International Journal of Management (IJM), ISSN (Print), ISSN (Online), Volume 4, Issue 1, January- February (2013)

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1 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT (IJM) International Journal of Management (IJM), ISSN (Print), ISSN (Online), Volume 4, Issue 1, January February (2013) ISSN (Print) ISSN (Online) Volume 4, Issue 1, January February (2013), pp IAEME: Journal Impact Factor (2012): (Calculated by GISI) IJM I A E M E MEASURING WORK ATTITUDES OF INDIVIDUALS AMONG INDIAN ACADEMIA Deepa Mohan 1, DR. Sudarsan N 2 and DR. Madhu Menon 3 1 Reasearch Scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Calicut, Kerala, India 2 Head of School of Management Studies, National Institute of Technology Calicut, Kerala, India 3 Senior Manager Learning and Development, Corporate and Industry Relations, Amrita Viswa Vidyapeetham, Ettimadai, Coimbatore, India Corresponding author. E Mail: deepa_pme10@nitc.ac.in, mukund.deepa@gmail.com ABSTRACT Upkeep of employee work attitude has remained an intriguing area of research for the practitioners over the years. While, many parameters contribute to the work attitude of an employee, Emotional Intelligence (EI), Organizational Commitment (OC) and Organizational Role Stress (ORS), has been established to have a larger bearing. This investigation attempts to establish an interrelationship between these parameters that will assist in estimation of employee work attitude and also will give insight into design of organizational development components. Academia in higher education sector in India had been chosen as the sample space. Data collected through a specially designed questionnaire and analyzed through SPSS yields interesting patterns involving work life balance experienced by the incumbents. Keywords: Work Attitude, Emotional Intelligence, Organizational Commitment, Organisational Role Stress INTRODUCTION Work attitude in general can be construed as perception of employees towards work as well as the organization itself that can be greatly influenced by Organizational Commitment (OC), Emotional Intelligence, and Interpersonal trust in the work environment (Cook and Wall, 1980). While, Organizational Commitment (OC) is the positive side of the work attitude, negative work place attitude may result in stress. Thus, stress in performance of organizational roles, Organizational Role Stress (ORS) can be directly interrelated with 12

2 6510(Online), Volume 4, Issue 1, January February (2013) employee commitment and job satisfaction (Erdogan, Bauer, 2010). Stress management component and anxiety component; emerge as statistically significant with respect to the relationship with Emotional Intelligence (Rooprai, 2009). Emotional intelligence (EI) augments positive work attitudes and moderates the commitment level of employees in the organisation. It is an intelligence that may be learned, developed and improved (Perkins, 1994). Pestonjee (1992) had identified 3 important sectors of life from which stress originates namely as, (i) Organizational& Job sector (ii) Social sector and (iii) Intrapsychic sector. Organizational/ Job stress has been defined in terms of a misfit between skills & abilities of a person and the demands of his/her job. The concept of Organizational/job stress falls under the umbrella of a broader concept known as Role Stress. Therefore, it becomes imperative to understand the concept of organizational role, in order to understand the concept of stress in organizational & job sector of life. According to Pareek, role denotes the set of functions one performs in response to the expectations of the significant others, and one s own expectations from that position or office. Role stress refers to the conflict and tension due to the roles being enacted by a person at any given point of time. In the context of organizations, such role stresses are called organizational role stress. Among the two distinct types of role systems, Role Space and Role Set, either have an inherent in potential to contribute to conflict and stress. Pareek (2010) had identified ten different types of organizational role stressors. 1. InterRole Distance (IRD): It is experienced when there is a conflict between organisational and nonorganizational roles. 2. Role Stagnation (RS): This kind of stress is the result of the gap between the demand to outgrow a previous role and to occupy a new role effectively. It is the feeling of being stuck in the same role. 3. Role Expectation Conflict (REC): This type of stress is generated by different expectations by different significant persons about the same' role; and the role occupant's ambivalence as to whom to please. 4. Role Erosion (RE): This kind of role stress is the function of the role occupant's feeling that some functions which should properly belong to his /her role are transferred to / or performed by some other role. 5. Role Overload (RO): When the role occupant feels that there are too many expectations from the significant roles in his/her role set, he/she experiences role overload. 6. Role Isolation (RI): This type of role stress refers to the psychological distance between the occupant's role and other roles in the same role set. 7. Personal Inadequacy (PI): This type of stress arises when the role occupant feels that he/she does not have the necessary skills and training for effectively performing the functions expected from his/her role. 8. SelfRole Distance (SRD): When the role a person occupies goes against his/her selfconcept, then he/she feels selfrole distance type of stress. 9. Role Ambiguity (RA): It refers to the lack of clarity about the expectations of the role which may arise out of lack of information or understanding. 10. Resource Inadequacy (Rin): This type of stress is evident when the role occupant feels that he/she is not provided with adequate resources for performing the functions expected from his/her role. 13

