Asian Research Consortium

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1 Asian Research Consortium International Journal of Research in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2013, pp ISSN International Journal of Research in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management A Study of the Relationship among Spiritual intelligence, Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Turnover Intentions Omid Rashvand * Master of Financial Management, University of Economic Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Elham Bahrevar Master of Financial Management, University of Economic Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Received April 5 th, 2013; revised April 10 th, 2013; accepted May 10 th, 2013 Abstract The aim of the present study is to identify the relationship among spiritual intelligence, organizational citizenship behavior and turnover intentions of 150 personnel of 10 manufacturing companies in Tehran, capital of Iran. The standard questionnaires were distributed among all personnel, and 140 usable questionnaires were gathered. The authors conducted Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modelling in this study. The results of the factors analysis show that Spiritual intelligence has a significant positive influence on organizational citizenship behavior. Moreover, spiritual intelligence has a significant negative influence on turnover intentions. Similarly, organizational citizenship behavior has a significant negative influence on turnover intentions of personnel. Keywords: Spiritual Intelligence, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Turnover Intentions. * Corresponding author. address: rashvandomid@yahoo.com 25

2 1. Introduction Nowadays, effective management of organizational resources is an important factor for the success of any organizations (Davoudi & Fartash, 2013). Human Resources can be named as the most important organizational resource for the success of any organizations (Davoudi et al., 2012a). Therefore, managers of organization should pay attention to factors contribute to better performance of personnel leads to better performance of organizations. Further, different people have different characteristic, personality, ability and intelligence. In this study, the authors focus on spiritual intelligence as the differentiating factors among personnel. According to Rastgar et al. (2012a) employees spiritual intelligence contributes to better performance of organization. Further, as mentioned by Lynton & Thogersen (2009), people who are spirituality intelligent have some characteristics: they are hard-working, they love what they do, they do well, etc. In this study, the authors attempt to identify how spiritual intelligence contributes to organizational superior performance. Therefore, we selected two factors i.e. organizational citizenship behavior and turnover intentions. Organ (1988) announced that organizational citizenship behavior is discretionary behavior that promotes the effective functioning of organization (Rastgar et al., 2012b). It is the behavior that is above and beyond what is expected from employees (Davoudi, 2012a). Organizational citizenship behavior has generated considerable amount of attention in recent researches (e.g. Bateman & Organ, 1983; Niehoff & Moorman, 1993; Organ & Ryan, 1995; Podsakoff et al., 2000; Rastgar, 2012b; Davoudi, 2012a; Davoudi et al., 2012b). This interest stems from the fact that organizational citizenship behavior improves organizational effectiveness. According to Davoudi (2012b), when employees go beyond the expected behavior, the effectiveness of organization will be increased. Moreover, according to Davoudi et al. (2012b), turnover intentions of employees will increase the costs of recruiting, reselection, and training of new employees for organization, which threaten the efficiency of organization. Therefore, identifying factors contribute to increasing in the level of organizational citizenship behavior and decreasing in the level of social loafing will have positive impact on organizational survival. Despite the growing literature about organizational citizenship behavior and turnover intentions, the author couldn t find any research exploring the link among spiritual intelligence and these two variables. Therefore, the present study proposes a framework about the mentioned subject among 150 personnel of 10 manufacturing companies. 2. Spiritual Intelligence Spiritual Intelligence concerns with Meaning and Values in life which directs our activities and behaviors in a richer context (Rastgar et al., 2012a). According to Wolman (2001), spiritual intelligence is the capacity of human to ask questions about the Meaning of their life and to feel the connection between 26

