Sales Force Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Role of Meaning at work and Conditions for Community

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1 Sales Force Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Role of Meaning at work and Conditions for Community Prof. Dr. Muhammad Ehsan Malik Dean, Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences/Director, Institute of Business Administration (IBA)/Director General, Gujranwala Campus, University of the Punjab, Lahore (Pakistan) Basharat Naeem Lecturer at IBA, University of the Punjab, Lahore (Pakistan) & Ph.D. (Business Management) Scholar at COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), Pakistan Basit Bin Ali Student of MBA (Honors) at IBA, University of the Punjab, Lahore (Pakistan) ABSTRACT In recent years, workplace spirituality emerged as a new paradigm in organizational and theoretical perspectives (Bosch, 2009). A growing body of research advocated that employees exhibit greater performance particularly beyond the call the duty when they experience a strong connection to their organization and feel sense of meaning and purpose in their daily work. Accordingly, the main aim of this research was to find out whether or not meaning at work and conditions for community act as antecedents of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Survey questionnaire was distributed to FMCG sales force in 15 selected companies operating in Lahore region of Pakistan. Bivariate regression analysis was employed to testing the proposed relationships. Suggestions for sales management and future researchers are presented, too. Keywords: Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Meaning at Work, Sense of Connectedness, Sales force, FMCG Introduction: In today s turbulent global environment, an exhaustive comprehension of the dynamics of personal selling is vital for capitalistic companies (Meredith, 2009). In order to compete in expanding global markets these companies must also evolve and adapt to the changes in the markets. Regardless the fact that a large number of people are employed in sales or related disciplines, the sales literature are still is recognized as underdeveloped (Stewart, 2006). Moreover, according to some scholars, personal selling is the most important job for the success of a business for the fact that salespersons are crucial relationship developers as they represent their company to the customers (Anderson & Huang, 2006). However, despite being a live wire in literature as compared to other domains, sales has not received much attention from scholars; and research in this area has fallen aback (Stewart, 2006; Jones, Brown, Zoltners, & Weitz, 2005). This can be partially attributed to the fact that sales management and selling is not being studied in academia since long (Meredith, 2009). Research in the area of workplace spirituality is of recent origin as various researchers expressions reflect (Mitroff and Denton, 1999; Klenke, 2003; Garcia Zamor, 2003). Fairly for this reason, it is at a developmental level as well. For example, Ashmos and Duchon (2000), while stipulating a definition for workplace spirituality, noted regardless of whether academic writers believe spirituality is an appropriate concept in the workplace, no one has offered a definition of it. To add to this Mitroff 654

2 and Denton (1999) remarked that research in this domain has not been sufficiently systematic. Recently, Dent, Higgins and Wharff (2005) heeded that research and theorizing in this domain is at an exploratory phase. Employees engaging in OCB help to foster an enjoyable and productive work environment (Spence, 2010). The term OCB was introduced to the organizational sciences in the 1980s (Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983; Bateman & Organ, 1983) to describe prosocial or extra-role workplace behaviors. OCB refers to productive and constructive workplace behavior occurring outside the realm of in-role task performance that serves to benefit the organization and its members (Organ, 1988). In contrast, activities that contribute to the production of goods or the delivery of services that are formally recognized as part of one s job comprise in-role task performance (Rotundo & Sackett, 2002; Borman & Motowidlo, 1993). A growing body of research regarding OCB suggested that employees demonstrate greater role performance when they experience a strong connection to their organization, have a sense of ownership over to its continued success, and have found a sense of purpose and meaning in their daily work (Van Dyne, Graham, & Dienesch, 1994). Research exploring OCB and an organization s overall performance has also found significant relationship. Organizations whose employees demonstrate OCB enjoy higher managerial productivity; the efficient on-boarding of new hires; improved strategic planning, business processes, the allocation of key organizational resources; and the frequency of communication between and across work groups (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1997). OCB has often been referred to in academic literature as a construct focused on helping (Ehrhart & Naumann, 2004). Those employees that demonstrate OCBs are more likely to provide others with assistance in completing work tasks and demonstrate loyalty to work colleagues and the organization; foster connectedness with other individuals and work teams; and promote the organizational goals whilst also underwriting to its psychological and social environment (Lievens & Ansell, 2004). Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has often been referred to in academic literature as a construct focused on helping (Ehrhart & Naumann, 2004). Those employees that demonstrate OCB are more likely to provide others with assistance in completing work tasks and demonstrate loyalty to work colleagues and the organization; foster connectedness with other individuals and work teams; and support organizational goals while also underwriting its psychological and social environment (Lievens & Ansell, 2004). A growing body of research into OCB suggests that employees demonstrate greater extra-role performance when they experience a strong connection to their organization and have found a sense of meaning and purpose in their daily work (Van Dyne, Graham, & Dienesch, 1994). Despite the fact that various antecedents and consequences of OCB have been looked into over the years, the workplace spirituality-ocb relationship has hardly been studied. Studies exploring the specific factors contributing to employee discretionary effort remains of significant interest to organizational behavior research (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1997). Milliman et al. (2003) noted that a greater proportion of research has concentrated on delineating the nature of workplace spirituality and proposed the research need to study the consequences of workplace spirituality. Currently, there is a dearth of studies that connects workplace spirituality with important organizational constructs such as OCB. Hence, the need of the hour is to investigate whether or not workplace spirituality contributes to fostering extra-role performance in the selling context of Pakistan. 655

