Öncülleri ve Sonuçları İle Örgütsel Vatandaşlık Davranışı: Bilgi Çalışanları Üzerine Bir Araştırma

Abstract

Drucker (1959) stated that in the post industry era the biggest change would be experienced on the routine and manual tasks. This change, which would be witnessed from tasks based on the physical power of employees to their cognitive power, would shape the professional life of the 21st century. Those people who are employed in tasks based on cognitive power are called knowledge workers. The objective of the current study is identifying antecedents of organizational citizenship behavior for a sample of knowledge workers and reveal the negative experiences of those employees showing citizenship behavior. Additionally, not only the negative experiences of employees but also the performance outcomes are included in the analyses. Data required for analyses are collected by a questionnaire which includes recorded overtime hours and performance results of the participants. The variables included in the study are core self-evaluation, affective occupational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, recorded overtime hours, work-family conflict, work stress and individual performance results. Overtime hours and individual performance results are real values taken from the Human Resources Information Systems of the company where the study was conducted. Data for other variables are collected via questionnaires. In this study, 230 knowledge workers responsible from the design of high technology products filled out the questionnaires. In the context of developing a holistic model for the antecedents and consequences of organizational citizenship behavior for a knowledge worker sample, the effects of core self-evaluation and occupational commitment on organizational citizenship behavior are investigated. The effects of overtime hour, which is regarded as a consequence of organizational citizenship behavior, on well-being of employees are evaluated in means of work-family conflict and job stress. Additionally, the effects of organizational citizenship behavior with its antecedents and consequences on the performance outcomes are questioned. The hypotheses of the current study are developed in the light of Theory of Reasoned Action and Conservation of Resources Theory. The analysis are run by AMOS 21 utilizing Path Analysis Method. Results of the analysis show that the fit indexes for the model are within good-fit and acceptable-fit ranges proposed in the literature. Analysis showed that core self-evaluation and occupational commitment are increasing organizational citizenship behavior, overtime hour is triggering work-family conflict and job stress is increasing job performance. Additionally, the positive relation between work stress and performance outcomes showed that knowledge workers with a high core self-evaluation have a positive perception of stress factors. By this means, a holistic model is presented for knowledge workers. Taking into account the findings of the study, suggestions are developed for the companies with regard to human resources management, talent acquisition and management. One of the suggestions is the addition of elements related to core self-evaluation in the personality tests, which are frequently utilized in employee selection process. It is estimated that measuring the affective occupational commitment of knowledge workers would improve the performance of hiring process. On the other hand, a transformation from preventive stress management to productive stress management would improve the individual performance outcomes. The companies with workplaces where employees show positive behaviors towards the stress factors would have a competitive advantage for attracting high quality workforce. Finally, the findings show that a new organizational citizenship scale is needed for knowledge workers. This study contributes to organizational behavior literature in two ways. First one is the contribution to the limited number of studies for knowledge workers. The second one is the contribution to the inadequacy of assumptions directing organizational citizenship behavior researches through the findings on the negative individual consequences of organizational citizenship behavior.