypotheses, that direct relationships exist between each type of CC activities and OCB.
To start with, because this sort of question is very new, little literature support was found for the development of the main hypotheses. Nevertheless, it seems logical to expect the CC to be an antecedent of the OCB, because of how theoretically similar both constructs are. As previously indicated, OCB refers to voluntary employee behaviors that boost firm performance (Organ, 1997), while CC can be described as voluntary corporate activities that please and motivate the stakeholders. (Maignan, Ferrell & Hult, 1999)
In addition to this, though the present study is a completely new addition to the academia, Rupp et. al., (2006) suggest that organizational justice could be used to support links between CSR and OCB. They claim that organizational justice leads to citizenship behavior and this proposition is supported by (Colquitt, 2001; Moorman, 1991; Farh, Earley & Lin, 1997). At the same time, Rupp et. al., (2006) hypothesize that if organizational justice leads to OCB, the same effects could be attributable to CSR as well. Their reasoning goes to suggest that in essence, CSR and organizational justice are similar constructs, as CSR is about justice towards third parties. (Rupp et. al., 2006) In accordance to this line of reasoning, we could also expect that overall CC
27 would be directly related to OCB. Next, links between each type of CC and the aggregated OCB will be explained together with related hypotheses.
To begin with the relationship between Economic CC and aggregated OCB, it is clear that the link is possible. As already indicated, Economic Corporate Citizenship has to do with maintaining corporate profitability. (Maignan, Ferrel & Hult, 1999) In accordance with the measure of Economic CC, maintaining of the economic performance depends on a corporation's ability to set up long-term business strategies and monitor the productivity of the employees (Maignan & Ferrel, 2000) One of the ways that employee productivity could be monitored is through task and emotional support, as well as high-performance human resource practices. The latter two factors are the antecedents of OCB as identified by Sun, Aryee and Law (2007). In addition to this, in another study transactional leadership was identified as a direct antecedent of OCB. Transactional leadership, is a style of leadership aiming at stimulating employee effort with contingent rewards (thus influencing employee and subsequently firm performance). (Podsakoff et. al., 1990) Together, these studies prove that it is reasonable to expect that Economic CC can have a direct relationship with OCB. Thus, it is hypothesized that:
H5a. Economic Corporate Citizenship has a direct relationship with Organizational Citizenship Behavior.
Secondly, we argue that Legal CC has a direct relationship with OCB, because
distributive justice has been empirically determined to be a direct antecedent of Organizational Citizenship Behavior and the former variable is closely related to Legal CC. (Colquitt, et. al., 2013; Farh, Earley & Lin, 1997) Distributive justice refers to the "degree to which rewards are allocated in an equitable manner" (Niehoff & Moorman, 1993, p. 531) This definition is, thus, strongly related to Maignan and Ferrel's (2000) definition of Legal CC, where it is described as
28 the responsibility of a business to operate within the legal framework and thus, ensure that no discrimination, in terms of hiring, pay and/or promotion is taking place. In addition to this, Nadiri and Tanova (2010), argue that employee perceptions of "fairness of personal outcomes" is a strong predictor of employee's propensity to engage in OCB. (Nadiri &Tanova, 2010, p.33) As a result, we can conclude with our next hypothesis:
H5b. Legal Corporate Citizenship has a direct relationship with Organizational Citizenship Behavior.
Thirdly, Ethical CC is argued to have a direct relationship with OCB, because procedural justice has been identified as an antecedent of OCB. (Walumbwa, Hartnell & Oke, 2010;
Moorman, Niehoff & Organ, 1993; Moorman, Blakely & Niehoff, 1998) Procedural justice is the degree to which employees perceive that the decisions regarding allocations of rewards have been made in accordance to fair methods and guidelines. (Niehoff and Moorman, 1993) This definition once again fits nicely with the definition of Ethical CC, which claims that businesses should operate in accordance with the moral rules. (Maignan and Ferrel, 2000)
The difference between Legal CC and Ethical CC, is that Ethical citizenship activities are not enforced by law (like Legal CC activities are). Rather, businesses operate ethically in need, to fulfill society's expectations. A firm is considered to be an ethical citizen if it has a reputation of being trustworthy and/or if it has a safe way for employees to report any delinquency at work, in terms of management or colleagues. (Maignan and Ferrel, 2000) This relates to the findings of Nadiri &Tanova (2010), who identified fair firm procedures to be an antecedent of OCB. To sum up, it seems that there is substantial evidence to base our third hypothesis on:
H5c. Ethical Corporate Citizenship has a direct relationship with Organizational Citizenship Behavior.
