Andie Villez

HYPOTHESES

Hypothesis 1:

There is a significant difference in the level of job autonomy between males and females.

Hypothesis 2:

There is a significant difference in the level of job autonomy between full-time permanent

employees, part-time permanent employees, full-time temporary employees, and part-time

temporary employees.

Hypothesis 3A:

Employee’s perception of supervisor’s bottom-line mentalities will be positively related to

organizational citizenship behavior towards individuals.

Hypothesis 3B:

Ethical leadership will be positively related to organizational citizenship behavior towards

individuals.

Hypothesis 3C:

Competitive reward structure will be negatively related to organizational citizenship behavior

towards individuals.

Hypothesis 3D:

Competitive coworkers will be negatively related to organizational citizenship behavior towards

individuals.
 METHOD

Participants

Graduate students at Western Illinois University conducted this study as research for the

Applied Business Research course. The students distributed an online survey consisting of 165

questions to people who are currently employed using Survey Monkey. The questions were

centered around employee’s thoughts about their current work atmosphere and personal

demographics. 163 people participated in the survey. Among the 163 participants, 43 cases were

deleted due to missing values, resulting in 120 valid cases.

Out of 120 participants 55% are male. The average age of participants in the survey is

34.93 (SD= 14.108). 85.8% are white, 5% are Asian, 4.2% are Hispanic and 1.7% are African

American. As for the education, 10% have a high school diploma, 15% have some college with

no degree, 14.2% have an associate degree, 34.2% acquired a bachelor degree, 23.3% got a

master degree and 3.3% have a Ph.D. 50.8% are married or cohabitation and 49.2% are single,

divorced or widowed. 71% are full-time permanent employees, 5% are part-time temporary

employees, 15% are full-time temporary employees and 9% are part-time temporary employees.

39.2% of participants are hourly workers, 6.7% first level supervisors, 34.2% professional non-

managerial position, 8.3% professional management position and 11.7% are executive

department heads. The average number of employees in the current work location is 520

employees (SD= 1803.02). The average tenure in years with the current organization is 7.27

(SD= 8.05). The average tenure in years with the current supervisor is 7.02 (SD= 24.44). The

average number of work hours per week is 38.74 (SD= 12.28).

Measurements

Job Autonomy: We used a nine-item scale developed by Morgeson and Humphrey

(2006). These items asked workers to determine the extent to which their current work

environment provides them the freedom and independence to make their own decisions

involving the completion of various tasks in relation to their job description. An example of the

question format is as follows: “The job gives me a chance to use my personal initiative or

judgement in carrying out the work.” (1 = totally disagree, 5 = totally agree). Cronbach’s Alpha

was .93.

Bottom-Line Mentalities. A scale with four items from Greenbaum et al. (2012) was

used to measure BLM. Employees were asked to indicate the expectation level of work

determined by their supervisor. An example of a question from the survey is: “My immediate

supervisor treats the bottom line as more important than anything else.” (1= Strongly disagree,

5= Strongly agree), Bottom-line mentalities using the four items, produced a Cronbach’s Alpha

score of .91, which displays satisfactory reliability and internal consistency.

Ethical Leadership. Brown et al. (2005) produced a ten-item scale used to measure

ethical leadership. This scale helps describe the extent to which employee’s immediate

supervisor displays leadership qualities such as trustworthy, ethical, fair, and effective listening

skills. “My immediate supervisor listens to what employees have to say.” (1= Strongly disagree,

5= Strongly agree), is an example of a statement used for analysis. Employees’ observations help

to analyze the level of conduct, actions and decision-making skills of their supervisor. Ethical

leadership generated a Cronbach’s Alpha score of .92. This score confirms reliability and

internal consistency and improves analysis.

 Competitive Reward Structure. Ten items developed by Fletch and Nusbaum’s (2010)

were incorporated into the survey. The format is as follows: “I receive higher pay when I

perform better than my coworkers do.” (1 = Strongly disagree, 5 = Strongly agree). Included in

the ten questions, is six items in relation to tangible rewards and four items relating to non-

tangible rewards, with a focus on workers determining the level of competitiveness in the work

environment. A competitive work environment includes the reward structure used by the

employer. Competitive reward structure formed a Cronbach’s Alpha score of .91 ensuring the

overall reliability and internal consistency.

