The role of islamic work ethics in the relationship between perceived organizational support, organizational justice and job performance

Abstract

The study of ethics is attracting the attention of management researchers because ethical practices are being viewed as fundamental to the success of contemporary organizations. However, most studies involving ethics have been mostly revolved around the concept of Protestant Work Ethics (PWE) and have been conducted in the Western settings, thus largely ignore the paradigm difference between PWE and Islamic Work Ethics (IWE) as well as between the Western and the Eastern settings. This study was conducted in an Eastern and Muslim majority country which is Pakistan. It explored the relationship of IWE with the Job Performance (JP) and the Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) as well as finding the moderating impact of IWE on the relationships of Procedural Justice (PJ) and Distributive Justice (DJ) with JP and OCB and between Perceived Organizational Support (POS) and JP and OCB. Based on a comprehensive literature review and an understanding of the relationships among these variables, research questions were formulated and a conceptual model was developed. The petroleum industry was selected as the data source. Using a time lagged of two waves cross-sectional studies with a gap of six weeks between the two data collection phases, data from the management employees was collected and useable responses (N=340) were analysed to draw the results. The findings revealed that POS is significantly positively related to OCB - Organizational (OCB-O) but was not related to OCB - Individual (OCB-I) and JP while IWE was significantly positively related to JP and OCB-O but was not related to OCB-I. There was also no direct relationship between dimensions of justice between DJ and PJ. For the moderation of IWE this study supported the moderating role of IWE on POS-OCB-O, POS-OCB-I, POS-JP, PJ-JP and the relationship PJ-OCB-O. Nevertheless, this study did not support IWE as the moderator on PJ-OCB-I, DJ-JP, DJ-OCB-O and the relationship between DJ-OCB-I. This thesis ends with discussion on implications for managers and theoretical contribution of the study along with limitations and future directions of the study. Theoretical contribution to the body of knowledge and managerial implications of the findings have also been discussed.