29 Lastly, we argue that Discretionary CC has a direct relationship with OCB. As already indicated, Discretionary CC comprises the activities that are above and beyond the requirements or even the expectations of the society. (Maignan and Ferrel, 2000) In this sense, Discretionary CC is closely related to OCB, which also comprises the activities of employees above and beyond that what is asked and expected from them. (Organ, 1997) Therefore, even though there is little literature that could back this reasoning up, we would argue that Discretionary CC will lead directly to OCB, because of reciprocity. Eisenberger et. al. (2002) have determined that reciprocity, which is defined as a feeling of obligation to respond favorably to a received favor, mediates the relationship between perceived organizational support and OCB. As a result, since Discretionary CC also provides support as well as enabling behavior, we argue the following:
H5d. Discretionary Corporate Citizenship has a direct relationship with Organizational Citizenship Behavior.
2.3.5. Job Satisfaction relation to Organizational Identification
Lastly, regarding both of the mediators, there is a substantive amount of literature suggesting their interconnectedness. For example, a study by Feather and Rauter (2004) found that JS and OI were not only significantly (p<0.01) but also strongly correlated, at an effect size of.54. Similar strong correlations have also been found by Smidts, Pruyn, Van Riel (2001) and Punjaisri and Wilson (2011). Moreover, multiple studies determined JS to be an antecedent of OI (Mael & Ashforth, 1992; Kreiner & Ashforth, 2004; Kak Yoon, 2011) In addition to this, Kak Yoon (2011) not only found that JS is related to OI, but also discovered that while OI is directly predictive of OCB, JS is not (except for indirect relation though OI). For these reasons it is safe to expect that similar or even stronger correlations between JS and OI might result from the current data analysis.
30
2.4. Conceptual Model
The theoretical framework and the hypotheses that have been developed and discussed above are visualized in the figure 1.
31
3. Research methodology
3.1. Introduction
The purpose of the research methodology chapter is to identify empirical research goals, research methodology, method of data collection and sampling techniques.
3.2. Empirical Research Goals
The purpose of the empirical research is to gather information, which in sum with the literature review conducted, will provide an answer to the research question, which is the following: "How does the organization’s Corporate Citizenship activities affect employees' propensity to engage in Organizational Citizenship Behavior? Do different types of Corporate Citizenship activities affect it differently?"
In accordance with the latter, the following empirical research goals have been
established. Firstly, a thorough questionnaire will be generated, which will be distributed within the selected research sample. Secondly, detailed analysis of the gathered survey data will be carried out in order to determine whether the hypotheses were proven right and subsequently, whether the main research question was answered. Lastly, the results of the survey and its' analysis will be presented in the analysis chapter of this study.
3.3. Data Collection Method
For the purposes of this research, quantitative data collection method will be used, in a form of a survey. As explained by Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2012), surveys are most useful for when there is a need to gather information from a large number of participants at a time and cost effective manner. In this study, an online survey will be developed using the
32 Qualtrics survey design engine, provided by the University of Amsterdam. In order to be able to successfully test the research hypotheses a minimum of 100 full survey responses will be needed.
The survey is meant to gather data on four variables present in the conceptual model: Corporate Citizenship, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Job Satisfaction and Organizational Identification. The copy of the survey used can be found in appendix A.