Competitive Coworker. Throughout the survey, we used four items established by

Fletch and Nusbaum’s (2010) centered on employees indentifying the competitive nature of their

coworkers. The four items used to analyze competitive coworker produced a Cronbach’s Alpha

score of .91, which confirms reliability and internal consistency. A sample statement for

employees to judge competitive coworkers is: “My coworkers are very competitive individuals.”

(1= Strongly disagree, 5= Strongly agree).

Organizational Citizenship Behavior Towards Individuals. We used eight items

created by Lee & Allen (2001), such as, “Willingly give your time to help others who have work

related problems.” (1= Never, 5= Always). These items ask workers to identify the extent to

which they go out of their way to help other employees in the workplace. Displaying employee’s

willingness to work beyond their own job requirements to assist others. OCBI created a

Cronbach’s Alpha score of .86, which implies sufficient reliability and internal consistency.

Control Variables. Demographics including gender, age, organizational tenure, current

supervisor tenure, and hours worked per week, were used as control variables. We used these
specific variables as a standard means of comparison in relation to how this information

influences the results.

Results

Independent-Sample T-Test

An independent-sample t-test was conducted to compare level of job autonomy between

males and females (hypothesis 1). After analyzing the independent-sample t-test, results showed

that there was not a significance in the level of job autonomy between males (M= 3.71, SD= .85)

and females (M= 3.70, SD= .72); t (118) = .04, p = .97. Male and female workers do not differ in

perception of job autonomy given to them in the work place. The test implies that gender does

not influence job autonomy, which does not support the hypothesis.

One-Way ANOVA

I ran a one-way ANOVA to examine hypothesis 2, which assumes that there is a

significant difference in the level of job autonomy across employment status. The one-way

ANOVA test results indicate that there was not a significance between the level of employee’s

status within an organization and job autonomy, for the four conditions [F (3,110) = .29, p > .05].

Contrary to hypothesis 2, I found that the level of job autonomy given to employees was not

different across employment status. This result implies that participants with different levels of

employment status within an organization did not influence job autonomy, which does not

support the hypothesis.

Hierarchical Regression

A two-stage hierarchical multiple regression was conducted with organizational

citizenship behavior towards individuals as the dependent variable. Gender, age, organizational

tenure, tenure with current supervisor and hours worked per week was entered at stage one of the

regression to control the influence of demographic variables on OCBI. The attached variable

including bottom-line mentalities, ethical leadership, competitive reward structure and

competitive coworkers were entered at stage two to examine the additional effect of them on

OCBI beyond the demographic variables. Results are summarized in Table 1.

The hierarchical multiple regression revealed that in model 1, gender, age, organizational

tenure, tenure with current supervisor and hours worked per week together were not significantly

related to OCBI, R² = .03, F (5, 91) = .60, p > .05.

In model 2, all nine independent variables accounted for a significant 23.8% of the

variance in organizational citizenship behavior towards individuals. The additional variables

such as include bottom-line mentalities, ethical leadership, competitive reward structure and

competitive coworkers explained an additional 20.6% of variation in OCBI with a significant R²

change (R² change = .21, p< .05). Among the additional variables that explained OCBI further,

only ethical leadership was found to be significantly positive to OCBI (B= .53, p < .001). This

means that ethical leaders lead his or her employees to engaging in more OCB in the workplace.
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Appendix

Model 1 Model 2
Predictors Beta SE Beta SE
Gender -0.05 0.15 -0.03 0.14
Age 0.16 0.01 0.08 0.08
Organizational Tenure -0.20 0.01 -0.17 0.01
Tenure with supervisor -0.07 0.00 -0.04 0.00
Work hours per week 0.00 0.01 0.09 0.01
BLM 0.18 0.08
EL 0.53 ** 0.10
CRS -0.16 0.08
CC -0.19 0.08
Model R2 0.03 0.24 **
R2 Change 0.21 **

Note – Gender: (1 = Male, 0 = Female).

*p< .05, **p< .01