Organizational Citizenship Behavior & work motivation in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname

(1)

1

Lim A Po Institute for Social Studies – Maastricht School of Management MBA VI – Management & Finance

2009 - 2011

Organizational Citizenship Behavior & work motivation in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname

By: Cheryl Raghoebarsing Suriname, 2011

(2)

2 Executive summary

The reason for to this study was mainly because reality shows that employees in the granite mining industry are not always motivated due to several facts, which still needed to be examined. This lack of motivation sometimes leads to poor performance having its effects on the organization productivity. This behavior also results in employees not staying within in the organization for a long period.

OCB has a very strong link with individual and organizational performance, impacts the effectiveness and efficiency of workers and organizations and therefore contributes to the overall productivity of the organization, without any extra expenses. According to researches an individual‟s motivation can be related to his or her organizational citizenship behavior and therefore a significant relationship were expected between employee OCB‟s and their sources of motivation.

Therefore the objective of this study was to measure to what extent organizational citizenship behavior influences work motivation in the granite mining industry in West- Suriname and to know what OCB‟s and sources of motivation can be recognized in this industry. This study tests OCB, using the commonly used OCB variables (altruism, conscientiousness and civic virtue) and sources of motivation, using the Motivation Sources Inventory (Barbuto, 2004).

According to the findings of this study OCB and sources of motivation are present in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname, but the extent to which OCB influences work motivation in this industry is minimum.

Motivation cannot be influenced easily and OCB is unrewarded in terms of physical return, but these factors can help organizations and their workers perform more effectively and efficiently. It is therefore recommended that managers and the organization know what levels of OCB and work motivation are present in order to know how to deal with these factors and how to benefit from them.

(3)

3

First I would like to thank all the participants that participated in the survey and the company for giving me the opportunity. Also my supervisor Geert Heling, Phd and The FHR Lim A Po Institute for Social Studies for sharing knowledge and experience and giving the opportunity for doing this MBA program.

Finally I would like to thank my family and friends for their support and understanding.

Thank you all!!

(6)

6 Glossary

Definitions

P-value The probability that a correlation is one just by chance

Pearson Correlation Coefficient A measure which indicates the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two variables

R-value The extent to which you can guess the value of one variable given a value of the other variable

Abbreviations

MSI Motivation Sources Inventory OCB Organizational Citizenship Behavior

OCBI Organizational Citizenship Behavior directed to Individuals OCBO Organizational Citizenship Behavior directed to Organizations SPSS Statistics Package for Social Science

(7)

7

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1. Research background

Suriname has many natural resources offering a lot of potential for the mining industry which is the largest growing industry in Suriname. The mining industry in Suriname consists of bauxite mining (alumina), crude oil, gold and granite (Artist, 2009). The granite mining industry takes place on a small scale and supplies only the Suriname‟s market.

Granite mining companies are located in the interior of Suriname and employ people from different areas in Suriname, different cultures and social backgrounds. Reality shows that a lot of employees lack motivation due to several reasons and for most mainly the financial reward is important, which sometimes leads to poor performance. This behavior also results in employees not staying within in the organization for a long period. Another issue which occurs in this industry, due to the fact that it is located in the interior of Suriname, is that skilled and educated people rather apply for jobs within the capital of Suriname or near the capital, than companies located in the interior. Basically because of the fact that they would have to stay on the job for a longer period (because of the distance) and the rather primitive living situation with not a lot of recreation activities. That is why the employees in these organizations are on a lower educational level and are mostly trained to perform a certain skill, such as operate a machine.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior has a very strong link with individual and organizational performance, impacts the effectiveness and efficiency of workers and organizations and therefore contributes to the overall productivity of the organization. It helps managers understand the variables affecting OCB, which therefore helps them understand what kind of environment to provide their employees, and also what motivates and satisfies them. Podsakoff‟s and MacKenzie‟s (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, &

Scott, 1997) empirical findings found strong support for the hypothesis that OCB is related to organizational performance.

(8)

8 Although it has a positive influence on organizational performance, OCB is unrewarded in terms of physical return, but it might be rewarded with appreciation. Also in the management research literature the impact of OCB is found on organizational effectiveness (Walz & Niehoff, 1996). The literature indicated that managers considered OCB for evaluating performance, pay increases and determining promotions (Podsakoff, Niehoff, & MacKenzie, 1993). Therefore it is expected that employees practicing OCB to have high job satisfaction and job motivation, leading to higher productivity and profitability.

If people in an organization are more likely to engage in OCB than others, the organization is likely to perform even better, without any extra expenses.

“Employees provide organizations with unique human resource capabilities that can create a competitive advantage, and OCB is one type of behavior that may contribute to that advantage.” (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, & Bachrach, 2000, p. 46).

It is therefore necessary for an organization to understand the determinants of OCB and their significance, find ways to benefit from human resources and make sure that the employees contribute to their competitive advantage. Also because of the economic difficulties and fast changes organizations have to cope with nowadays in order to maintain their revenues, increase their performance and have a competitive advantage, OCB can be an important factor that might differentiate their employees from other organizations.

Some research also suggested that an individual‟s motivation can be related to his or her organizational citizenship behavior (Penner, Midili, & Kegelmeyer, 1997); (Tang &

Ibrahim, 1998). Statistics showed a significant relationship between three measures of motivation and organizational citizenship behavior (Tang & Ibrahim, 1998). Other researchers found a significant relationship between sources of motivation and leaders behaviors, a relationship between sources of motivation and leader-used influence tactics, transformational leadership behaviors and follower compliance (Barbuto & Scholl, 1999); (Barbuto, Fritz, & Marx, 2000).

