Does Organizational Spirituality Predict Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Citizenship Behavior among Employees?

Keywords

University Employees; Organizational Spirituality; Emotional Intelligence; Organizational Citizenship Behavior.

Introduction

Higher education is a key element to specialty training in the modern society through which trained and skilled workforce is provided for employment networks. Development researchers now argue that the main variable from among the variables of physical, technological and human capital is human capital and its technical efficiency [1]. The most important factor in the efficiency of organizations and in the entire community is human resources. The development of any society lies in the improvement and training of its human resources. That is why organizations pay a particular attention to the training of employees with the help of experts in behavioral sciences and human resource management. The entrance of concepts like morality, truth, belief in God, salvation, conscientiousness, magnanimity, trust, kindness, spirituality, generosity, solidarity with colleagues, employee encouragement, peacefulness and altruism to new studies in the field of management and organization is indicative of the emergence of new paradigms [2]. Spirituality in the workplace can be defined as a person’s efforts to find a purpose in life, a sense of belonging and solidarity with colleagues and others in the workplace, and coordination and alignment with the values and goals of the organization [3]. Spirituality causes the individual to achieve a high level of awareness and as a result improve his/her intuitive abilities. Intuition, in its own turn, is a valuable guide and management skill which can increase personal and organizational efficiency. Employees who strongly seek to preserve organizational values are likely to have a higher sense of personal responsibility for the success or failure of an organization. A clear spiritual view provides a strong bond between an organization and its employees by meeting their personal needs. As a result, it enhances employee motivation, teamwork and commitment to organizational goals [4]. Research has shown that emotional intelligence is a common factor that affects the development of people’s lives from different aspects – jobs, social skills, neutralization, emotional control, and relationships with other people. There are also differences between the emotional intelligence of a person with ordinary talent and a talented manager [5]. Emotional intelligence is mainly composed of four components, including: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation and empathy. All these factors affect employee job performance [6]. The concept of organizational citizenship behavior encompasses behaviors that are useful for facilitating and renovating environmental orientation as well as transferring and storing organizational resources. It also improves organizational service quality, efficiency, and performance and reduces organizational costs [7]. OCB is a conscious behavior that is not an essential part of the official responsibility of university employees but helps them to increase the performance and efficiency of the organization [8]. Korkmaz & Arpaci (2009) found that there is a positive relationship between emotional intelligence among managers on the one hand and conscientiousness, citizenship virtues, and altruism among their subordinates. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to examine whether organizational spirituality predicts emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among university employees. The main hypothesis of the study is proposed as follows: There is a significant relationship between organizational spirituality and the variables of emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior among university employees.

Methods and Procedures

The present study is an applied research project and, in terms of research topics and objectives, is conducted with a descriptive/ correlational design. The statistical population of the study is comprised of all the male and female employees of Islamic Azad University of Chabahar in the academic year 2014-2015. Due to its limited volume, the whole target population was included as the sample population (n=35). We deployed the Standard Workplace Spirituality Scale by Milliman et al. (2003) to assess workplace spirituality, the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal by Bradberry and Greaves (2004) to assess emotional intelligence, and the Standard Organizational Citizenship Behavior Questionnaire by Oregon and Kanevsky (1996) to assess organizational citizenship behavior. In order to assess their validity, the Workplace Spirituality Scale, the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal and the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Questionnaire were submitted to university professors for comments on the proportionality of the items and variables to the measures. The Workplace Spirituality Scale is composed of 14 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale. The Emotional Intelligence Appraisal is composed of 28 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale. And finally, the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Questionnaire is composed of 15 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale. Using the Cronbach alpha reliability estimate, the Workplace Spirituality Scale, the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal and the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Questionnaire yielded reliability coefficients of 0.91, 0.70 and 0.92, respectively. Collected data were analyzed by Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis with the SPSS software product (v. 21).

Results

Out of the 35 questionnaires that were distributed, a total of 30 questionnaires were returned. The respondents included 23 males (76.7%) and 7 females (23.3%). The sorting of respondents by educational level indicates that, out of 30 respondents, 9 had a high school diploma (30.0%), 11 had an associate degree (36.7%), 7 had a bachelor’s degree (23.3%), and 3 had a master’s degree (10.0%).

