The relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behavior in the employees of the General Department of Sports and Youth in Yazd Province

Dissertation for Master's Degree (M.A)

Sports Management

Abstract:

In recent years, organizational citizenship behaviors as extra-role behaviors of employees have received much attention due to the significant effects they have had on the effectiveness and success of organizations. Identifying and strengthening the areas of occurrence of such behaviors improves the performance and efficiency of organizations and ensures their long-term survival. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behavior among the employees of the General Department of Sports and Youth in Yazd province. The statistical population of this research is made up of all the employees of the General Directorate of Sports and Youth of Yazd Province, whose number is (N=100), due to the smallness of the statistical population, the statistical sample was chosen equal to the statistical population (n=100). The data collection tool in this research is the use of a standardized questionnaire that includes demographic sections including (age, gender, marital status, level of education, work history, and type of employment status) and perceived organizational support that includes 8 items and organizational citizenship behavior that includes 20 items are in the form of 5 dimensions (altruism, respect and humility, conscientiousness, chivalry and civil behavior). The validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by several professors and experts in this field and their reliability was determined by Cronbach's alpha method (organizational citizenship behavior = 0.78 and perceived organizational support = 0.71). To calculate and analyze information from descriptive and inferential statistics (to describe the data from the table frequency distribution, mean central index and standard deviation dispersion index and in the second part, Kolmogorov Smirnov tests, Pearson correlation coefficient, one-sample t-tests and independent t-tests and MANOVA (multivariate analysis of variance), linear regression and Friedman's test were used to test the research hypotheses. In testing the hypotheses, the level of significance was considered equal to (P?0.05). And statistical operations were performed using SPSS software. The results obtained from this research show that the employees of the General Department of Sports and Youth considered the organizational support applied by the management of the organization to be satisfactory and to a large extent they considered their goals to be in line with the goals of the organization, and as a result, the perceived organizational support has a positive and meaningful effect on the organizational citizenship behavior of the employees of this department. According to the findings of the research, managers and officials are suggested to help strengthen and promote employees' organizational citizenship behavior by increasing the perceived organizational support.

Key words: perceived organizational support, organizational citizenship behavior, employees of the General Department of Sports and Youth of Yazd Province.

1-1) Introduction:

The study of people's behavior in work environments has long been the concern of management science thinkers, and with the emergence of organizational behavior in the first years of the 1960s, more seriousness was done in this matter. Many studies have tried to divide the behaviors and their causes (Amini et al. (2016))

Therefore, understanding the behaviors of employees in order to better perform their roles and duties will improve performance and enhance organizational effectiveness (Parashurman et al. (1996), Rost et al. (1995))

Numerous studies have shown Identifying and understanding such behaviors and providing a suitable environment for providing them will make the way the organization's services are provided by its employees more desirable, increase customer satisfaction, and increase organizational and individual effectiveness (Parashurman et al. (1996), Rost et al. (1995), Rose (1990), Fornell et al. (1988))

Over the past 15 years, a large volume of organizational behavior studies and resources Humanities have focused on reciprocal two-way communication between employees and their organizations (Rosseau (1989), Robinson et al. (1994), Eisenberger et al. (2003)), and in particular, much of the literature related to employee-organization relationships has focused on perceived organizational support [1] (POS) (Isenberger et al.Many studies have tried to divide the behaviors and their causes (Amini et al. (2016))

Therefore, understanding the behaviors of employees in order to better perform their roles and duties will improve performance and enhance organizational effectiveness (Parashurman et al. (1996), Rost et al. (1995))

Numerous studies have shown Identifying and understanding such behaviors and providing a suitable environment for providing them will make the way the organization's services are provided by its employees more desirable, increase customer satisfaction, and increase organizational and individual effectiveness (Parashurman et al. (1996), Rost et al. (1995), Rose (1990), Fornell et al. (1988))

Over the past 15 years, a large volume of organizational behavior studies and resources Humanities have focused on reciprocal two-way communication between employees and their organizations (Rosseau (1989), Robinson et al. (1994), Eisenberger et al. (2003)), and in particular, a large amount of literature related to employee-organization relationships has focused on perceived organizational support [1] (POS) (Isenberger et al. (1986))

High level Perceived organizational support will create commitment in employees in order to compensate for these privileges and benefits that may appear in the form of cooperative behaviors (Graham et al. (1994)). By recognizing such behaviors, organizations can motivate employees and improve the quality of services and provide reasons for the overall effectiveness of the organization.

has attracted The ever-increasing share of employees in value creation in the dynamic and competitive ecosystem of business has led to a change in managers' view of employees from a mere source of production to an organizational citizen. In today's challenging world, in order to compete on the global stage and adapt to the changing nature of jobs and satisfy the needs and expectations of customers, organizations are trying to hire employees who go beyond the duties and roles set in their job descriptions because it is believed that these beyond-the-role behaviors are reflected in performance evaluations, will affect employee participation in programs, and can be an effective factor on job involvement, organizational commitment, and self-esteem (Abbaspour (2016)).

The present research aims to better understand the perceived organizational support, investigate its relationship with employees' citizenship behavior and inform the management of organizations about considering such behaviors in performance evaluation, writing job descriptions and designing employee reward systems.

1-2) Statement of the problem:

Employees of an organization always find a special belief and interest in the organization based on the amount of value that the organization places on them and creating their well-being, comfort and security. This belief has been introduced as the perception of organizational support. (Rosha (2008), Ingham (2008), Eisenberger et al. (2001)).

In other words, the understanding of organizational support is the belief and perception that a person has, that his well-being and comfort and the extent of his participation in the success of the organization are important for the organization. (Bell and Mangok (2002)).

Organizational support will create commitment in employees in order to compensate for these privileges and benefits, which may appear in the form of cooperative behaviors and organizational citizenship behaviors. Organizational behavior experts have proposed the reason for the effect of understanding organizational support on organizational citizenship behaviors in the form of social exchange theory. (Dekup, Cirka and Anderson (2003)) This theory expresses. When people benefit from the activities and actions of any entity, they consider themselves obligated to perform their duty and try to compensate and reciprocate (Huang, Jin, and Yang (2004)). This social exchange is defined as an exchange and interaction between two groups in which it is not clearly known what will be exchanged. One party exchanges by offering something of value to the other party out of desire and intention, such as providing a service, offering a valuable product, paying respect and admiring the other party and so on. It begins to implement the process of social exchange.  In the following, the other party also starts to react to compensate for these services. that these reactions can appear in the form of organizational citizenship behaviors. (Ergan, Podsakov and Mackenzie (2005))

Humans like to behave in the same way as they do to others. If the behavior of the supervisor is fair to the employee, the employee tries to improve his performance to compensate for this behavior. It should be noted that the concept of mutual transaction is able to improve the way of thinking of employees, their behavior and their job performance, and thus it has an effect on organizational effectiveness. This brings the importance of the concept of mutual transaction, which has caused the formation of the phenomenon of social exchange. (Decap Sirca and Anderson (2003)).