3 6510(Online), Volume 4, Issue 1, January February (2013) Recent and prominent among the studies reported on Organizational Role Stress particularly in Indian context includes comparative study by Lehal and Singh (2005) between the ORS experienced by teaching faculty belonging to Public and Private institutions of higher learning India observes decreased level of stress in public sector. Bano (2012) reported that employees irrespective of belonging to public or private sector experience moderate level of stress with role erosion being a major influencing factor while resource inadequacy contributes the least. Several studies have suggested that individuals with high emotional intelligence are more capable of understanding and managing their emotions, which allows them to adjust to their surroundings and become more tolerant to challenging conditions, including stress (BarOn, 1997; Matthews et al., 2006). Individuals have had resorted to different methods to handle stress, including use of intelligence, especially their emotional intelligence (Sirin, 2007). Understanding and managing one s own and others emotions are likely to influence work attitudes and behavioural choices in the work place (Rozell, Pettijohn, and Parker, 2004). Rooprai (2009) established a negative correlation between emotional intelligence and stress or anxiety at workplace among management students. Many other studies have also emphasized on a positive correlation between emotional intelligence and organizational commitment (Carmeli, 2003; Nikolaou & Tsaousis, 2002; Shutte et al, 1998; Rozell et al, 2004). Organizational Commitment is the willingness to exert high levels of effort on behalf of the organization, a strong desire to stay with the organization and an acceptance of its major goals and values. Allen and Meyer (1990) defined organizational commitment as a psychological state that binds the individual to the organization. They developed a threecomponent model of commitment and labelled them as affective, continuance, and normative commitment, which are distinguishable from each other. (a) Affective commitment refers to employees emotional attachment, identification with, and involvement in the organization. Employees with a strong affective commitment stay with the organization because they want to. (b) Continuance commitment refers to employees assessment of whether the costs of leaving the organization are greater than the costs of staying. Employees who perceive that the costs of leaving the organization are greater than the costs of staying remain because they need to. (c) Normative commitment refers to employees feelings of obligation to the organization. Employees with high levels of normative commitment stay with the organization because they feel they ought to. Cha, Kim and Cichy (2009) had explored the effects of work status (parttime versus fulltime) and emotional intelligence (high EI versus low EIgroups) on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and contextual performance among private club staff members. The results indicated that differences in job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and contextual performance, between parttime and fulltime staff members had not been statistically significant while, effects of emotional intelligence and work status in relation to other factors had been statistically significant. Both, Sarboland (2012) and Mohamadkhani and Lalardi (2012) in different studies had established explicit relationships between the dimensions of EI and OC. 14

4 6510(Online), Volume 4, Issue 1, January February (2013) The literature indicates several studies that interrelates the major factors influencing the work attitude of individuals. The correlation studies needs to be validated by extending the studies to different regional and sectoral sections. This investigation aims at identifying any possible interrelationships between the different components of emotional intelligence (EI), organizational commitment (OC) and organisational role stress (ORS) particularly among the individual employed in the area of Higher education. Interrelationships between the demographical characteristics of the sample population with components of EI, OC and ORS had also been evaluated. The collection of data, analysis and the results are presented in the following sections. DATA COLLECTION With the scenario in higher education arena changing rapidly particularly in India, with introduction of major roles by private players, it will be undoubtedly useful in measuring the levels of the different components of EI, OC and ORS of individuals employed in the sector. Possible interrelations of these factors with the demographic characteristics of the individuals will be important in improvising the standards of education in any part of the world. In this direction employees of a premiere technical Institution funded by Government of India established in southern part of India was chosen as the sample space. QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN The questionnaire for the investigation was developed using instruments established through previous researches. The EI level was measured with The Emotional Intelligence Scale developed by Schutte et al. (1998) comprising 33 items classified into four dimensions namely (a) Perception of Emotion evaluated by 10 items; (b) Managing Others Emotions by 8 items, (c) Managing Own Emotions by 9 items and (d) the utilisation of emotion by 6 items in line with suggestions of Ciarrochi et al. (2001), each assessable with a fivepoint Likerttype scale. A modified form of organizational role stress (ORS) scale, which was developed and standardized by Pareek (2010) to measure the role stress, had been used in this study. The ORS instrument comprised of 50 items for which measuring 10 types of role stressors (5 statements for each role stressor) assessable on a five point Likert scale. In addition, ten questions with reverse evaluation were added. The three dimensional Allen and Meyer (1990) instrument for measurement of OC was employed in this study with 24 items classified in to three dimensions, namely: (a) affective (AC); (b) continuance (CC); and (c) normative (NC) assessable with five point Likert scale. Demographical characteristics grouped as Personal attributes, Job attributes and Environmental attribute were included as 20 additional items. Among the three groups, age, gender, marital status, number of children, educational qualification, native place, number of family members and earning members and annual income had been taken as personal attributes, number of days leaves availed, total experience, job overtime, salary satisfaction, challenging nature of work, recognition and appreciation for employee contribution and 15