As can be seen in Table 1, the mean and sd of organizational spirituality are 47.30 and 12.16, respectively; the mean and sd of emotional Intelligence are 96.46 and 17.28, respectively; and, the mean and sd of organizational citizenship behavior are 51.76 and 7.84, respectively.

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Table 1 :

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Table 1. Mean and sd of respondents in the variables of organizational spirituality, emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behaviors.

Hypothesis

There is a significant relationship between organizational spirituality and the variables of emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior among university employees.

As can be seen in Table 2, there is a correlation coefficient of 0.478 between organizational spirituality and emotional intelligence, a correlation coefficient of 0.733 between organizational spirituality and organizational citizenship behavior, and a correlation coefficient of 0.483 between emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior. Also, levels of significance for the correlation between organizational spirituality and emotional intelligence, between organizational spirituality and organizational citizenship behavior, and between emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior are 0.004, 0.000, and 0.003, respectively, all of which are below 0.05% - hence not significant. As a result, the null hypothesis is rejected and the study hypothesis is confirmed. In other words, there is a significant positive relationship between organizational spirituality and the variables of emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior. The resulting correlation is positive. This means that an increase in organizational spirituality is associated with an increase in emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior among university employees. However, the correlation between emotional intelligence and the variables of organizational spirituality and organizational citizenship behavior is very poor. The results also show that the correlation between organizational spirituality and organizational citizenship behavior is stronger.

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Table 2:

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Table 2. Correlation between organizational spirituality, emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior.

Since the correlation coefficient of emotional intelligence was poor, it is excluded from the regression model. Considering the results presented in Table 3, organizational citizenship behavior significantly predicts organizational spirituality. The coefficient of correlation between organizational citizenship behavior and organizational spirituality is 0.733 and it generally predicts 0.53 percent of the variance in organizational spirituality.

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Table 3:

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Table 3. Regression coefficient, correlation coefficient, and the coefficient of determination

According to the results presented in Table 4, the resulting Fvalue (=32.57) which is significant at a margin of error below 0.01 has a high explanatory power in the independent variable and can significantly explain the variance and the changes in the dependent variable. In other words, the regression model of the study is a good model and can help us explain changes in organizational spirituality based on organizational citizenship behavior.

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Table 4:

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Table 4. Analysis of Variance for the significance of regression.

Discussion and Conclusion

The results showed that there is a significant positive relationship between organizational spirituality and the variables of emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior among employees. Since the correlation between organizational spirituality and emotional intelligence was poor, it was excluded from the regression model. The results showed that organizational spirituality predicts organizational citizenship behavior among employees and that there is a strong correlation between them. In consistency with the results of this study, numerous studies have confirmed the correlation between organizational spirituality and organizational citizenship behavior [9, 2, 4, 10-13]. Spirituality in the business environment helps employees to focus on important issues in life. This pivotal spirituality enables employees to find a better and more accurate understanding of their relation to God and other people in the world. Tepper (2003) shows that spiritual employees are characterized by more meaningful activities and purposeful experiences; As a result, they are more grateful and manifest higher levels of organizational citizenship behavior. She goes on no note that organizational spirituality takes shape through relationships with other people. This increases the sensitivity of spiritual employees to the needs of others and leads to higher levels of organizational citizenship. Tepper also found that spiritual employees are more accustomed to challenges that require faith, stability and forgiveness. As a result, positive relationship/ kinship behaviors are more common among them [14]. The results also showed that there is a significant positive correlation between emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior. However, this correlation is very poor. Numerous studies have confirmed this finding, including: [15-22]. In conclusion, superior university managers can improve their employees’ perception of job with such strategies as job enrichment, employee empowerment, and emphasis on enjoyable work. In fact, creating a friendly atmosphere based on cooperation rather than competition can reduce employee stress and. This, in effect, is an investment in the organization and increases a sense of solidarity and consensus among university employees. Therefore, university managers should pay enough attention to the spiritual needs of their employees since an increase in organizational spirituality leads to higher levels of emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior among university employees. This will in turn increase the number of admitted students which is profitable for Islamic Azad University.