3 themselves and the world they live in (Rastgar et al., 2012c). Similarly, Rogers (2003) and Yang (2006) defined spiritual intelligence as the ability to construct meaning through intuitively seeing interconnectedness between life-world experiences and the inner spheres of the people psyche. According to Zohar & Marshal (2000), spiritual intelligence is the most complete of all intelligences (e.g. Emotional intelligence), because it is based on human spirituality. Therefore, people who are spiritually intelligent, could control their emotions well and then, effect good thinking toward people (Saidy et al., 2009). In this study the authors use seven dimensions introduced by Wolman (2001) for measuring spiritual intelligence: 1. Divinity: refers to a sense of divine source of energy or phenomena. 2. Mindfulness: refers to physically process such as eating, exercises, etc. 3. Extrasensory perception: refers to Sixth sense of people. 4. Community: refers to social activities. 5. Intellectuality: refers to reading and speaking about spiritual subjects. 6. Trauma: refers to illness and death of people who we love. 7. Childhood spirituality: refers to spiritual experiences of childhood. 3. Organizational Citizenship Behavior According to Organ et al. (2005), organizational citizenship behavior is discretionary behaviors, without being rewarded by formal system of organization. Organizational citizenship behaviors are such behaviors that employees do not receive any training to perform (Organ, 1988). Schnake (1991) provided some examples of organizational behavior as follows: to help new employees in their work; to help coworkers in their work; to attend voluntary meetings held by organization, etc. As mentioned by Moorman (1991), these behaviors are not captured by traditional job descriptions and they are one-the-job behaviors. In this study the authors use five dimensions developed by Organ (1988) for measuring organizational citizenship behavior: 1. Altruism: refers to a voluntary action that help other co-workers. 2. Civic virtue: Refers to supporting organizational functions. 3. Conscientiousness: refers to going beyond the minimally task requirements. 4. Courtesy: refers to preventing work-related problems for co-workers. 5. Sportsmanship: refers to tolerating inconveniences without complaining. 4. Turnover Intentions A turnover intention is a topic of interest among organizational researchers (Davoudi et al., 2013). Turnover intentions refer to people s intentions to leave their organization and find another workplace. According to Hom & Griffeth (1995), turnover intentions are a conscious wilfulness of people toward permanent withdrawal from their organization. According to Cho et al. (2009), turnover intentions emerge when there is a conflict between an employee and organization. He further stated that turnover intentions of employees face organization bad situations include opportunity costs, retraining and reselection and decreased morale of existing employees, which will result in serious losses to organization. Further, other researchers i.e. Deery & Iverson (1996), Manley (1996), Nadiri & Tanova (2010), and Davoudi et al. (2013) stated that high level of turnover intentions increase replacement and recruitment costs for organization. 27

4 5. Hypothesis Development and Research Model As mentioned in the above mentioned literature, people who are spiritually intelligent will do their job well, they are hard-working, and they love what they do. It sounds like that spiritual intelligence is an important factor in individual level which leads to many positive consequences for organization. Further, taking into account the concept of organizational behavior, when employees love their job, try hard and do their tasks well, they may engage in extra-role bahavior. Moreover, employees who love their job will be committed to their organization and may not intent to leave their organization. Therefore, the following model and hypotheses are proposed: Figure 1. Research Model H 1 : Spiritual intelligence has a significant influence on organizational citizenship behavior. H 2 : Spiritual intelligence has a significant influence on turnover intentions. H 3 : Organizational citizenship behavior has a significant influence on turnover intentions. 6. Methodology 28

5 6.1. Statistical Population Statistical population in this research includes 150 personnel of 10 manufacturing companies in Tehran, capital of Iran. The standard questionnaires were distributed among personnel, and 140 usable questionnaires were gathered. Table 1 illustrates the Descriptive statistics of the respondents. Table 1. Description of Respondents Item Description Frequency Percentage Gender Male Female Age Below Above 50 Education Diploma STP Bachelor Master and above % 20% 22% 60% 18% 19% 21% 49% 11% 6.2. Instrument To collect the necessary data, a questionnaire was used to test the hypotheses of the study. The questionnaire consists of four sections. First section includes 3 questions as can be seen in table 1. In the second section, the authors used the questionnaire developed by Wolman (2001) to measure seven dimensions of spiritual intelligence. These 28 questions were extracted from 80 questions developed by Wolman. In the second section, 24 questions developed by Podsakoff et al. (1990) was used to measure organizational citizenship behavior. In the third section, the authors used three questions developed by Cammann et al. (1979) to measure turnover intentions of employees. The authors used five-point Likert type scale for all the items Reliability For assessing the reliability of questionnaire, the authors utilized Cronbach's alpha. The Cronbach's alpha reliability of all variables are more than 0.7, which indicates all the scales demonstrate good reliability. Table 2. Reliability Test Number of Questions Mean Std. Deviation Cronbach's alpha Divinity Mindfulness Extrasensory Perception

