A quantitative study on the psychological capital, psychological climate, and organisational citizenship behaviours of academic lecturers across South Africa.

Abstract

Psychological Capital (PsyCap), Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) and Psychological Climate (PC) are all positive constructs, which have shown a positive relationship to coping mechanism in the workplace, and wellbeing initiatives. In light of positive organisational literature, it has become increasingly important to investigate modalities to which individuals cope during change in the organisation and the dynamic between organisational change and wellness (Saks, 2008 ). However, change is not only a feature to corporate organisations, but are equally apparent in tertiary institutions. It is a goal of a tertiary institution to equip students with skills and knowledge that is relevant and valuable to the working world (Benedict, Gwija, Iwu, & Tengeh, 2013). If there is constant change in the corporate or world or work, which is considered constant, then the tertiary intuitions must equally dynamically shape their educational training to match those changes. This being constrained and often further shaped by socioeconomic and political dynamics of both the student and managerial body (Quinn, 2012). In light of such, it becomes important to contrast and understand the negotiation of change in a tertiary setting where there is a complex nature and structure (Benedict et al, 2013). Thus, it is important to facilitate research that adds to intervention and assessment based strategies that would be able to be utilized in a large scale change analysis strategies. However, a key anecdote in change studies has been an interplay of considering wellbeing as an antecedent to change strategies. Research exploring agility, stress, resilience, and so forth has often taken a diagnostic approach where the assessment is used to diagnose a situation, as a pose to explore its dilemma. Research by Cadwallader and Parish (2008) highlight this issue through exploring employee commitment to change. What becomes apparent is that identifying stressors and change methodologies is one element, the secondary element is contrasting such in a holistic approach whereby there is an extended significance placed on considering wellness (Cohn & Fredrickson, 2010). Wellness is taking into consideration all aspects of an individual’s wellbeing this includes environmental features, financial, social etc. (Field & Louw, 2012). Each of which have an equal weight into how change is understood and taken by an individual (Field & Louw, 2012). In order to consider such this research took on the psychological climate perspective in consideration with psychological capital and organisational citizenship behaviour. This is aimed to provide a triadic approach that places the individual and organisation in 3 spheres of the self, 4 the perspective of others, and perceptions of the organisation. Thus, this research aimed to determine the relationship that exists between psychological capital, psychological climate, and organisational citizenship behaviour. The study also sought to determine to what extent the sub factors from each of these scales had a moderating effect. A cross-sectional research design was used in the study. The researcher used a sample of 375 (N = 375) academics from across several different tertiary institutions across South Africa. The researcher used three questionnaires in the study. A biographical questionnaire created by the researcher, the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ), the Organisational Citizenship Behaviour Questionnaire (OCBQ), and the Organisational Climate Questionnaire (OCQ). The main findings of the study indicated that there were practically and statistically significant relationships between psychological capital, organisational citizenship behaviour and psychological climate. More specifically relationships were found to exist between the sub factors: resilience, expectations, and civic virtue. From the results, psychological capital was found to predict both organisational citizenship and psychological climate. However, it was noted that there was a higher predictive validity found in the psychological capital scale having a more significant impact on climate on citizenship behaviour. A secondary measure was preformed to confirm the findings– the Sobel test. The sobel test confirmed that psychological capital is the mediating variable between psychological climate and organisational citizenship behaviour as the Z score was confirmed as Z = 8.79 and p = 0.005. According to this mediation analysis, psychological capital is confirmed as a mediating the relationship between psychological climate and organisational citizenship behaviour. During the research, there were several limitations experienced. Firstly, due to the nature of the study being a nationwide study the researcher implemented a digital version of the survey in order to reach the target sample. However, this introduces a secondary level of ethical issues that needed to be carefully considered before interpreting any data. In addition, facilitating this research on an online platform whilst not unheard of is still gaining in research rigidity although its use in various methods. Considering such this research took steps to ensure data privacy and protection both with outsourcing the sample, and handling of the data. Ensuring that data stored is secure and without any breach. Furthermore, proof of legitimacy of the sample and the understanding of each question was carefully considered. However, it must be considered that interpretation of material may to 5 some extent be compromised. Just as with many assessments that are online based there must always include a measure that accounts for any variability in this instance. Furthermore, it was found that the climate measure itself has had an extensive variety of uses in many different settings and the original questionnaire was unavailable and not easily translatable. Due to this, the research adopted similar measures used in various studies. In future, recommending for research exploring the relationship between the three constructs of psychological capital, organisational citizenship behaviour and psychological climate. While there was little research on these three constructs initially, there most certainly is reason to believe that further research should be recommended. First of which is the imperative link between organisational citizenship behaviour and de-railers of psychological climate. Whilst this study relied heavily on positive constructs in order to construct a triadic approach, it would be beneficial to consider de-railer to these positive behaviours as such would only further strengthen any interventions proposed. Furthermore, still relatively few studies include climate. As it is a consistently valuable variable to consider to overall, organisational behaviours it becomes important to consistency contribute towards the body of knowledge from a South African perspective.