(9)

9 This research also showed that leaders base their perception of followers‟ motives when rating employee organizational citizenship behaviors. Therefore employee sources of motivation are expected to share some relationship with the organizational citizenship behavior that the employee displays. Employees‟ motives may guide their behaviors and therefore also their discretionary non-task behaviors. In some studies motives were used as predictor of OCB, but content theories of work motivation have not been researched, except for the study of Barbuto et al. (Barbuto, Brown, Wheeler, & Wilhite, 2003).

1.2. Research problem, research questions and objectives

OCB‟s might influence organizational effectiveness, because they enhance coworker and managerial productivity, adapts to environmental changes, improves organizations ability to attract and retain the best people and obtain stability of organizational performance and organizational effectiveness by creating social capital (Organ, Podsakoff, & MacKenzie, 2006, pp. 200-202). But OCB might also influence organizational effectiveness by freeing up resources for more productive purposes, reducing the need to use scarce resources and improving the coordination of activities (Organ, Podsakoff, & MacKenzie, 2006).

People should look for greater fulfillments in their careers and improve the quality of their work. Every organization should promote and encourage OCB behavior, which is a key feature in organizational behavior. The concept of OCB is relatively new in Suriname and also for the industry chosen for this research.

Taking the above mentioned into consideration and the fact that employees in this industry sometimes lack work motivation, this study should examine the factors of organizational citizenship behavior that are present and their influence on work motivation. To create a better view of the employees‟ sources of motivation and their display of organizational citizenship behaviors, in order to provide a better environment for the employees and to benefit from the advantages of OCB and work motives.

(10)

10 Therefore the following research problem was developed for this research:

To what extent does organizational citizenship behavior influence work motivation in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname?

Within the several studies on OCB a lot different dimensions have been developed to measure OCB and a lot of theses dimensions overlap each other. Therefore the different forms of organizational citizenship behavior identified from the OCB literature have been reviewed by Podsakoff P. , MacKenzie, Paine, & Bachrach, (2000) to have better insight in the most used dimensions in OCB research. According to the review there are three commonly used dimensions in OCB research which are linked to the OCB dimensions of (Organ D. , 1988), namely altruism, conscientiousness and civic virtue. Since these dimensions are widely used within the OCB literature, these dimensions will be used as a measure for OCB.

The sub-research questions are:

1. What is organizational citizenship behavior?

2. What is work motivation?

3. What forms of organizational citizenship behavior are commonly performed by employees in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname?

4. What sources of work motivation can be recognized in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname?

The objective of this study is to measure to what extent organizational citizenship behavior influences work motivation in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname. To have the better view of the different OCB and work motivation factors, in order for the organization to know what kind of environment to provide their employees and increase the organizations effectiveness and productivity.

(11)

11 The research method will be a quantitative research, where OCB will be measured using the widely used OCB dimensions (altruism, compliance, civic virtue) and the sources of motivation will be measured using the Motivation Sources Inventory (MSI). The data will be gathered from documents, research papers, articles and theory. A field survey will also be conducted in order to measure the variables, using tested questionnaires.

The questionnaires will be distributed among all the employees in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname, since the OCB dimensions and the sources of work motivation will be tested on all the different work-levels within the organization. The results from the questionnaires will be analyzed in SPSS and with the results should be concluded to what extent OCB influences work motivation in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname.

The following figure illustrates the conceptual model for this research

Figure 1.1: Conceptual model of this research Source: developed for this research

Independent variables OCB

•Altruism

•Conscientiousness

•Civic Virtue

Moderating variables

•Age group

•Geographic location

•Job tenure

•education level

•Job category

Dependent variables Motivation

•Intrinsic process motivation

•Instrumental motivation

•Self-concept external motivation

•Self-concept internal motivation

•Goal internalization motivation

(12)

12 1.3. Relevance of the study

The relevance of the study is based on the following factors:

 There is a constant demand for granite products in Suriname and in the region, due to the growth of construction works for sea defenses, houses, roads and bridges and a lot of the countries in the region do not have these natural resources or not the same quality. A lot of these countries, such as Trinidad, Barbados, St Kitts, import aggregate products from Canada, which costs a lot more due to the longer distance for transportation and also a longer delivery time.

 Employees in this industry lack motivation due to several reasons resulting in poor performance and therefore less productivity. The human resources in this industry need a boost. Indentifying if there is OCB and how the OCB factors can be used in this industry is a start and also less costly measure. Creating a work environment with employees contributing to their organization beyond their job responsibilities and contributing to the total effectiveness of the organization.

 There is no research done on this topic in this industry. This research can be used for further research in this area of study.

4.3. Limitation of scope

The major limitation for this research is that it is mainly conducted (field survey) in the interior of Suriname, West-Suriname. The location is chosen because of the fact that the granite mining organization in that area has the largest number of employees, diversified in geographic location (where they live), background, age, educational level. This granite mining organization has the largest production in Suriname and is frequently contracted for large nationwide building projects.

So the research limits itself to this organization, since it not only benefits the organization but also the nation, for continuance of the several- and future projects.

(13)

13 1.5. Chapters content

This research consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 is an introductory chapter where the research problem is introduced and how the research problem will be approached. The second chapter is the literature review which gives a review of existing literature of the subject being researched. The third chapter is the methodology chapter that describes the approach of the study, the strategy and tools used in this research, the sampling methods and the methods of analysis. The fourth chapter describes are the findings of this research, gathered from the data. In the fifth chapter the findings are analyzed and described based on the research model. In the last chapter (chapter 6) the researcher draws conclusions from the findings and analysis and gives recommendations

(14)

14

Chapter 2 Literature review

2.1. Introduction

This chapter describes the existing literature on organizational citizenship behavior and work motivation. It also gives a brief description of the granite mining industry in West- Suriname. The purpose of this chapter is to develop a theoretical framework to analyze this research. The chapter starts with an introduction, given in section 2.1, continuing with a description of the granite mining industry in West-Suriname in section 2.2. Section 2.3 analysis the existing literature on organizational citizenship behavior, followed by an analysis of the existing literature on work motivation in section 2.4. Literature on work motivation in relation to organizational citizenship behavior is analyzed in section 2.5 and closing with a summary of this chapter in section 2.6.