5 6510(Online), Volume 4, Issue 1, January February (2013) effective skill application as job attributes and experiencing organisational change is considered as environmental attribute. In the entire questionnaire consisted of 137 items for which data pertaining to each individual was intended to be collected. DATA ANALYSIS Random Sampling technique was used in the selection of sample for the present study. Data pertaining to 34 Teaching faculties with varying age and work experience from the Institute was collected through personal interviews. While in all 45 questionnaires were distributed, completed responses were received only from 34 respondents that had been utilised for the analysis. Initially, internal validity of the data collected was measured using Cronbach s Alpha and items that yielded low values were rejected from the analysis. Reliability analysis and identification of levels of EI, OC and ORS were carried out as descriptive analysis. Pearson correlation matrix was employed as inferential statistical tool to comprehend the direction, strength and significance of the bivariate relationship between the variables. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 17.0) was used for compiling and processing the data. The major results obtained from the analysis and inferences drawn from the results are presented below. RESULTS FROM ANALYSIS Demographic Characteristics of the participants Demographic characteristics of the 34 respondents comprised an average age to be 35years with sixteen male and rest being female and among which twenty six were married. Nine participants had agreed that they have undergone organizational changes during the past 6 months. Twenty participants had perceived that their job to be challenging. The nineteen participants had positively responded to the receipt of appreciation and recognition of their contribution to the organization. A different set of nineteen respondents had been able to apply their skills and knowledge in their present role. Reliability test The reliability analysis of the data was performed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Table.1 presents the results obtained from the reliability analysis of the data in measurement of EI, OC and ORS. In table.1, parameter ability to manage others emotion initially yielded a Cronbach s alpha value of only.51 that was improvised to.73 with the rejection of two questions from the analysis. In general the Cronbach s alpha value obtained was well above.7 and can be considered to be reasonable. In the table, parameter normative commitment initially yielded an alpha value of only.45 that was improvised to.68 with the rejection of three questions. In the table, role erosion initially yielded an alpha value of only.43 that was improvised to.72 with the rejection of three questions. In all the three tables the final overall alpha value obtained are well above 0.6 had hence the internal validity of the questionnaire developed is established. 16

6 6510(Online), Volume 4, Issue 1, January February (2013) Table.1 Reliability analysis of dimensions of EI, OC and ORS Variables Components Number of questions EI OC ORS Initial Cronbach alpha No. of items eliminated Final Cronbach alpha Perception of emotion Managing others emotion Managing own emotion 9.75 None.75 Utilisation of emotion Affective commitment 8.83 None.83 Continuance commitment Normative commitment Inter role distance Role stagnation 6.77 None.77 Role expectation conflict Role erosion Role overload Role isolation Personal inadequacy Self role distance Role ambiguity 6.76 None.76 Resource inadequacy 6.73 none.73 From the Data collected the values of the variables namely EI, OC and ORS were computed for each response and sample averages were classified into three groups as low moderate and high as suggested by the previous studies. The range of values for the classification is presented in table 2. Table.2 Measuring EI, OC, ORS EI >8 High level of EI 5 to 8 Medium level of EI <5 Low level of EI, which is below average OC >8 Highly committed 58 Moderately committed <5 Less committed ORS >7.5 Highly stressed 5 to 7.5 Moderately stressed <5 Less stressed 17