Corporate Citizenship
The measure for Corporate Citizenship was borrowed from Maignan and Ferrell (2000). It consists of 4 parts already described in the literature review (Economic, Legal, Ethical and Discretionary Corporate Citizenship activities) and has been initially developed by Carroll (1998; 1979). Though the measurement scale was not specified in the paper, in this study a 5 point Likert scale was used, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Organizational Identification
The measures for organizational Citizenship Behavior and Organizational Identification were borrowed from Van Dick, et.al. (2006), which was intended to measure the link between the latter two variables, thus ensuring that the two measures are compatible. The latter study applied a 6 point measurement scale, ranging from 1 (not at all correct) to 6 (totally correct). Nevertheless, in an attempt to reduce participant confusion, it was decided to keep the survey scales consistent between all measures. Therefore, a 5 point Likert scale was used, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
33
Job Satisfaction
The measure for Job Satisfaction was borrowed from the study by Baptiste (2008). Similarly to the other measures a 5 point Likert scale was used, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
Control Variables
As is suggested by a variety of past studies, when collecting the data through the survey the present study will control for gender, age, level of education and length of employment. (van Dick, et.al., 2006; Baptiste, 2008; Punjaisri & Wilson, 2011). In addition to this, since the survey will be aimed at employees and because the context of the company might affect employee perceptions of Corporate Citizenship and other variables, it is considered of relevance to also control for the size of the company, the industry that it operates in, the name of the company and the employment contract (part time vs. full time).
Patterson, Warr and West (2004) suggest that company productivity is strongly affected by organizational climate, which is not only affected by the size of the company or the industry that it operates in, but also varies per company. For this reason the present study will control for the company effects, by requiring participants to fill in the name of the company they work at. Additionally, employees might react differently to the organizational climate depending on whether they were employed on a full time or part time basis. This is in accordance with Inoue, et. al. (2010) who found that employment contract (part time vs. full time) and size of the company have an effect on employee mental health.
Lastly, the survey is intended for the employees in the Netherlands. However, since the Netherlands and especially Amsterdam is very international, the research will also control for the
34 nationality to see if the Dutch are influenced by the Corporate Citizenship activities in any ways differently from the internationals working in the Netherlands. Similarly, the study will control for the country of residence. This will be done to solve the limitation of the survey distribution.
As will be elaborated more in the following section, the survey will be distributed mainly through LinkedIn and Facebook groups. However, even though the survey is meant to be
distributed solely to groups aimed at Dutch or the expats in the Netherlands, it is nevertheless expected that some international people might fill in the survey as well. For example, it could be done by a Dutch person who moved to work in the USA or a German who worked in Amsterdam for a year and then moved back to Germany, while still belonging to "Amsterdam professionals" LinkedIn groups. As a result, to reduce this survey distribution limitation, the influence of the country of residence on the answers will be tested as well.
3.4. Sampling
In this study two types of non-probability sampling will be used: self selection and snowball sampling techniques. In the former case, surveys will be posted on selected 50
LinkedIn groups (50 is the maximum number of a groups that one can be a part of on LinkedIn) and 20 Facebook groups. Though there is no limit for the number of groups that one can belong to on Facebook, it was decided to focus on LinkedIn more as it is a professional network, thus it can be expected that LinkedIn users will be more interested in the survey, as well as more honest when answering the questions. Moreover, there were considerably more present survey' relevant groups on LinkedIn than on Facebook.
As was already mentioned, for the purposes of this study it was decided to post the survey on groups that were likely to have an employed member base and were meant for Dutch or international professionals residing in the Netherlands. As a result, groups such as
35 "Amsterdam Business Network", "Amsterdam Professionals", "Marketing Professionals
Netherlands" and similar, were chosen from LinkedIn and groups such as "Expats in
Amsterdam", "Werk in Nederland", "Young Expats in Netherlands" and similar, were chosen for Facebook.
Regarding the second type of sampling - snowball sampling, the personal network of the researcher will be used to distribute the survey. Firstly, the survey will be distributed to friends and work colleagues who live and work in the Netherlands. The survey will be distributed through email, Facebook and LinkedIn, depending on the type of connection that the researcher has with the participant. In the message with the initial survey link, it will also be asked of the participant to share the survey with his/her friends or colleagues (the ones that are currently employed and preferably living in the Netherlands).