2.2. Granite Mining Industry in West-Suriname

In the granite mining industry in West-Suriname only one organization is operational. In the past there was also a government-owned granite mining company operational in that area, but is not operational now for the several years now. The main reason for the establishment of the granite mining industry was for the construction of the largest sea defense in Suriname, namely the Nickerie Zeedijk. After the construction of the sea defense, the demand for aggregate and boulders kept increasing and the granite mining industry became an integral part of the building industry in Suriname.

Suriname has many natural resources offering a lot of potential for the mining industry which is the largest growing industry in Suriname. The mining industry in Suriname consists of bauxite mining (alumina), crude oil, gold and granite. The granite mining industry takes place on a small scale and supplies only the Suriname‟s market, but is in a growing phase due to several government contracted projects, such as the construction of sea defenses and housing projects. The industry is based on the availability of the natural resources and the ability or knowledge to explore the mining area.

(15)

15 In Suriname there are several locations where granite rock formations can be found, which differ in quality and composition and are not always easy accessible.

For government contracted projects there are standards set which the products used for these projects should meet. According to tests taken in cooperation with the Anton de Kom University of Suriname the granite formation in West-Suriname meets the requirements of the international standards required for civil engineering works, construction work, including asphalt concrete. Several lab tests were taken using the General Stone Tests, existing of the Compressive Strength Tests and the Los Angeles Abrasion Tests that are specified by the American Society of Testing and Materials.

Therefore the granite mining industry in West-Suriname is operational on a higher scale, in terms of production capacity and also employee amount.

Reality shows that employees in this industry area lack work motivation, where several reasons are thought to be the cause of the problem. These reasons are that the majority of the employees are unskilled and have a low education level (mostly visited primary school) and employees are mostly trained to perform a certain task. Another reason is the need for finances, where the job description is a not a main interest and in some cases because the work environment is close to the employees residence. A frequently occurring problem is also that higher educated people do not easily apply for a job if the work location is located in the interior of Suriname, mainly because of the distance and they would have to stay on the job for a longer period. The majority of the population in Suriname lives in the capital city Paramaribo (265.953 people in 2010 – total population 531.170 people)¹.

1 Retrieved from:

http://www.statisticssuriname.org/images/stories/pdf/demografische%20data%202010.pdf

(16)

16 2.3. Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Going back to where it all started, Chester Bernard observed the phenomena of organizational citizenship behavior in the 1930‟s and named it “extra-role behavior”, (Barnard, 1938). Later on (Katz, 1964) used the term “citizenship” to represent the workers that showed “extra-role behaviors”. Employees who show “citizenship behavior”

are valued by their managers, because they make their jobs easier.

The extra time managers obtain, allows them to improve the organizational effectiveness by having more time for managerial issues. In the years thereafter, (Bateman & Organ, 1983) began a large series of articles into the topic of OCB. Extra-role behavior is referred to as innovative and spontaneous behavior, whereas technical performance required by the job, acceptable behavior to management is referred to as in-role behavior (Bateman & Organ, 1983). A basic notion determining the concept of in-role and extra- role behaviors is the idea that an employer can force a certain degree of work out of the employee who needs the job (in-role behavior). On the other hand the organization can encourage the extra-role behaviors that can increase their competitiveness.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior has turned out to be one of the most important concepts in controlling the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization in terms of productivity and quality of the organization. Over the past years researchers have studied and tried to define Organizational Citizenship Behavior, initially created by Dennis Organ and his colleagues (Bateman & Organ, 1983) (Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983) as individual behavior in the workplace, not directly recognized by an organization‟s formal reward system, yet serves to promote the general well-being of the organization. In 1988 conceptualized by Organ 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, meaning that the behavior is not an enforceable requirement, is a matter of personal choice and contributes positively to overall organizational effectiveness.

(17)

17 2.3.1. Types of organizational citizenship behaviors

Organ (1988) provided a multi-dimensional scale of organizational citizenship behavior, containing the dimensions to construct OCB. These dimensions are:

1. Altruism: discretionary behaviors that help an individual with an organizationally relevant task or problem. The individual is voluntarily helping others or preventing the occurrence of work-related problems. Nowadays researchers label the factor

„altruism‟ as the term „helping‟, because critics argued that „altruism‟ implies something about the motive behind the behavior or suggests something like

„selflessness‟ on the part of the actor. Whatever the factor is labeled, the target of the behavior is directed at an individual (Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983).

2. Courtesy: proactive gestures that consider consulting with other workers in the organization before acting, giving advance notice, and passing along information, actions that help prevent problems from occurring.

3. Sportsmanship: the willingness of the employee to tolerate less than ideal circumstances without complaining, not offended when others do not follow their suggestion, willing to sacrifice their personal interest for the good of the work-group.

Empirical research (MacKenzie, Podsakoff, & Fetter, 1993) (MacKenzie, Podsakoff,

& Paine, 1999) that has included this construct in the context of other forms of citizenship behavior has shown it to be distinct from them, and to have somewhat different antecedents (Podsakoff P. M., MacKenzie, Moorman, & Fetter, 1990) (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Bommer, 1996) and consequences (Podsakoff &

MacKenzie, 1994); (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Scott, 1997); (Walz & Niehoff, 1996).

Sportsmanship is a form of citizenship behavior that received much less attention in the literature.

4. Civic virtue: the involvement and concern that the employee shows in the life of the organization, the commitment to the organization as a whole. This is recognizable when an employee attends meetings, reads announcements and memos and gives

(18)

18 constructive suggestions that benefit the overall well-being of the organization, keeps up with changes in the industry, reports hazards and suspicious activities, and looks out for the organizations best interest even at great personal cost. This behavior resembles a person‟s recognition of being part of a larger whole, equivalent to a citizens being members of a country and accepting the responsibilities which are demanded.

