Climate and Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Article Review Example

A subject of increasing interest is how specific organizational environments affect individuals, and promote or lessen qualities of positive interaction. This interaction is defined as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), which may be viewed as the social behaviors in place when people consistently engage in efforts in a common setting.  As may be obvious, this is significantly applicable to commerce; productivity is typically more measurable in this arena, and OCB then reveals important information regarding how interaction serves both the interests of the workforce and of the employer. Rendering such study of particular importance today is the growing number of employees no longer performing their work in the traditional, organizational setting, but remotely from home stations.  The 2012 work, “An empirical study of the relationship between organizational climate and organizational citizenship behavior,” does not address this factor, but does offer a detailed analysis of OCB as investigated in a non-Western setting.

The authors aim appears to have been to confirm OCB as a consistently evident and positive component of the organizational setting. The 2011 study was conducted in the banking centers of Lebanon, and 139 participants, of diverse tenure within the organizations, responded to the questionnaire.  Most respondents were young, well-educated, and gender was equally represented. The questions covered a wide range of social and professional behaviors as perceived by the respondents; levels of warmth, support, reward, criticism, and supervisory policies and practices were supplied by the participants within a framework assuring anonymity. This was to gauge five dimensions of OCB within their organizations: compliance, courtesy, altruism, civic virtue, and sportsmanship.  Additionally, perceptions of discipline and reward processes were addressed, as well as general impressions of the quality of the organizational peer relationships.

After exhaustive and detailed analysis, certain OCB elements were confirmed. It was noted, for example, that supervisor support has a positive influence on employee commitment levels, and thus enhances OCB within the environment (Maamari, Messarra, 2012, p. 167). The study also affirmed friendliness and courtesy as being both important concerns and significantly valued by the employees.  Ultimately, however, the authors conclude that the study does not corroborate prior OCB research; no real correlation was identified between the organizational climate of the settings, based upon reward and functionality, and the OCB dimensions.  At the same time, the study holds that organizational climate influences behaviors, if not necessarily in the positive ways emphasized by OCB dimensions  Maamari, Messarra, p. 172). The authors acknowledge some limitations, chiefly that of the confined aspect of the setting, and they urge that further inquiry be conducted to better evaluate the impact of climate on OCB.

This field of study, certainly to an extent, merits investigation.  As noted, understanding what goes to positive behaviors within organizational environments is important.  An issue with the study in question, however, goes to the mentioned factor of relevance; that is to say, it would seem that a more helpful understanding of OCB would be achieved through comparison with behaviors when the setting is “open,” or when employees work for the same organization from different settings. That the organizational climate itself is pivotal to the study reinforces the advantage of examining an alternate environment.  It would in fact be highly interesting to see how spatial differences influence degrees of support and friendliness between employees, and how supervisory practices are altered by this factor.  This is then a limitation, if not noted by the authors, worth considering.

More importantly, the study seems to be flawed by virtue of the complexity, or even redundancy, of the subjects it seeks to investigate. As sociologists know very well, the qualities and types of human behaviors are often both synonymous and exponential in their processes. On one level – and also not addressed by the authors – there is the question of how the respondents actually related to the questions. This is research based on precepts easily confused, as in: “The organizational climate, Warmth and Support, was also divided into two groups: Friendliness and Non-Supportiveness” (Maamari, Messarra,   p. 171).  It must be wondered how even the highly intelligent banking employee will perceive such distinctions, just as no measurement may assess how a single incident or moment in the employee’s experience may taint all responses.  In other words, these are human perceptions being studied, which intrinsically resist qualification by virtue of their innate variability.

This goes to the issue of how any actual research may adequately measure qualities inherently subject to change, and often radical change.  Organizations tend to rely on structures and typically have distinct climates, but within those climates are limitless opportunities for actions, reactions, and behaviors.   From my own experience, attempts to “pin down” organizational behavior tend to be self-defeating, as a shift in a single component of that climate, from a new supervisor to the impact of an employee having an exceptionally good day, actually generates a change in the wider behaviors.  If the idea behind such research is to identify means of enhancing positive behaviors, it nonetheless must be wondered how analysis seeking to isolate what is inherently resistant to definition is of any real value.

References

Maamari, B. E., & Messarra, L. C. (2012).  An empirical study of the relationship between organizational climate and organizational citizenship behavior. European Journal of Management, 12(3), 165 – 173. Retrieved from %7CA312171946&v=2.1&u=oran95108&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w