To sum up, these sampling techniques were chosen, because of access, financial and time barriers. Therefore, even though social media might not be the best engine for master thesis survey distribution in general, as it is hard to ensure the reliability of the data collected, we would argue that it suits the needs of this study perfectly. In particular, the study requires a wide variety of participants, especially in terms of different Corporate Citizenship levels (a variety of employees from different firms needed). The self selection sampling technique can fit this requirement perfectly, because having posted the survey on multiple groups on LinkedIn and Facebook we can expect to receive answers from participants of various backgrounds and from various companies, while this would not be the case if the survey was to be distributed to a number of selected firms.
36
4. Data Analysis
4.1. Descriptive Statistics
4.1.1. Sample Statistics
Firstly, to get a grasp of the sample reached, frequencies analysis has been executed. It showed that from 284 participants who opened the online survey only 164 filled it in completely (57.7%). Such total survey, fill-in rate can be explained by the fact that the questionnaire was rather long, as answers were required for the total of 50 items. Of these, 42 were measured on 5 point Likert scale while the other 8 were controls and required a specific answer to be typed in. Therefore, and keeping in mind that no incentives were offered and that the survey was mostly distributed through online social networks, a total survey fill-in rate of 57.4% can be considered relatively high. In addition to this, while only 164 people completely filled in the survey, there were significantly more participants who did not leave the survey completely blank, but filled it half way through or more. Therefore, together with those who filled it in completely, there were 238 usable cases, all of which will be included in the further data analysis. Furthermore,
throughout the data analysis process pairwise deletion method of missing data handling will be applied, in order to maximize the number of cases used for the analysis without compromising the results.
Of these 238 cases, there were slightly more female than male participants (55.9% against 44.1%). Furthermore, participants' ages ranged from 18 to 69, with a mean of 31 and a median of 27. Most of the participants had some level of higher education, with 42.3% having a Bachelor and 41.5% Master's degree as their highest level of education. Further, while only 37% of the participants had Dutch nationality, almost twice more, 72.2% of the participants were
37 currently residing in the Netherlands. Lastly, the majority of the participants were employed full time (74%), worked in large organizations of more than 250 employees (48.3%), but were mostly only employed there for less than 1 year (42.6%).
To sum up, the sample reached by the survey is representative of highly educated
professionals in their early 30ies, who work full time in large companies, in the Netherlands and are online prone, that is, they are active members of one or more of LinkedIn and/or Facebook groups used for survey distribution. As for survey selection bias, frequencies analyses were made separately for the group of respondents that filled the survey in completely (N=164) versus the group that did it only partially (N=74). The analyses showed some demographic differences between the two groups, such as for example, that the partial fill-in group respondents more commonly had bachelor rather than master's degree as their highest level of education (52.1% to 31%), whereas the complete fill-in group had it exactly the other way around (38% had bachelor while 46% had a master's degree). In addition to this, complete fill-in group had a larger
proportion of Dutch nationals (42.3% compared to 25%) and were much more likely to be employed at the same organization for longer than 2 years (38.9% compared to 22.5%). Lastly, complete fill-in group respondents were less often than partial fill-in group employed in small firms under 50 employees (29.3% compared to 43.5%).
To sum up, it seems that the group of respondents that filled in the survey only partially was a bit less educated, had a lower proportion of Dutch nationals and were employed in smaller firms and for shorter periods of time, at the time of the survey. The data is, thus, affected by a selection bias as more educated professionals were more likely than others, to fill in the survey, which is an issue that will further be addressed in the discussion chapter. Full sample statistics for overall, complete-fill in and partial fill-in groups can be seen in table 1 below.