5. Conscientiousness: involves employees going beyond the minimum requirements of the organization. This is extra-role behavior, meaning that it involves engaging in task-related behaviors at a level that is far beyond minimal requirement. This factor was initially labeled as „generalized compliance‟ and later changed

„conscientiousness‟, because it did not have an immediate effect of helping a specific person, but a more impersonal, generalized to the group effect.

Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman and Fetter (1990) extended the work of Organ (1988) and developed OCB measures for each of the five dimensions, consisting of subscales.

These dimensions, developed by Podsakoff et al. (1990) are the most widely used dimensions in the OCB literature, but the appropriateness of Organ‟s five dimensions received a considerable amount of attention. (Le Pine, Erez, & Johnson, 2002), suggested in a meta-analytic review of the dimensionality of the OCB constructs, that scholars explicitly think of Organ‟s (1988) OCB dimensions as a latent construct, because the measures of the five dimensions of OCB are best viewed as “equivalent indicators” (p.

61). The researchers suggested the above mentioned based on the fact that the review showed that the measures of Organ‟s five dimensions were strongly related, did not differentially correlate with various attitudinal measures (such as job satisfaction, commitment etc.) and the different OCB dimensions did not explain variance beyond an overall measure in any of the attitudinal constructs that they examined. In order to measure an OCB construct, the construct must be defined, which is not a simple task.

Therefore the OCB constructs used by researchers differ from study to study. Much of the literature studying OCB and its related concepts is reviewed by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine and Bachrach (2000).

(19)

19 According to them, although much of the research on OCB considered the factors that determine citizenship behaviors, there was little effort spent on clearly defining OCB‟s and their associated benefits.

Podsakoff et al. (2000) remarked in their review that there are around thirty different forms of citizenship behaviors identified from the OCB literature, but many of the behavioral concepts overlap and can be organized into seven common themes and dimensions. These are; helping behaviors, sportsmanship, individual initiative, organizational loyalty, organizational compliance, civic virtue and self development.

The five types of organizational citizenship behavior identified by Organ can be found in these seven themes and dimensions. They also remarked that the major categories of antecedents of OCB are:

1. Individual characteristics 2. Task characteristics

3. organizational characteristics 4. Leadership behavior

2.3.2. Benefits of organizational citizenship behavior

Podsakoff et al. (2000) reviews some of the work that has attempted to examine the benefits of organizational citizenship behaviors. In terms of the effect that organizational citizenship behavior has on organizational effectiveness, Podsakoff et al. (2000) discussed the different mechanisms through which an individual OCB‟s are believed to affect organizational success. These mechanisms are:

1. Enhancing the productivity of co-workers, by for example helping them learn new skills and best-practice

2. Enhancing the productivity of higher managerial staff, by for example providing them with useful feedback about a specific work task

3. Freeing up resources that can be used for more productive functions, by for example being conscientious and demonstrating that time-consuming supervision is not required

(20)

20 4. Reducing the need to devote scarce resources for purely maintenance functions, by for example reducing group conflict by group helping behaviors and less effort is needed for conflict mediation

5. Serving as an effective means of coordinating activities between team members and cross work groups, by for example showing courtesy and keeping members of other teams up-to-date

6. Increasing group cohesiveness and morale, to make the workplace more attractive and making it easier for the organization to attract and retain the best people

7. Enhancing the stability of organizational performance, by for example group members providing extra effort in case of a failure and maintaining performance levels

8. Enhancing an organizations ability to adapt to environmental changes, by for example the willingness to learn new skills

OCB is an effective way of using human capital to determine organizational performance where people provide organizations an important source of sustainable competitive advantage. The importance for organizations is that people carry out extra activities that are not formally written down. But because the tasks are not formally written down there is a certain overlap between tasks of employees, which the employees should be willing to carry out (Katz and Kahn, 1964). Katz et al. (1964) also explained that organizations cannot anticipate with exact accuracy to all those activities essential for reaching objectives.

2.4. Work motivation

Employee‟s motives may guide their behaviors, but also their discretionary, non-task behaviors. Most content-based motivation theories are based on Maslow‟s (1954) hierarchy of needs (psychological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization). The most used and accepted classification of work-related motivation are McClelland (1961, 1985) categories of motivation (power, affiliation and achievement).

(21)

21 But despite their frequent acceptance and use, the measures were widely criticized on theoretical and measurement issues (Barbuto & Scholl, 1998; Harrell & Stahl, 1981).

McClelland‟s categories of motivation do not include work motives, such as task enjoyment and adherence to principles and values, and these missing aspects of motivation offer predicting value (Barbuto et al., 2000, 2002).

Leonard, Beauvais, and Scholl (1999) proposed a new typology of motivation sources, drawn from existing literature, consisting of five sources, namely: intrinsic process, instrumental, self-concept-external, self-concept-internal, and goal internalization.

This typology was operationalized with subscales to measure the five sources of motivation (Barbuto and Scholl, 1998) and further developed and tested to predict leader‟s behaviors (Barbuto and Scholl, 1999; Barbuto et al., 2002) and leaders‟

transformational leadership behaviors (Barbuto et al., 2000). The Motivation Sources Inventory (MSI), measuring the five sources of motivation gave a better prediction of influence tactics and transformational leadership than McClelland‟s categories of motivation (Barbuto et al., 2000, 2002).