7 6510(Online), Volume 4, Issue 1, January February (2013) The average values obtained for the sample on all three different variables are presented in table 3. Table.3 Average magnitude of EI, OC and ORS Variables Dimensions Average Magnitude Perception of emotion 7.32 EI Managing others emotion 7.54 Managing own emotion 8 Utilisation of emotion 7.92 Emotional Intelligence 7.7 Affective Commitment 7.56 OC Continuance Commitment 6 Normative Commitment 6.7 Organisational Commitment 6.88 Inter role distance 4.76 ORS Role stagnation 5.00 Role expectation conflict 5.00 Role erosion 6.52 Role overload 5 Role isolation 5 Personal inadequacy 5.56 Self role distance 4.56 Role ambiguity 4.52 Resource inadequacy 5.50 Organisational Role Stress 5.20 From the table it can be observed that the population represented individuals having relatively medium level of EI, and are moderately committed to the organization and are among the lower side of moderately stressed. The results indicate that with the average age being on the lower side the EI values are reasonable as the qualifications of the incumbents are relatively high. The Institute being a public sector organization, the relative commitment to the organization is only moderate while the incumbents work with relatively lower work stress owing to the relative academic freedom available. 18

8 6510(Online), Volume 4, Issue 1, January February (2013) PEARSON S CORRELATION COEFFICIENT AMONG VARIABLES OF THE STUDY Correlation among the components of EI, OC, ORS, and demographical variables were examined. The results obtained are presented in table.4. It can be observed from the table that there exists a significant positive correlation between EI and affective & normative commitment and in general, OC. While, EI has a positive relationship with inter role distance, role erosion; role isolation and personal inadequacy exhibits negative relationship indicating employees performing independently rather than as a team. EI has no correlation with personal attributes, job attributes & environmental attribute. However, managing own emotion is negatively related with absenteeism and positively related with number of children indicating a slight imbalance in Work life Balance. In general, OC appears to have no direct relationship with ORS. However, individually OC is observed to be positively related with Role erosion, AC is negatively related with role isolation and role ambiguity and NC is positively related with role erosion. OC also exhibits a negative relationship with marital status and a positive relation with number of children. AC is related negatively with marital status and absenteeism, positively with number of children. NC is negatively related with overtime job. ORS is positively related with absenteeism and negatively with organizational change. CONCLUSION The study results presents the overall work environment prevailing in the sample space and throws insights in to the possible interrelationships between the various parameters examined. The high Cronbach s alpha values indicate a high internal validity of the questionnaire developed and used for the study. In general as the sample space concerns about population engaged in a institute of higher education the qualification levels as well as the maturity levels of the incumbents are relatively high resulting in a high EI values. The results also indicate a moderate OC combined with relatively lesser work stress indicating the academic freedom prevailing in the work environment. However, there is lesser team work and lesser influences of informal organizations within the institution. The experience gathered in design of questionnaire, data collection and analysis during the investigation has not only led to understand the work environment prevailing in the sample space but also assisted in validating the effectiveness of the questionnaire in capturing the parameters that influence the work attitude. Similar studies are envisaged to be carried out in different employment sectors to understand the relationships between the influencing parameters that can lead to pin point the needs of the organization in sustaining the effectiveness. 19

9 6510(Online), Volume 4, Issue 1, January February (2013) Table.4 Correlation among EI, OC, ORS, their components and Demographical Variables Perception Mng others Mng own Utilizn Tot al EI Affective Continuance Normative Tot al OC IRD RS REC RE RO RI PI SRD RA RIN Total ORS Age Marital Children Education Native Distance Family member Earning member Annual income Leave Experience Over time Salary satis Work challenge Appreciattion Skill applicn Org. changes Perception of emotion Mng others emotion Mng own emotion 1.62 Utilization Total EI Affective commitment Continuance commitment Normative commitment 1 Total OC 1.33 IRD RS REC

10 6510(Online), Volume 4, Issue 1, January February (2013) RE RO Perception Mng others Mng own Utilizn Tot al EI Affective Continuance Normative Tot al OC IRD RS REC RE RO RI PI SRD RA RIN Total ORS Age Marital Children Education Native Distance Family members Earning members Annual income Leave Experience Over time Salary satis Work challenge Appreciattion Skill applicn Org. changes RI PI 1 SRD 1 RA RIN Total ORS Correlation is significant at the 0 level (2tailed).. Correlation is significant at the 0 level (2tailed). 21