6 Community Intellectuality Trauma Childhood Spirituality Spiritual Intelligence Altruism Civic Virtue Conscientiousness Courtesy Sportsmanship Organizational Citizenship Behavior Turnover Intentions Validity In order to test the validity of questionnaire, the authors utilized content validity and construct validity. To test the content validity, the authors asked some University professors to assess the questionnaire and asked their idea about the quality of the questionnaire. Further, in order to test the construct validity, the authors utilize confirmatory factor analysis in LISREL. The relationship between Research variables and their dimensions were tested. Fitness indices confirm the good fitness of research variables models. Based on Joreskong & Sorbom (1989), Chi-Square/df 3, RMSEA 0.10 and p-value < 0.05 show that the measurement model provides a reasonable fit to the data. 7. Results For testing the three mentioned hypotheses, the author performed the Structural model applying seven dimensions of spiritual intelligence, five dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior and 3 questions of turnover intentions. Figure 2 and 3 shows the results of the Structural Equation Model (SEM) analysis. Fitness's indices also show good fitness of the Structural Model as shown table 3. Table 3. Fitness Indices Fitness Indices of Structural Model Chi- Square/df RMSEA p-value NFI NNFI CFI IFI

7 Figure 2. Structural Equation Model Figure 3. T-Value Model of Research 31

8 Table 4. The Results of the Hypothesis Test No Hypothesis Path T-Value Result Coefficient H 1 Spiritual Intelligence OCB Confirmed H 2 Spiritual Intelligence Turnover Intentions Confirmed H 3 OCB Turnover Intentions Confirmed 7. Discussion and Conclusion The aim of the present study is to investigate the relationship among spiritual intelligence, organizational citizenship behavior and turnover intentions of 150 personnel of 10 manufacturing companies in Tehran, capital of Iran. It is important to note that low level of employees turnover intentions lead to improvement in individual productivity (Davoudi et al., 2013). Therefore, examining factors influence turnover intentions significantly has always been of special issue to research scholars in management, which was strong reason to carry out this research. The results of the present study show that spiritual intelligence has a significant positive influence on organizational citizenship behavior. The confirmation of this hypothesis implies that people who are spiritually intelligent will engage in extra-role behavior. Therefore, managers of organization can design appropriate questionnaire which measures the level of spiritual intelligence of people; contributes to recruiting the most spiritually intelligent potential personnel. Further, managers of organization should pay attention to improving spiritual intelligence of their personnel. Therefore, in their training practices, they should pay attention to the dimensions and the concept of spiritual intelligence, which helps employees to engage in organizational citizenship behavior. Further, Spiritual intelligence has a significant negative influence on turnover intentions of personnel. Similarly, the confirmation of this hypothesis implies that managers should consider spiritual intelligence as an important factor which affects the behaviors of personnel. These behaviors will have important influence on organizational performance. Moreover, Organizational citizenship behavior has a significant negative influence on turnover intentions of personnel. As can be inferred, employees who try harder and go beyond expected tasks, will never think of quitting their organization. Identifying cause and effect relationship between these variables can be named as the limitations of this study. Therefore, future studies should employ other factors and expand the model of the study. Further, researchers are suggested to implement the same study in other organizations (e.g. other manufacturing organizations, service organizations, etc.) and compare the results of their studies with that of the current 32

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