A description of the five sources of motivation follows:

1. Intrinsic process motivation: a person is motivated to perform certain kinds of work or behaves in a certain way just for the fun of it. The work itself acts as the incentive as employees enjoy what they are doing (Barbuto and Scholl, 1998). Similar constructs found in the literature are heteronomous morality (Kohlberg, 1976), impulsive (Kegan, 1982; Loevinger, 1976), pre-operational (Piaget, 1972), early existence needs (Alderfer, 1969), intrinsic pleasure needs (Murray, 1964) and psychological needs (Maslow, 1954). This motive has also been formulated as intrinsic motivation to obtain task pleasure (Deci, 1975) and as intrinsic task motivation nonexistent of any external controls or rewards (Staw, 1976). According to Deci (1975), this motive differs from the classic intrinsic or internal motivation mentioned in other literature. The classic intrinsic or internal motivation describes internal challenges and achievement outcomes and represented personal satisfaction

(22)

22 derived from achievements of goals and tasks. Whereas this motive was derived from immediate internal gratification, intrinsic process motivation is the driving force.

2. Instrumental motivation: instrumental rewards motivate people when they become aware that their behavior will lead to certain extrinsic tangible outcomes such as pay, promotion, bonuses etc. (Barbuto and Scholl, 1998). Similar constructs to this motive are alienative and calculative involvement (Etzioni, 1961), exchange theory (Barnard, 1938), legal compliance and external rewards (Katz and Kahn, 1978), need for power (McClelland, 1961; Murray, 1964), need for safety (Maslow, 1954) and stages of existence needs (Alderfer, 1969). This motive was derived from tangible external rewards, whereas the classic extrinsic or external motivation depended on social rewards such as praise and public recognition.

3. Self-concept external motivation: people seek affirmation of traits, competencies and values. Their motivation therefore tends to be externally based. Their ideal self is adopted from role expectations of reference groups and they behave in ways that satisfies reference group members, to gain acceptance and therefore to gain status (Barbuto and Scholl, 1998). Similar constructs are social moral involvement (Etzioni, 1961), extrinsic interpersonal motivation (Deci, 1975; Staw, 1976), social inducements, conformity to group attitudes and communion (Barnard, 1938), social identity theory (Ashford and Mael, 1989), interpersonal (Kegan, 1982; Kohlberg, 1976), early formal operational (Piaget, 1972), conformist (Loevinger, 1976), needs for affiliation (McClelland, 1961; Murray, 1964), needs for love, affection and belonging (Maslow, 1954), relatedness needs (Alderfer, 1969), employees seeking membership and seniority in organizations, approval from leaders and approval from groups (Katz and Kahn, 1978). Classic descriptions of social rewards or social exchanges are captured by self-concept external motivation.

4. Self-concept internal motivation: people with this motive are inner-directed, the motivation is internally based. Their ideal self is based on internal standards of traits, competencies and values and they behave to reinforce these standards to reach higher levels of competency (Barbuto and Scholl, 1998).

(23)

23 Similar constructs to this motive are high need for achievement (McClelland, 1961;

Murray, 1964)), internal motivation to overcome challenges (Deci, 1975), personal achievement (Staw, 1976), ideal of internalized motivation derived from role performance (Katz and Kahn, 1978), full formal operational (Piaget, 1972), social system (Kohlberg, 1976), institutional (Kegan, 1982), conscientious (Loevinger, 1976), need for esteem (Maslow, 1954), motivating factors (Herzberg, 1968), growth needs associated with developing one‟s potential (Alderfer, 1969), self-evaluative mechanisms, self-regulation and personal standards (Bandura, 1986).

5. Goal internalization motivation: people with this motive adopt attitudes and behaviors, because the content is identical with their personal value systems. The worker believes in the cause and is motivated to work towards the goal of the collective. Similar constructs to this motive are value systems (Kelman, 1958), internalized values (Katz and Kahn, 1978), internal valence for outcome (Deci, 1975), pure moral involvement (Etzioni, 1961), postformal operational (Piaget, 1972), principled orientation (Kohlberg, 1976), interindividual (Kegan, 1982), autonomous (Loevinger, 1976), self-actualization (Maslow, 1954).

Compared to the other four sources of motivation, goal internalization has a different viewpoint (Barbuto and Scholl, 1998). People who follow the intrinsic process motive need to enjoy the work being performed. People with instrumental motivation need an incentive or possible reward to perform the work. With self-concept external motivation, people comply when they believe their reputation or image will be accepted. With self- concept internal motivation, people comply when there is a need to have a personal challenge. Whereas with goal internalized motivation it is not required that the goals of the organization can be attained with the assistance of the workers and it does not necessarily mean that the worker agrees with the organization‟s mission. Goal internalized motivation represents the absence of self interest (Barbuto and Scholl, 1998).

If all workers performed high in goal internalized motivation and low in the remaining four sources of motivation, leaders would only have to explain the goals of the organization and what should be done to accomplish them.

(24)

24 If the workers believed in the goals explained by the leaders, they would be motivated to perform any necessary tasks to achieve these goals.

2.5. Motivation and organizational citizenship behavior

According to researchers, an individual‟s motivation is significantly related to his or her organizational citizenship behavior (Finkelstein & Penner, 2004; Rioux & Penner, 2001;

Tang & Ibrahim, 1998). They statistically determined:

 Tang and Ibrahim (1998): significant relationship between achievement motivation and OCB

 Finkelstein & Penner (2004); Rioux & Penner (2001): significant relationship between organizational concern and pro-social values motives and OCB

Other researchers (Allen and Rush, 1998) reported that employee OCB‟s are rated by the leader‟s perception of follower‟s motives. Therefore it is expected that there is a significant relationship between employee OCB‟s and their sources of motivation.

Barbuto and Scholl (1999) (2000) reported a significant relationship between sources of motivation and leaders behaviors, leader-used influence tactics, transformational leadership behaviors and followers compliance. The motivation sources of Barbuto and Scholl (1998) were stronger predictors of leader‟s behavior than McClelland‟s needs constructs, which were also used as a predictor. Barbuto et al., (1998) research demonstrated that an individual‟s source of motivation might account for a significant variance in leader and follower behaviors.

