Employee Engagement in Relation to Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Information Technology Organizations

Abstract

Employee contribution becomes a critical business issue because in trying to produce superior output, companies have no choice but to try and engage not only the body but the mind and soul of every employee. Most organizations today realize that a satisfied employee is not necessarily the best employee in terms of loyalty and productivity. The “best employee” is really an engaged employee – one who is intellectually and emotionally bound with the organization, who feels passionate about its goals and is committed towards its values. This employee goes the extra mile beyond the basic job requirements. Currently, organizations expect their employees to be proactive and show initiative, collaborate smoothly with others, take responsibility for their own professional development, and to be committed to high quality performance standards. Thus employees who feel energetic and dedicated and who are absorbed by their work, employees who can create a culture in the organization that would be for the well-being of the organization and people involved in the organization are most critical for the organization. These voluntary behaviors which contribute to the business unit performance are Organizational Citizenship Behaviors. Engaging employees of an organization is critical to the organization’s success. Employee Engagement is often the most significant differentiator between competing IT organizations. This is true particularly for service based IT companies as revenues are directly proportional to number of engaged workforce in the organization. Majority of researches on employee engagement from survey houses and consultancies have established the relationship between employee engagement, financial business performance and profitability. Interestingly, there are very few academic literatures on engagement. Several literatures on OCB have highlighted the relationship between OCB and productivity, in-role performance, and business unit performance. However there has been no research established to find out if there is any relationship between employee engagement and OCB. In this research, the researcher is interested to focus on employee engagement and OCB in Indian and multinational companies operating in the IT sector in India. The research is focused to analyze if the dimensions of OCB like helping behavior, taking initiative, self development indicate the engagement levels of an employee. Based on the review of literatures and identified the gap, the investigator felt an imperative need to pursue with the current research. The sample consisted of 235 IT professionals from both Indian and MNC companies. The judgmental and convenient sampling technique was adopted for selecting the respondents. Two standard tools were used to measure the variables of the study:- 1.Employee Engagement questionnaire by Dilys Robinson (2004), the reliability for the scale was.880. 2.Organizational Citizenship Behavior questionnaire by Podsakoff (2000), the reliability for the scale was .703 The major findings of the study were - i. There was a positive significant relationship between Employee Engagement and Organizational Citizenship Behavior. ii.The drivers of engagement viz. pay and benefits, feeling valued and involved, training and development, job satisfaction, management, colleagues, equal opportunities, communication, current career intention are found to have significant positive correlation with Employee Engagement. iii.There was a significant negative relation between Employee Engagement and stress and work pressure. iv.The variable with highest influence on engagement was current career intension, followed by job satisfaction, pay & benefits, management, equal opportunities, and organization citizenship behavior. v.The variables colleagues, communication, training and development, feeling valued and involved were not found to have any significant impact on Employee Engagement. vi. There were significant differences in job satisfaction behavior between men and women professionals. Job satisfaction was significantly higher for women than for men. vii.There were significant differences in organizational citizenship behavior between men and women professional. The Organizational citizenship Behavior was higher for men than women. viii.There were significant differences in current career intension between different age groups. Current career intension was generally increasing with age, with the exception of the 41-45 yr. age group. There was no significant difference in other dimensions between age groups. ix.There was no significant difference in any of the dimensions based on work experience. x.There were significant differences in satisfaction with pay and benefits based on qualification. Satisfaction with pay and benefits was highest for professionals with PhD’s, and lowest for post-graduates. xi.Stress and work pressure was highest for graduates, and lowest for PhD’s there was no significant difference in other dimensions based on qualification. xii.There were significant differences in Employee Engagement and the type of companies. Employee Engagement was higher for professionals working in Multi National Companies than for those in Indian companies. xiii.Satisfaction with management was higher for professionals working in Multi National Companies than those working in Indian companies. xiv.Satisfaction with management was significantly higher for professionals working in Multi National Companies than those working in Indian companies. xv.Stress and work pressure was significantly higher for professionals working in Indian companies than those working in Indian companies. xvi.At a micro level analysis, it was found that type of IT company the employees belonged did not significantly differ among pay and benefits, feeling valued and involved, job satisfaction, colleagues, equal opportunities, training and development and current career intention. xvii.It was found that the driver qualification did not have any significant difference among feeling valued and involved, colleagues, equal opportunities, job satisfaction training and development and management. xviii.Gender did not significantly differ among the variables feeling valued and involved, colleagues, equal opportunities,training and development and current career intention, and management. xix.It was found that age did not significantly differ among any of the dimensions like feeling valued and involved, colleagues, equal opportunities, job satisfaction training and development and management. Length of service in the organization did not significantly differ among employees in any of the dimension. xx.It was found that there was no significant difference between Organizational citizenship Behavior, age of the employees, work experience of the employees, and qualification of the employees. xxi.It was found that there was no significant difference between Organizational citizenship Behavior, age of the employees, work experience of the employees, and qualification of the employees. xxii.It was found that male employees were satisfied with pay and benefits. xxiii.Female employees were feeling more valued and involved than male employees. xxiv.The female employees were more satisfied with the training and development activities. xxv.It was found that female employees had more levels of Employee Engagement than male employees. xxvi.It was found that female employees were more satisfied with management and colleagues. xxvii.Male employees seem to undergo more of stress and work related pressure than male employees. xxviii.It was found that male employees were more satisfied with communication and equal opportunities. xxix.Female employees had more intentions to stay with their companies than male employees. xxx.The level of Organizational citizenship Behavior was higher for men than women. xxxi.Employees working in MNCs were satisfied with pay and benefits, feeling valued and involved training and development. xxxii.Employee engagement level of MNC employees was higher than Indian employees. xxxiii.The stress and work pressure was higher for Indian employees than MNC employees.

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