Investigation of the Effects of Staff Resilience on Organizational Performance

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1 International Research Journal of Management Sciences. Vol., 3 (11), , 2015 Available online at ISSN X 2015 Investigation of the Effects of Staff Resilience on Organizational Performance (Case Study: Staff Isfahan Melli Bank Branches) Iraj Soltani 1, Maliheh Soleimanian 2 1 Faculty member of Islamic Azad University Khorasgan (Isfahan) Branch, Iran 2 Ph.D Candidate, Shakhes Pajouh Research Institute, Isfahan University, Iran * Corresponding Author: Iraj Soltani ABSTRACT: This study examined the effects of staff resilience on organizational performance in Isfahan Melli Bank branches. The population of the research was the staff of Melli Bank in Afhan which includes 726 people working in 80 branches in Esfahan, a random sample of 248 Employees was selected from 25 branches. Then, a questionnaire matched with Iranian culture was designed through review of literature, and administered. For data analysis and hypotheses test SPSS 18 was used. Results suggest that staff resilience has a positive and significant effect on organizational performance. Keywords: Staff Resilience, Staff Performance. INTRODUCTION Institutes and organizations with any mission, goal and vision, work in a national or international zone and are responsible for accountability to customers, clients and beneficiaries, so that companies with the purpose of profitability and customer satisfaction and those with the goal of precise application of legal duties and helping to country s development goals are responsive. Therefore, reviewing the performance results is an important strategic process. Management quality and effectiveness and its performance are the vital factor of society development and welfare programs realization. Presenting various services and products and securing costs from sources, has promoted the sensitivity required for examining goals realization, constant quality improvement, increasing customer satisfaction, performance of organization, management and staff. If the performance is assessed constantly and correctly with the process view, it will improve the state section and its accountability and public trust to organizations performance and government effectiveness. In the non-state section also it will promote resources management, customer satisfaction, and national development, developing new capabilities, durability, and improving companies and organizations global class. Constant performance improvement results in synergy which can support improvement and development programs and provide organizational improvement. Governments, organizations and institutions try to move forward in this area. Without review and awareness of the level of progress and achievement, without identifying challenges, getting feedback, the operation level of policies and identifying cases in need of serious improvement, constant performance improvement will not occur. Therefore, understanding the factors affecting organizational performance is very important. One of the important factors is the staff personality features, which has received less attention in research. One of these factors is resilience of people. Attention to employees psychological status is not a new issue. In recent decades more attention has been paid to occupational stress and studying its consequences, a reason of which is the effect of job stress on psycho-physical illnesses (such as blood pressure and digestive problems) and also the wide spread job stress in 562

2 the society. But stress is inevitable in work and some jobs have a high level of stress due to the type of duties and special responsibilities. Therefore people should be placed in organizational based on their resilience so that they can perform well and lead the organization toward its goals. In this study, the question is whether the resilience of employees affected the performance of the branches of Isfahan Melli Bank? Review of literature First, an overview of resilience and performance is presented separately. Organizational Performance Many managers compete with one another, and seek new solutions to enhance the performance of their organizations. This is a major concern for organizations today (Benzing et al., 2005). The organization performance indicates how better a company is, compared to its competitors, in terms of both sales growth and market share of its main products in the market and product development (Wu et al., 2006; Molina et al., 2007). Organizational performance refers to how organizational missions, duties and activities are done, and also to their results. In another definition, organizational performance is reaching organizational and social goals or beyond them and fulfilling organization s responsibilities. Based on a definition by Nani et al (1990), there are two major approaches: objective and mental, each of which has specific advantages and disadvantages. Objective scales are more realistic, but in terms of coverage territory are limited to financial data. Mental scales, on the other hand, are less realistic, but offer a rich description of organization effectiveness. These scales allow the comparison of a wide range of organizations in different industries. Therefore, findings generalization capability is higher based on mental scales. Also, mental scales include perception-based analysis factors which have gained a special place in social sciences researches (Allen et al., 2008). An organization s operation level depends on its performance and effectiveness of organizational operations, thus, operation evaluation is the process of determining performance quantity and effectiveness of an organization. Undoubtedly, operation evaluation is not a goal, but a tool for effective management. The results of operation evaluation show what has happened, but it does not show why they have happened (Rahnavard, 2008). Several studies have been conducted on designing and determining operation evaluation indexes. The most important issue regarding operation evaluation indexes is agreement with organization goals, with organization strategies, credibility along time and possibility of rapid and detailed feedback. Staff Resilience Positive psychology approach, according to the talents and capabilities of people (instead of aberrations and disorders), has been of interest to psychologists in recent years. This approach, defines its ultimate goal as identifying structures and ways that bring along well-being and happiness for people. Thus, factors that cause more human adaptation to the needs and threats to their life are the most fundamental structures studied in this approach. In the meantime, resilience has gained a special place in the field of development psychology, psychology of family and mental health, and the number of research associated with these structures increases every day. In other words, resilience is positive adjustment in response to adverse conditions (Samani, Jokar, 2007). Self-resilience has been defined as a main personality structure for perceiving motivation, excitement and behavior. Werner and Smith (1992) identify self-resilience as human s self-correction process. In addition, as Werner (1997) believes, self-resilience, threats apart, is a potential in everyone for change. Block (2002) believes that self-resilience is the ability of control level adaptability based on environment conditions. Self-resilient people do not have self-destructive behaviors; are emotionally calm and are able to change stressful conditions (Block and Founder, 2007). Central core of selfresilience is built upon the belief that there is a biological nature for improvement and accomplishment in any individual (For instance, the self-correction nature of human organism) which can be unveiled naturally in specific environmental conditions (Werner, 1997). Studies have reliably reported a number of a number of features associated with resilience, such as positive and supportive care, family relationships, qualified parenting, children's temperament and high cognitive ability (Wyman et al., 1999). Self-worth: Accepting oneself as a valuable individual, and respecting their self and their abilities. Unconditional love and trying to identify their strengths and develop them and on the other hand, identifying and not denying their weaknesses, in addition to trying to realistically overcome these deficiencies. Otherwise, they would cope with these features. Problem-solving skills: resilient individuals have an analytical-critical mindset toward their abilities and conditions, are flexible toward different conditions and have an amazing ability to find problem-specific solutions. They also have a special ability in realistic analysis of personal problems and finding immediate solutions and long-term strategies to resolve problems that are not 563