According to a meta-analysis (LePine, Erez and Johnson, 2002), OCB dimensions conceptualized by Organ (1998) were highly correlated to each other and there was no apparent variation in relationships with the most popular set of OCB antecedents, although many researchers considered OCB to consist of conceptually distinct behavioral dimensions.

(25)

25 People performing intrinsic process motivation participate in activities that they enjoy and create a pleasant work environment for themselves and other co-workers. Logically the assumption can be made that workers who enjoy their work are more likely to assist others and create a helping work climate and that these workers find organizational citizenships behaviors fun.

But studies showed that this motive is not predictive of organizational behaviors and this trend is expected to continue in future research (Barbuto and Scholl, 1998; 1999; Barbuto et al., 2000). Instrumental motivation is also expected to have a negative relationship with organizational citizenship behavior, since people in this motive participate in formally rewarded activities and organizational citizenship behaviors are not formally rewarded.

However research of Organ (1997) and others discussed the degree to which rewards motivate OCB and suggested that workers use indirect and informal beliefs about future rewards in their decisions to perform in certain organizational citizenship behaviors. OCB could be considered in larger contexts, such as future raises, performance reviews or other decisions in which rewards are made. Other researchers (Deci, Koestner and Ryan, 1999) reported in their examination of the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation, that tangible rewards undermine intrinsic motivation out of free choice.

Barbuto et al., (2003) found a small negative relationship between instrumental motivation and OCB.

For self-concept external motivation, Barbuto and Scholl (1998) found similarities with McClelland‟s (1961) need for affiliation. Tang and Ibrahim (1998) found no relationship between OCB and their need for affiliation. Barbuto et al. (2003) found a significant negative relationship, but could not proof much statistically. It is expected that OCB and self-concept external motivation would have a negative relationship, because of the fact that this motive requires some element of social reward or recognition for employee‟s efforts and OCB is not formally rewarded by organizations. On the other hand because this motive is associated with positive feedback and acceptance from others, helping others may be recognized from this motive. OCB‟s may be self-serving behaviors due to their positive attributions and social rewards that are created from OCB, according to Bolino, Turnley and Niehoff (2004).

(26)

26 But no studies have proven the social recognition for those engaging in OCB‟s yet. The expectation for a relationship between self-concept external motivation and OCB is small negative.

People who are self-concept internally motivated highly hold themselves to a high standard of performance and perform activities that require their unique skills. For these people it is than more likely to follow activities on the job that help others or go beyond the adequate roles. Conscientiousness is considered to be the best predictor of OCB in the Big Five Personality dimensions (Organ, 1994) and individuals are than considered reliable, self-disciplined and dependable (Barrick and Mount, 1991) and these are the characteristics that people are likely to have if they score high for self-concept internal motivation. The five types of OCB found a significantly positive relation with value for achievement in Neuman and Kickul (1998) research and Tang and Ibrahim (1998) achievement motivation. Therefore a positive relationship is expected between self- concept internal motivation and OCB.

People with a high goal internalized motive show principles and values and identify themselves with organizational goals and missions. Finkelstein and Penner (2004) determined a strong relation between OCB and motives such as organizational concern and prosocial values. They reported that organizational concern (desire to help the organization that stems from pride and identification that the individual has towards the organization) had a positive relationship with OCB‟s. Therefore a small positive relationship is expected between goal internalized motivation and OCB.

(27)

27 2.6. Summary

Employees‟ motives may guide their behaviors, but also their discretionary, non-task behaviors (Organ, 1997). Motives as a predictor of OCB have been studied by several researchers, while content theories of work motivation have not been researched, except for the study of Barbuto, Brown, Wheeler and Wilhite (2003). Research on OCB‟s continued since the introduction several years ago and was mainly focused on the effects of OCB‟s on individual and organizational performance.

OCB‟s were widely considered positive behaviors, but their antecedents were less known. Organ (1997) advised researchers to pay more attention to the predictors of OCB‟s, reminding that employee motives may offer an empirical explanation of the occurrence. At that moment there were no strong measures of employees‟ sources of motivation. Later on Barbuto and Scholl (1998, 1999) developed an instrument, Motivation Sources Inventory, to measure employees‟ work motivation and used it to predict leaders‟ behaviors. Following research (Barbuto, Fritz and Marx, 2000) which explored the relationship between employees‟ sources of motivation and organizational citizenship behavior, also demonstrated that the Motivation Sources Inventory has a strong predictive value. Most studies on work motivation focused on supervisory behaviors, thus using it to predict employee behavior was a necessary progression.

(28)

28

Chapter 3 Methodology

In quantitative research a researcher asks a narrow question, answers that question by collecting numerical data from participants and then analyses the data using statistics.

The researcher hopes that these numbers will produce a fair result that can be specified to a larger population.² The process of all these steps of quantitative research is described in this chapter. The chapter focuses on the research questions and objectives and how they have been investigated, by discussing the research approach, the research strategy, the sampling methods and the methods of analysis. The first section 3.1 gives a brief introduction of the chapter. Section 3.2 describes the research statement and objectives, while section 3.3 describes the research approach and section 3.4 the research strategy.

The survey design is discussed in section 3.5 and the sampling method and method of analysis are described in respectively section 3.6 and 3.7.

3.2. Research problem

Reality shows that a lot of employees in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname lack motivation due to several reasons. For some employees the financial reward is more important, which sometimes leads to poor performance and low job tenure. Another issue that is noticed is that skilled and educated people rather apply for jobs within the more developed cities in the country. Whereas the granite mining industry in West-Suriname is located in the interior of Suriname, which is less developed and also long distance from the more developed cities (and also the capital city). Employees working in this industry would have to stay on the job for a longer period (because of the distance) and would not have a lot of recreation activities in their free time. These factors triggered the question why employees show this kind of behavior, why there is a lack of motivation and what kind of organizational behaviors influence these factors. Several studies and theories can be found to measure employee behaviors and / or organizational behavior.