3 Literature Review: In contemporary era, organizations play a key role in the existence of the society and rely on interpersonal relationship (e.g., Boulding, 1953). In commercial organizations, the effective functioning and solid existence is greatly dependent on the capital investments of their shareholders. Therefore using sales initiatives to generate maximum value for shareholders in terms of high profits is the primary activity for most of these companies (Meredith, 2009). With the change in focus to consumption orientation from production orientation in the capitalist societies, the companies attempt to control this consumption via marketing functions (Ritzer, 2005). According to Meredith (2009), the quest for understanding individual differences between successful versus less successful salespeople have in many ways been considered the holy grail of personal selling research. The discipline of personal selling is young but developing. It is not surprising therefore, that the sales discipline finds itself at an important crossroads. Imperative to this crossroads is the need for theoretical advancements by the scholarly community. An increase in the number of articles in different academic and practitioner journals in recent years clearly highlights the growth of interest in workplace spirituality. According to Mirvis (1997), this is partly the resultant of increased importance of workplace in the lives of people today people are spending more of their time working and number among closest friends, their co-workers, resultantly, their social identity is partly derived from their workplace. According to Howard (2002), recently, the term spirituality has gained greater currency in organization and management development circles. A drive to fulfill the need for spirituality is increasing as cited in Biberman and Whitty (2000): An organizational fourth wave is mounting, the spirituality based firm. The movement toward spiritualizing the organization has apparently caught on, in both theory and practice, even if not yet universally acknowledged as the wave of the future. Spirituality has been defined by Delbecq (1999) as the unique inner search for the fullest personal development through participation into transcendent mystery. According to Cavanagh et al. (2001) spirituality is a worldview plus a path. For Barnett et al. (2000), on the other hand, spirituality is a process of selfenlightenment. Dehler and Welsh (1994) see spirituality as a specific form of work feeling that energizes action. And Guillory (2000) looked at spirituality as our inner consciousness. Today s organizations have seen a move from individualized jobs and hierarchical structures (Lepine, Erez and Johnson, 2002) to team based job requirements, increasing the value of individual cooperation and help (Ilgen and Pulakos, 1999). Consequently OCB or the prosocial behavior which facilitates in maintaining effective social system of the organization (Organ, 1997) has got attention from both researchers and practitioners alike (Organ and Ryan, 1995; Motowidlo and Schmit, 1999; Motowidlo, Borman, and Schmit, 1997; LePine, Hanson, Borman, and Motowidlo, 2000; Howard, 1995). A study of the extant literature on the subject revealed that the researchers found out significant relationship between the workplace spirituality and OCB. Tan and Geh (2009) provided a theoretical model linking workplace spirituality with organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) through organizational commitment as the mediator and tested it empirically. Workplace spirituality was seen to have a significant positive impact on OCB. Further, Liu (2008) established positive relationship between workplace spirituality and OCB as well. Setiyawati and Abdul Rehman (2007) in their study exploring the spirituality and personality correlates of OCB recognized that meaning of life had a positive significant impact on OCB. Also it was recognized in a recent study that spirituality had a positive influence on OCB (Kutcher, Bragger, Srednicki and Masco, 2010). Further, Harmer (2008) established that there is a significant positive relationship between 656