38 Overall Fully filled-in Partially filled-in
Total N=238 N=164 N=74
Freq. % Freq. % Freq. %
Gender
Male 44.1% 45.7% 40.5%
Female 55.9% 54.3% 59.5%
Age average 31 32 30
Education
High-school (middelbare school) 7.6% 8.5% 5.6%
Practical School (MBO) 2.9% 2.4% 4.2%
Bachelor (HBO or WO) 42.3% 38.0% 52.1%
Master 41.4% 46.0% 31.0%
Higher than Master 5.5% 4.9% 7.0%
Dutch respondents 37.0% 42.3% 25.0%
Residing in the Netherlands 72.2% 71.8% 73.2%
Working Full time 74.0% 75.5% 70.3%
Length of Employment
less than 1 year 42.6% 40.8% 50.0%
1 to less than 2 years 21.5% 20.1% 27.5%
2 to less than 5 years 19.6% 20.7% 15.0%
5 to less than 10 years 7.8% 9.1% 2.5%
10 years or more 8.3% 9.1% 5.0%
Number of employees in the firm
1 to 10 12.3% 9.8% 23.0%
11 to 50 19.7% 19.5% 20.5%
51 to 100 8.9% 9.1% 7.7%
101 to 250 10.8% 12.2% 5.1%
More than 250 48.3% 49.4% 43.4%
39
4.1.2. Recoding of Counter Indicative Items
There were a total of three counter indicative items in the data set. These were the following: OI4 and OI5 (both from the Organizational Identification scale), and OCB5
(Organizational Citizenship Behavior scale). These 3 items were measured using a 5 point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). After the recoding, the scale was flipped so that 5 received a value of 1 and consequently 1 received a value of 5, for these three items.
4.1.3. Normality
Next, a data distribution normality analysis has been executed in terms of computing skewness values for each of the items in the data set. These were computed using frequencies analysis and in 6 out of 50 cases skewness was out of the accepted range of -1 to +1, as
suggested by Morgan, et. al. (2004). As regarding the other data distribution normality test, the kurtosis value, it was decided not to test for it, because it has been suggested by Morgan, et. al. (2004) that differently from skewness, kurtosis doesn't normally affect the results of statistical analysis and thus, doesn't have to be reported. This is in agreement with DeCarlo (1997) who writes that kurtosis is usually left out of research articles, because its role is not widely recognized.
Further, to normalize the skewness, data transformations using log functions were attempted. However, in all 6 cases, log transformations ended up flipping the scale (a value of 5 received a value of 1 and so on), thus ruining those items. For this reason, log transformation was rejected as a method of data normalization. Subsequently, it was attempted to normalize the data by looking for outliers within the item, using Z score measure. This method identified existing
40 outliers in 2 items and after removing 5 cases (with a value of 1) from the item LCC1 and 1 case (with a value of 1) from the item OCB1, the skewness of these 2 items was improved: LCC1 (skewness improved from -1.456 to -.858); OCB1 (skewness improved from -1.048 to -.831). However, even after this last analysis, 4 more non normally distributed items remained in the data set. On the up note, from these 4 items, 2 items were from the control variables and none of the 4 remaining non normalized items had a skewness higher than 1.578 (Country of residence control). In addition to this, it is suggested by Field (2009) that skewness can be larger than +/-1 for samples larger than 200, which is the case here. Therefore, in line with Field (2009) and because none of the attempted normalization methods helped, we are going to further ignore that 4 (out of 50) items are not normally distributed.