2 Wikipedia (2011). Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_research

(29)

29 But the interest in organizational citizenship behavior rose since several researches during the years showed that it might not only influence organizational effectiveness, but also enhance coworker and managerial productivity, adapt to environmental changes and improve the organizations ability to attract and retain the best people and obtain stability of organizational performance and organizational effectiveness by creating social capital (Organ et al., 2006, p. 200-202). OCB might also influence organizational effectiveness by freeing up resources for more productive purposes, reducing the need to use scarce resources and improving the coordination of activities (Organ et al., 2006).

OCB‟s are commonly considered to be positive behaviors, but their antecedents are less known. There are few studies that examined the OCB antecedents and tested several characteristics, such as conscientiousness (Organ and Lingl, 1995), agreeableness (Neuman & Kickul, 1998), need for achievement (Neuman & Kickul, 1998), organizational-based self-esteem (Tang & Ibrahim, 1998), emotional intelligence (Carmeli & Josman, 2006), and motives (Finkelstein, 2006). Organ (1997) necessitated that research of the predictors of OCB should be increased, stating that employee motives may offer empirical explanation for this phenomena. Therefore some studies examined motives as a predictor of OCB and stated that although employee motives may guide their behaviors, their motives may also guide their discretionary non-task behaviors. In the line of work motivation, only content theories have been researched, except for the study of Barbuto, Brown, Wheeler and Wilhite, 2003).

The objective of this study is:

 To have a better view of the different OCB factors and work motives.

 To measure to what extent organizational citizenship behavior influences work motivation in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname in order for the organization to know what kind of environment to provide their employees and increase the organizations effectiveness and productivity.

(30)

30 People should look for greater fulfillments in their careers and improve the quality of their work. Every organization should promote and encourage OCB behavior, which is a key feature in organizational behavior and find out what sources of motivation are triggered within employees. The concept of OCB is relatively new in Suriname and also for the industry chosen for this research. Hoping this research can help trigger the curiosity in other organizations and industries to measure these factors in their organization to perform better, produce more and work effectively in an environment where employees are comfortable working in.

3.3. Research approach

The research approach is dependent on the research question and objective and is one of the most important decisions of the thesis. To reach the purpose of this study, a quantitative approach was chosen, to discover to what extent the variables influence each other. Quantitative research is an empirical investigation of social phenomena using statistical, mathematical or computational techniques, with the objective to use mathematical models, theories and / or hypotheses related to phenomena. ³

This research used both exploratory and descriptive research. Exploratory research is also referred to as a theory to approach further research to help define research problems and research hypotheses. The research was exploratory in the sense that literature was studied to get more insight into the variables that were researched. Information on OCB, sources of work motivation and the relationship between work motivation and OCB were gathered. Thereby the different variables for this particular research problem were identified. This data was also used to support and correspond with the findings of the study. After the exploratory research, descriptive research was used to conduct a survey study to measure associations between the variables. Descriptive research describes things as they exist and is used to gather data on a particular problem or issue.⁴ The variables were measured using tested questionnaires for both OCB variables (Organ, 1988) and sources of motivation (MSI, Barbuto, 2004).

3 Wikipedia (2011). Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_research

4 Wikipedia (2011). Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_research

(31)

31 For this research there were no hypotheses formulated, because this study researches whether there is OCB in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname and if these influence the work motivation. This is already answered with the results of this study.

Testing for hypotheses in this study would be predicting something before knowing whether it exists or does not exist in this industry. That would be the next phase after this study.

3.4. Research strategy

This research is focused on variables influencing employee work motivation, which is explored by empirical research and a survey study. With these types of research a relatively high amount of reliable data can be collected against relatively low costs. The survey is generally easy understood and it allows the researcher to examine different variables from one survey. A survey also enables the researcher to easily identify and describe the opinion of the respondent, is simple to administrate and the most appropriate technique for descriptive research to obtain primary data.

The data for this research was gathered from documents, research papers, articles and theory. A field survey was also conducted in order to measure the variables, using tested questionnaires. The results from the questionnaires were analyzed in SPSS and with the results should be concluded to what extent OCB influences work motivation in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname.

3.5. Survey design

In descriptive research survey design is considered one of the most appropriate techniques to acquire primary data. Starting with a brief introduction about the purpose of the survey and the guidelines for answering the questions, the questionnaire consisted of three sections. In the first section the control variables were measured consisting of; age group, geographic location, educational level, job tenure and job category. Geographic location was distributed into five options based on the main cities and or countries where the respondents live. This information was provided by the organization.

(32)

32 The question regarding the educational level consisted of three options; primary education, secondary education and higher education. Primary education includes primary school, secondary education includes elementary school and high school and higher education includes college and grad school. Job category included thirteen options based on the functions of the employees.

In the second part of the questionnaire the independent variables (OCB) were measured and consisted of fourteen questions. Five questions for altruism, five questions for conscientiousness and four questions for civic virtue. In the last part of the questionnaire the dependent variables (sources of motivation) were measured and consisted of thirty questions, six questions for each motivation source.

The original questionnaire was constructed in English using existing (tested) questionnaires. Because the spoken language in Suriname is Dutch, the questionnaires were translated into Dutch. Afterwards the questionnaires were translated back into English by an independent translator in order to optimize the quality and reliability of the translation.

3.6. Sampling methods

Sampling procedures are critical in survey design. Incorrect sampling procedures will cause the data to be invalid. A sample is part of a sub-set of the entire population (group of people). It is important that in every sample there is a representation of the whole group. There is no particular sample size.⁵ In this part a chronological order is given of how the sample was selected, the different measures that were used and the survey procedures.