4 employees OCB and spirituality. Further, Geh (2009) in his exploratory study confirmed that workplace spirituality had significant positive impact on OCB. Hence based on the empirical findings, the following expected relation between study variables is proposed: Research Hypothesis: Workplace spirituality dimensions such as meaning at work and conditions for community will promote organizational citizenship behaviors of FMCG sales force. Research Methods: In March 2011, one thousand survey questionnaires were distributed to collect the data from the managerial and non-managerial sales force employed by 15 selected companies operating in Lahore region of Pakistan. By using mix methods of personal, , by post and self administration and multiple follow ups, 213 statistically survey questionnaires were received by the end of June, 2011 which was reasonable for regression analysis taking into consideration the variable to case ratio of 1:20. Multiple indicators operational measures were used for study constructs such as conditions for community (9 items), meaning at work (7 items), developed by Ashmos and Duchon (2000), and OCB (12 items) as developed by MacKenzie, Podsakoff and Fetter (1993). Respondents were asked to give their level of agreement or disagreement on a 5-point Likert response format with anchors like 1=strongly disagree and 5 =strongly agree. Results: The table # 1 reflects the characteristics of the sales force participated in this research. For age, 54% of the sales force having age less than 30 years whereas 46% sales force were more than 30 years of age. Majority of the respondents were male (200) whereas only 12 females participated. 57% of the respondents were married (119) and only 43% were unmarried (89). As regards education, 44% sales force having graduate degree while 56% had master degree. A total of 52% sales force working on non-managerial positions and managerial sales force were accounted for 48%. A large proportion of the respondents (78%) had been working with their organization for up to 5 years. Table 1: Demographic Profile of Respondents (N=213) Sales force Characteristics Frequency % Sales force Characteristics Frequency % Age Up to 30 years Above 30 years Gender Male Female Marital Status Unmarried Married Academic Qualification Graduation Degree Master Degree Job Position Managerial Non Managerial Company Tenure 1 2 years 3 5 years 6 10 years years 15 years and above Table # 2 shows the descriptive statistics, reliabilities and inter item correlations of study constructs such as meaning at work, conditions for community and OCB. Table 2: Descriptive Statistics, Reliabilities and Inter-Correlations (N = 213) Mean SD (α) X1 X2 X3 X X * X * 0.30* 1.00 X1 = Conditions for Community, X2 = Meaning at Work, X3 = Organizational Citizenship Behavior, * Significant at Level

5 Table # 3 indicates the results of Bivariate regression analysis where FMCG sales force OCB was regressed on their meaning at work. Meaning at work explained 9% (R 2 = 0.09, F 1, 161 = 15.32, p<0.001) variance in OCB. The analysis also reflected that meaning at work had significant and positive impact (β=0.30, t=3.91, p<0.001) on extra-role performance of the sales force. Table 3: Regression Analysis Criterion Variable: Organizational Citizenship Behavior R 2 β t Predictor: Meaning at Work * F-statistics F 1,161 = 15.32* * Significant at Level Results of Bivariate regression analysis (table # 04) indicate that when OCB was regressed on condition for community, it explained 13% variability (R 2 = 0.13, F 1, 64 = 24.69, p<0.001) in OCB. It was also observed that conditions for community contributed positively (β=0.36, t=4.97, p<0.001) in FMCG sales force extra role performance. Table 4: Regression Analysis Criterion Variable: Organizational Citizenship Behavior R 2 β t Predictor: Conditions for Community * F-statistics F 1,164 = 24.69* * Significant at Level Conclusion and Recommendations: The main aim of this current research was to find out which dimension of workplace spirituality promotes the extra-role performance of the FMCG sales force. The study results showed that both meaning at work and conditions for community had positive and significant impact on OCB. The results also showed that conditions for community had strong impact on OCB followed by meaning at work. This research also has some important recommendations for the top management of FMCG companies. Role clarity should be ensure by providing a clear set of job description and job specifications to the employees, so that a sense of meaning at work may be established. Further, intangible rewards (praise, recognition, etc.), not necessarily formal, should be used t foster meaning at work. Moreover knowledge sharing culture should be promoted throughout the organization via formal and informal gatherings so that a sense of connectedness amongst the employees in endorsed. Competency bases sales control systems can also be used to garner a developmental orientation in the organization consequently making the work more meaningful. Flexi-times can be used to ensure work life balance so employees can align their personal priorities with work priorities making the work meaningful. As far as the limitations of this research are concerned, the future researchers should take the crosssectional design in to consideration while making inference about causality. For better understanding of casual relationship, longitudinal studies should be conducted. Researchers should involved some more variables in the model as mediating, moderating or dependent variable like turnover, job performance, job satisfaction and job involvement. 658

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