11 6510(Online), Volume 4, Issue 1, January February (2013) REFERENCES [1] Allen, N. J and Meyer, J. P. (1990), The Measurement and Antecedents of Affective, Continuance, and Normative Commitment to the Organization, Journal of Occupational Psychology, volume 63, 118. [2] Bano, Bushara and Jha, Rajiv (2012), Organizational Role Stress Among Public and Private Sector Employees: A Comparative Study, The Lahore Journal of Business (Summer 2012), pp [3] BarOn, R. (1997), Emotional Quotient Inventory Technical Manual, MHS Publications, Toronto. Carmeli, A. (2003), The relationship between emotional intelligence and work attitudes, behaviour and outcomes: An examination among senior managers, Journal of Management Psychology, volume18, issue 8, pp [4] Cha, JaeMin; Kim, SeungHyun and Cichy, Ronald, F. (2009); Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, and Contextual Performance: Examining Effects of Work Status and Emotional Intelligence among Private Club Staff Members, [5] Cook, J. and Wall, T. (1980), New work attitude measures of trust, organizational commitment and personal need nonfulfilment, Journal of Occupational Psychology, volume 53, pp [6] Erdogen, B. and Bauer, T. (2010), Organisational Behavior, Lehal, Ritu; and Singh, Sukhdeep (2005), Organizational Role Stress among College Teachers of Patiala District: A Comparative Study of Government and Private Colleges, RIMT Journal of Strategic Management & Information Technology, Volume 2, No.1 & 2, Jan.June. [7] Matthews.G, Emo A.K, Funke G, Zeidner M, Roberts RT, Costa PT, Schulze R (2006), Emotional Intelligence, personality and taskinduced stress, Journal of Exp Psychol Appl. 12(2), pp [8] Mohamadkhani, K. and Lalardi, Nasiri, M. (2012), Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Commitment between the Hotel Staff in Tehran, Iran American Journal of Business and Management Vol. 1, No. 2, 2012, pp [9] Nikolaou. I, and Tsaousis. I. (2002), Emotional intelligence in the workplace: Exploring its effects on occupational stress and organizational commitment, International Journal of Organizational Analysis, volume10, issue 4, pp [10] Pareek,Udai and Purohit,Surabhi (2010), Training instrument in HRD and OD, Third edition, Tata McGrawHill, New Delhi. [11] Perkins, D. (1994). Outsmarting IQ: The Emerging Science of Learnable Intelligence, The Free Press, New York, NY. [12] Pestonjee, D.M. (1992) Stress and CopingThe Indian Experience, Second edition, Sage Publications India Private Ltd., New Delhi. [13] Rooprai, K.Y. (2009), Role of Emotional Intelligence in Managing Stress and Anxiety at workplace Proceedings of ASBBS, Volume 16, Number 1. [14] Rozell, E. J.; Pettijohn, C.E.; and Parker, R.S. (2004), Customer oriented selling: Exploring the roles of Emotional Intelligence and Organisational commitment Psychology and Marketing, volume 21, issue 6, pp [15] Sarboland, Kheyrollah (2012), Assessment of the Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Commitment of Employees: A Case Study of Tax Affairs Offices, Iran, Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific Research. 22

12 6510(Online), Volume 4, Issue 1, January February (2013) [16] Schutte, N. S ; Malouff, J. M; Hall, L. E; Haggerty, D. J; Cooper, J; Golden, C. J; and Dorhheim, L. (1998) Development and validation of a measure of emotional intelligence Personality and Individual Differences, pp7177. [17] Sirin, G. (2007), The relationship between teachers emotional intelligence levels and their ways of coping up with stress,master s thesis, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey. [18] Dr.N.Shani and Narayanasamy.P.S, The Role of Employee Engagement and Strategic Tool in HRM International Journal of Management (IJM), Volume 2, Issue 2, 2011, pp , Published by IAEME [19] Dr.C.Swarnalatha and T.S.Prasanna, Employee Engagement: The Key to Organizational Success International Journal of Management (IJM), Volume 3, Issue 3, 2012, pp , Published by IAEME [20] U. Gowri Shankar and K. Keerthi, Emotional Intelligence among Middle School Teachers With Reference To Nagapatinam District, Tamil Nadu International Journal of Management (IJM), Volume 1, Issue 2, 2010, pp. 1 8, Published by IAEME [21] Minakshi Nagar, Incorporation of Emotional Intelligence (EI) Into the Business Curriculum: Redefining the Success Mantra at Workplace International Journal of Management (IJM), Volume 3, Issue 2, 2012, pp , Published by IAEME [22] Saket Jeswani and Dr. Sumita Dave, Emotional Intelligence as an Antecedent of Turnover Intention: An Empirical Analysis on Faculty Members International Journal of Management (IJM), Volume 3, Issue 2, 2012, pp , Published by IAEME 23