3 solved easily and quickly. Social competence: These people have learned communication skills very well. They can keep their sense of humor even in difficult conditions, can get close to others and benefit other people s social support in times of crisis. They can also be very patient, can be good listeners and can put themselves in your place. In addition, they have a wide range of skills and social strategies, including conversation skills, assertiveness and listening, readiness to listen to others and respect other people s feelings and opinions, which is highly crucial in social interactions. Optimism: they strongly believe that the future can be better, and have a sense of hope and purpose and belief that they can control their lives and their future and possible obstacles cannot stop them. Empathy: the resistant have the ability of building mutual relationships along with respect which leads to social cohesion, the sense of belonging to individuals, groups and social institutions. The conceptual model The conceptual model is a conceptual pattern based on theoretical relationships among factors that have been determined as important to the subject under study. This theory flows reasonably in the subject area through studying the literature. In this study, as shown in the title and literature, the conceptual model has explained the impact of resilience and organizational performance in Isfahan Melli Bank branches. The present research s conceptual model is based on Garvin Organizational Performance Model, seeing organizational performance as the dependent variable. The relationship between staff resilience and organizational performance is studied here. Also, research hypotheses are formed and tested based on the conceptual model. Staff resilience Organizational performance Figure 1. Conceptual Model. The major hypothesis: Staff resilience has a positive and significant impact on organizational performance. Minor hypotheses: Staff resilience has a positive and significant impact on the quality of services provided. Staff resilience has a positive and significant impact on timely delivery of services provided. Staff resilience has a positive and significant impact on services flexibility. Staff resilience has a positive and significant impact on surplus services provided. Research population and sample METHODOLOGY This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive and survey in terms of methods of data collection. The population of the research included all the 2746 employees of Melli Bank branches of Isfahan. The sample size of 330 was set by Morgan table. Simple random sampling was then used. 350 questionnaires were administered 300 of which were acceptable for analysis. Tools: In this study, Connor and Davison standard resilience questionnaires and Garvin organizational performance were used to collect data. The questionnaires used in this study were composed of two parts. Rating scale was prepared from strongly agree to strongly disagree for ach question on the basis of 1 to 5. Questionnaire validity: Face validity of the questionnaires used was approved by professionals and university professors. The content validity of the questionnaires was already approved because they were standard. Questionnaire reliability: Cronbach's alpha was used to determine the reliability of the test. Cronbach's alpha was 0/92% for all questions relating to the variables in the analytical model, which is an acceptable level. Cronbach's alpha for each of the variables is stated in Table 1: 564