4.1.4. Scale Means and Reliability Testing
Subsequently, scale means were computed and scale reliability analysis, measuring for Cronbach alpha, was conducted. In total, there are seven scales in the data set: 4 Independent Variable (IV) scales (ECC, LCC, ETCC and DCC), 1 Dependent Variable (DV) scale (OCB) and 2 mediator scales (JS and OI). Regarding scale reliability, 4 of the scales (LCC, ETCC, JS and OI) had a very good Cronbach alpha of more than 0.7 suggesting a good scale reliability. Two other scales (DCC and OCB) had Cronbach alphas of .690 and .673, respectively, indicating a weaker, but still good scale reliability. Moreover, scale reliability for OCB was improved to .701 by deleting one of the items (the counter indicative item OCB5). Lastly, scale reliability for ECC (Economic Corporate Citizenship) was extremely low at .527. Unfortunately, this issue could not be resolved by deleting any of the items in this small, 4 item scale. Therefore, and because all 4 IV scales were always used together by multiple authors over the last two decades, it was
41 M e a n St d . D e vi a ti o n 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 1 G e n d e r 1 .5 6 .4 9 8 1 2 A g e 2 .8 9 1 .0 6 4-. 1 8 0 ** 1 3 N a ti o n a li ty 4 .6 7 3 .7 3 2 .1 1 7 -. 0 3 2 1 4 R e s id e n c e c o u n tr y 1 .7 8 1 .4 4 7 .0 8 8 .1 6 6 * .4 2 9 ** 1 5 E d u c a ti o n 3 .3 4 .9 2 8 -. 1 1 3.2 2 5 ** .0 2 0 .1 7 7 ** 1 6 F u ll /P a rt ti m e 1 .2 6 .4 4 0 .1 8 7 ** -. 1 2 1 -. 0 9 6-. 1 7 8 ** -. 2 0 4 ** 1 7 L e n g th o f e m p lo y m e n t 1 .4 1 .4 2 1 -. 0 7 4.5 4 6 ** -. 0 9 6 .0 5 4 .1 6 9 * -. 1 4 5 * 1 8 F ir m s iz e 3 .6 3 1 .5 3 1 -. 0 1 9-. 1 5 2 * .0 0 8 -. 0 8 2 .0 0 3 -. 0 5 5 -. 0 5 7 1 9 E C C m e a n 3 .6 4 .6 5 3 -. 0 4 2 -. 0 7 4.2 0 7 ** -. 0 2 9 -. 0 8 2 -. 0 8 5 -. 1 0 1.2 4 8 ** 1 .5 2 7 10 L C C m e a n 3 .9 0 .8 3 9 -. 0 7 5 .0 7 2 -. 0 3 3 -. 1 1 0 .0 7 4 -. 1 0 4 -. 0 3 7.2 9 6 ** .4 2 4 ** 1 .7 7 9 11 E TC C m e a n 3 .8 4 .7 1 2 -. 0 0 1 .0 7 2 .0 2 4 -. 0 2 7 .1 1 4 -. 0 9 0 -. 0 1 7.2 4 7 ** .4 4 9 ** .7 0 0 ** 1 .7 8 7 12 D C C m e a n 3 .5 8 .7 2 2 -. 0 9 9 .0 0 1 -. 0 9 9 -. 1 8 5 * .0 5 0 -. 1 2 3 -. 0 6 2 .1 9 5 * .3 2 4 ** .5 8 5 ** .6 3 7 ** 1 .6 9 0 13 JS m e a n 3 .5 9 .8 3 6 -. 0 7 0 .0 5 5 -. 0 0 6 .0 7 3 .0 9 9-. 1 8 2 * .0 4 1 -. 0 7 3.2 4 9 ** .5 5 4 ** .5 2 1 ** .6 0 3 ** 1 .8 4 1 14 O I m e a n 3 .7 4 .7 9 4 -. 1 1 2 .1 4 7 -. 0 0 5 -. 0 3 0 .1 2 8-. 1 8 8 * .0 8 8 -. 1 2 0.2 3 5 ** .4 8 1 ** .5 0 6 ** .5 3 9 ** .7 3 4 ** 1 .7 0 1 15 O C B m e a n 3 .8 6 .4 6 5 .0 1 0.2 1 4 ** .0 0 2 -. 0 6 4 .0 4 9 -. 1 1 8.2 0 2 ** -. 1 1 4.2 0 5 ** .2 2 6 ** .3 9 8 ** .4 1 9 ** .4 8 3 ** .5 7 6 ** 1 C o rr e la ti o n s * * . C o r r e la ti o n i s s ig n if ic a n t a t th e 0 .0 1 l e v e l (2 -t a il e d ). * . C o r r e la ti o n i s s ig n if ic a n t a t th e 0 .0 5 l e v e l (2 -t a il e d ).
be seen in the table 2 below.
