The impact of emotional intelligence and organizational justice on organizational citizenship behaviour in Malaysian manufacturing sector

Abstract

The lack of organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in manufacturing industry has become a core issue in Malaysia. Emotional intelligence (EI) and organizational justice (OJ) are known as the factors that influence the exertion of OCB among employees. When OCB is lacking, other dysfunctional behaviour might appear among employees such as absenteeism. However, there are inadequate and inconsistent findings from past studies on the linkage between EI, OJ, and OCB. For instance, past researchers have never conducted studies on the new dimensions of OJ, namely temporal justice and spatial justice, in which it might affect the validity of their findings. In addition, not many studies are being done on the linkage between EI, OJ, and OCB simultaneously, nor there are any studies conducted on the mediating effect of OJ in the linkage between EI and OCB. Therefore, this study investigated the linkages between El, OJ, and OCB, as well as the mediating effect of OJ, to provide some empirical and operational contributions. A total of 345 employees in Negeri Sembilan's manufacturing companies were chosen through multi-stage sampling method. EI was measured by using Wong and Law EI Scales (WLEIS), while OJ was measured using Colquitt as well as Usmani and Jamal OJ Inventory (OJI). Subsequently OCB was measured using Lee and Allen two-factor dimensional scales of OCB. Data was analysed using Smart Partial Least Square (PLS) version 3.0, where bootstrapping technique was used to investigate the mediating effect of OJ on the relationship between EI and OCB. Findings indicated that there are significant impacts of EI on OJ and OCB while, OJ has significant impact on OCB as well. After the process of bootstrapping, significant mediating effect of OJ was found in the relationship between El and OCB. This study provides theoretical contribution by introducing OJ as intervening variable in the relationship between El and OCB. This implies that workers who are emotionally intelligent, will perceive OJ positively, and this will in turn improve employees' OCB. The findings support the concept of the selected underpinning theory, namely Social Cognitive Theory, in which the three variables are interrelated. As for the practical contributions, the findings provided an insight to policy makers of organizations in enhancing OCB among managerial and non-managerial staffs. The findings may be used as a big picture to comprehend the different mediating effects of OJ dimensions among managerial and non-managerial staffs, where it was found that OJ dimensions had stronger mediating effects on non- managerial staffs.