3.6.1. Sample

In the granite mining industry in West-Suriname only one organization is operational.

Within that organization it was possible to survey all the employees. Therefore no specific sample strategy was used. Looking at the sample it can be noted that the total sample included 66 respondents.

5 Wikipedia (2011). Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics)

(33)

33 The sample consisted of employees on all levels in the organization, meaning that the sample was diverse and representative of the organization. Out of the 66 respondents only 59 could be surveyed, due to the absence of some employee‟s.

3.6.2. Measures

In the first section the moderating variables (age group, geographic location, job tenure, educational level and job category) were assessed. Within the OCB research the researchers Lee and Allen (2002) could not find significant influences of the control variables age, organizational tenure and organizational level. Other researchers on the other hand found positive influences between OCB and lengths of service (Chiu and Tsai, 2006) and between OCB and educational level (Smith, Organ and Near, 1983).

In section number two the OCB dimensions (dependent variables) were assessed. To measure these variables three of the five dimensions from Podsakoff et.al (2000) were used, since these are widely used throughout OCB literature all over the world. There are different dimensions to measure OCB, but a lot of them overlap each other in concept.

The three OCB dimensions selected for this research, namely; altruism, conscientiousness and civic virtue, were measured using an existing scale (Organ, 1988). Each dimension was split up into four or five items to measure the dimension in a correct way, using a likert-type scale ranging from one to four (1 = strongly agree, 2 = agree, 3 = disagree, 4 = strongly disagree).

In the last section the sources of motivation were measured using the Motivation Sources Inventory (MSI, Barbuto, 2004). The MSI contains thirty items, six for every motive, measured using a likert-type scale ranging from one to four (1 = strongly agree, 2 = agree, 3 = disagree, 4 = strongly disagree) and measures each employee‟s five sources of motivation. In previous studies the MSI showed a reliability coefficient above 0.7, meaning that the scales are reliable.

To statistically analyze the data, in order to draw conclusions from the research, measurement scales are used to categorize and / or quantify variables.

(34)

34 The commonly used measurement scales in statistics are: nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio scales.⁶ The types of measurement scales used in the questionnaire for this research are; nominal, ordinal and interval scale. The questions in the first section of the questionnaire are nominal scale for geographic location and job category and ordinal scale for education level and job tenure. These questions are nominal, because the categories of these variables are just names and have no particular order, so there is no magnitude, no equal interval and no absolute zero. The questions concerning age group, educational level and job tenure are ordinal, because they have an inherent order, but no magnitude and absolute zero point. The questions in section two and section three are all interval scale, since they have an equal interval and they are produced in a likert-type scale.

3.6.3. Procedures

The data was collected using the personal survey method. An appointment was made when the survey could be taken and the purpose of the study and the procedure of how the questionnaires would be taken were explained. A date was set and the employees were informed in advance about the visit for the research. The survey was taken personally by the researcher and two other administrative workers, since the survey was scheduled to be taken in one day, due to the distance that needed to be traveled to visit the company site. The administrative workers were prepared and trained by the researcher how to interview the respondents and were each given a list of the respondents they needed to interview. Because of the low educational level of the respondents and the difficulty of some of the questions, the questionnaires were taken in the form of an interview. The questions were explained to the respondents and they were assured of anonymity.

3.7. Methods of analysis

The data, collected from the questionnaires, was summarized and analyzed in SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) version 19.0 and several data techniques were assessed to analyze the data.

6 StatTrek (2011). Retrieved from: http://stattrek.com/ap-statistics-1/measurement-scales.aspx

(35)

35 Descriptive statistics were applied to collect, organize, summarize and present the data, to interpret the data in simple and structured way.⁷ The descriptive statistics used in this research are frequencies and descriptives. The inferential statistics that are applied are reliability, multiple regression and Pearson correlation analysis.

The analysis of the Motivation Sources Inventory included dividing the thirty different items into five individual subscales (Intrinsic Process, Instrumental, Self Concept Internal, Self Concept External and Goal Internalization), to have a better view of the factors that are driven by the individual sources of motivation.

3.8. Summary

Based on what kind of research is done, the right research methodology is selected. This study is a quantitative study and therefore quantitative research method is chosen. Firstly the research was defined with the research problem and objectives. Afterwards was described how the research was approached, using descriptive and exploratory research methods. The tools used for gathering data for this research, being a survey were discussed. Also the design of the survey, the sample selection, sampling measures and sampling procedures were described. The last stage of methodology was the analysis of the data, where the data was interpreted using SPSS.

7 Laerd Statistics (2011). Retrieved from: http://statistics.laerd.com/statistical-guides/descriptive- inferential-statistics.php

(36)

36

Chapter 4 Data findings

This chapter reports the findings that resulted from the data that was collected. Section 4.1 gives a brief introduction of the chapter, while section 4.2 data planning describes how the data is organized and prepared for analysis. Section 4.3 shows an outline of the data gathered, while section 4.4 explains the descriptive statistics and section 4.5 explains the inferential statistics. Section 4.6 summarizes this chapter.

4.2. Data planning

In order to report the main findings, the data should be organized and screened for completeness. Out of the 66 distributed questionnaires, only 59 are complete. The other 7 questionnaires are not completed, because some respondents were absent when the survey was taken. All completed questionnaires have no errors, because they were taken using the personal survey method, where interviewers made sure all the questions were completed. A code table is conducted for the questionnaires, where each question and given answer has a code. The codes of the questions and answers in the code table are in the same order as the questionnaires. The coding of the data is necessary for processing the data in SPSS. For the ease of the analysis some variables are combined into one new variable, which is done before the analysis.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior & work motivation in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname

Organizational Citizenship Behavior & work motivation in the granite mining industry in West-Suriname

Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Literature review

Chapter 3 Methodology

Chapter 4 Data findings