4 Table 1. Cronbach's alpha. Variable Cronbach's alpha Source The number of questions Resilience 0.93 Connor and Davison 25 Organizational Performance 0.90 Garvin model 10 Cronbach's alpha coefficient for each variable and all of the above questions is 75/0, which shows the reliability of the questionnaire. RESULTS Table 2. The one-sample t-test results. Variable Number Mean t Sig. Resilience Organizational Performance One-sample t-test results showed that the average of all agents has statistically a significant difference with 3. The results of regression: In table 3 results of the research hypotheses examination using regression test are shown Table 3. The results of regression test. Hypotheses Coefficient R R2 Sig. Staff Resilience Organizational Performance Staff Resilience Quality Staff Resilience Timely delivery Staff Resilience Flexibility Staff Resilience Surplus services CONCLUSION Staff resilience has a positive and significant effect on organizational performance. Regression test results indicate that the influence of staff resilience with a coefficient of 0.88 has a significant positive effect on organizational performance. Consequently, the major hypothesis was supported. The result of this hypothesis is in line with other researches, including Sarvghad and Joubandeh (2013). Staff resilience has a positive and significant effect on quality of services. Regression test results indicate that the influence of staff resilience with a coefficient of 0.56 has a significant positive effect on quality of services. Consequently, the first minor hypothesis was supported. Staff resilience has a positive and significant effect on timely delivery of services. Regression test results indicate that the influence of staff resilience with a coefficient of 0.75 has a significant positive effect on timely delivery of services. Consequently, the second minor hypothesis was supported. The result of this hypothesis is in line with other researches, including Sarvghad and Joubandeh (2013). Staff resilience has a positive and significant effect on services flexibility. Regression test results indicate that the influence of staff resilience with a coefficient of 0.39 has a significant positive effect on services flexibility. Consequently, the third minor hypothesis was supported. The result of this hypothesis is in line with other researches, including Sarvghad and Joubandeh (2013). Staff resilience has a positive and significant effect on surplus services. Regression test results indicate that the influence of staff resilience with a coefficient of 0.62 has a significant positive effect on surplus services. Research results show that Staff resilience has a significant relationship with Melli Bank branches performance. In the end, it is necessary to mention that resilience is not just a list of features, but a process that is called resilience-making in real life. All human beings have the innate ability for resilience, but resilient behavior is learnable. Some resilience features are internal and people have, or can gain them, while others a gained solely by raising them in a resilience-making environment. So, to improve the quality level of mental health it is recommended that: When facing stressors focus on people's strengths, and the environment. Rather than focusing on their weaknesses and disabilities, pay attention to the problem-solving process and define the exact problem or 565

5 problems to know exactly what the current problems are, and explain each in a line. Then prioritize the problems and know the more important or more urgent ones rather than focusing on unimportant issues. Then, to solve the problem think and write down any solution that comes to your mind, from the funniest and the easiest to the most reasonable solutions. Then prioritize the solutions and give them positive and negative points. Next, write them in a hierarchy from the highest point to the lowest. Some recommendations are: Employment tests that include the resilience of staff as well. Holding practical workshops to enhance the staff resilience Employing people in positions appropriate to their resilience capacity Supportive relationships combined with care and a network of people who support each other High expectations and standards which are at the same time reasonable by family and society about the behavior of the individual Opportunities to participate in social activities The limitations of this study indicate that in Iran no systematic research was carried out on the research topic about employees, and this study was performed on employees of an organization and therefore generalization of the results to other organizations must be done cautiously until a study is replicated. REFERENCES Allen RS, Dawson G, Wheatley K, White CS, Perceived diversity and organizational performance, Employee relations. 30: Benzing C, Chu HM, Callanan G, A Regional Comparison of the Motivation Problems of Vietnamese Entrepreneurs. Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship. 10(1): Molina LM, Llorens-Montes FJ, Ruiz-Moreno A, Relationship between quality management practices and knowledge transfer. Journal of Operations Management. 25(3): Nani AJ, Dixon JR, Vollmann TE, Strategic control and performance measurement. Journal of Cost Management. Pp Rahnavard F, Factors Influencing Organizational Performance in the Government. Humanities Studies. 8, (4). Samani S, Jokar B, Resilience, Mental Health, and Satisfaction with Life. Journal of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology.13(30): Sarvghad S, Jouyande M, The Relationship between Reselience and Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Faghihi Hospital. Master s Thesis, Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht Branch, Faculty of Psychology, Iran. Werner E, Vulnerable but invincible: High risk children from birth to adulthood.acta Paediatrica Supplement. 422: Werner E, Smith RS, Overcoming the odds: High risk children from birth to adulthood. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University. Wu F, Yeniyurt S, Kim D, Cavusgil ST, The impact of information technology on supply chain capabilities and firm performance: a resource-based view. Industrial Marketing Management. 35(4): Wyman PA, Cowen EL, Work WC, Hoyt-Meyers L, Magnus KB, Fagen DB, Caregiving and developmental factors differentiating young at-risk urban children showing resilient versus stressaffected outcomes: A replication and extension. Child Development. 70: