Hr in Education

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European Journal of Social Sciences Volume 14, Number 3 (2010)

417

HR Practices and Leadership Styles as Predictors of Employee

Attitude and Behavior: Evidence from Pakistan

Khurram ShahzadAssistant Professor, Faculty of Management Sciences

Riphah International University, Islamabad, PakistanE-mail: [email protected]

Kashif-Ur-Rehman

Associate Professor, Faculty of Management Sciences

Iqra University, Islamabad, Pakistan

Muhammad Abbas

Lecturer, Faculty of Management SciencesRiphah International University, Islamabad, Pakistan

Abstract

The current study provides an insight account into the phenomenon of human resourcemanagement practices and leadership styles carried out in public and private sector

universities. These practices are considered very effective in retaining the valuable human

capital. The study investigates the effects of human resource management practices (also

termed as HR practices) and leadership styles on organizational commitment andcitizenship behaviors (critical determinants of organizational effectiveness by Katz, 1964)

among university teachers. The results reveal that both human resource practices and

leadership styles positively predicted organizational commitment of faculty members

however they did not predict citizenship behaviors. Regression results further revealed thatHR practices were more important than leadership styles in predicting organizational

commitment of valued human capital. Strategies for university managers have also beendiscussed.

Keywords: Human resource management practices, leadership styles, organizational

commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, university teachers,

Pakistan.

Introduction

Human resource management practices are viewed as investments in human capital management (Snell& Dean, 1992) that becomes a valuable resource for any institution. All effective organizations usually

look for three things: (a) they want their employees to carry out the assigned role requirements, (b)they want to retain employees within their system, and (c) they want their employees to exhibit

innovative and spontaneous activities that are beyond their role requirements (Katz, 1964). Barnard

(1934) and Katz and Kahn (1978) advocate the need for organizations to have employees who arewiling to exceed their formal job requirements. No doubt, every department, unit, organization, and

industry operates on multitude of such acts of cooperation, helpfulness, suggestions, and other

behaviors that researchers refer to as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB; Bateman and Organ,1983; Organ, 1988; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, & Bachrach, 2000).


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Another important element that Katz (1964) has identified for effective organizations that is to

retain employees within their systems can be best achieved through another organizational factor called

organizational commitment defined by Allen & Meyer (1990) as psychological state that binds theindividual to the organization (i.e. makes turnover less likely). Studies have found positive

associations between facets of organizational commitment and different discretionary and extra-role

behavior (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001) including organizational citizenship behavior (Organ & Ryan,1995).

Human resource practices and transformational and transactional leadership styles haveremained a key focus in the main stream research in organizational behavior. Human resourcemanagement practices and leadership style are associated with organizational citizenship behavior and

organizational commitment. Arnett and Obert (1995), Pfeffer and Veiga (1999) and Dessler (1999)

proposed set of human resource management practices to increase organizational effectiveness and toretain talented employees. Work-family policies as a human resource management practice have been

identified having a positive association with organizational citizenship behavior (Cappelli &

Rogovsky, 1998; Allen & Rush 1998; Tremblay et al. 1998). Leadership behavior has been found

positively correlated with organizational citizenship behavior by Ehrhart (2004). Also leader-member-exchange (LMX) has been found significantly correlated with organizational commitment (Brouer,

2007).

Although relationships among human resource management practices, leadership styles,organizational citizenship behavior, and organization commitment have been found by different

researchers but theses variables have not been modeled together particularly in the context of Pakistan.

The current study takes an opportunity to test these theories in Pakistan that have been developed andtested in Western societies. This would definitely help to examine the generalizability of these theories

and identify their boundary conditions.

Pakistan is a developing country and the important of higher education for the development of a

country needs no reference. In an emerging knowledge economy higher education serves as animperative for economic and social development of a state. Pakistans higher education sector is facing

many problems as per Peril and Promise, (2000) World Bank Task Force on Higher Education

(TFHE). Amongst other highlighted problems top most cited problem in this report is quality of

teachers.This study is aimed at finding how HR practices and leadership styles can contribute to predict

the organization commitment and citizenship behavior of university teachers in Pakistan to improve theperformance of higher education institutions. Interviews with managers and teachers of universities

were conducted to find out that how effectively these universities are operating as per the Katz (1964)

framework. The findings of the interviews are summed up in table 1.1 given below:

Table 1.1: Responses of the university employees as per Katz Framework

Katz (1964) Frame Work for Effective OrganizationsSituation of Public Sector

Universities

Situation of Private Sector

Universities

Emphasis on employees on carry out their assigned roles Emphasized Emphasized

Emphasis on retaining employees Not emphasized Emphasized to some extentEmphasis on employees to exhibit extra-role behavior Not emphasized Not emphasized

The above results clearly reveal that the important aspect of organizational effectiveness that isextra-role behavior (organizational citizenship behavior) is clearly not emphasized in both public and

private sector universities. It is also found that employee retention (through organizational

commitment) is not at all emphasized in public sector universities and partially emphasized in privatesector universities.

Most managers of the universities were found totally unaware of the fact that organizational

citizenship behavior and organizational commitment are related to organizational outcomes can be


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consciously managed through organizational factors like human resource management practices and

leadership style. Although these mangers are somewhat informed about these concepts but application

of these concepts in the area of their responsibility is not taken care of. These managers expectemployees to exhibit these behaviors as norms of culture of the country as Pakistans culture is based

on collectivism, maintaining relationships and helping others.

To the best of search efforts no study has been found which have linearly modeled therelationship of human resource management practices, leadership styles, organizational commitment

and organizational citizenship behavior. Most of the research evidence regarding associations betweenthese variables is from the developed countries and little evidence available from developing countriesespecially from socio-cultural context of Pakistan. Moreover, organizational commitment and

citizenship behaviors have been studied in different professional groups but the evidence from

university teachers is rare. Hence, there is need to know the associations of these variables to helpmanagers of developing countries in improving the effectiveness of their organizations and add

evidence to the body of knowledge from developing countries.

The proposed relationship between the independent and dependant variables is shown in figure

1.1 as the research model of the study.

Figure 1: Theoretical Model linking HR Practices and Leadership styles to Organizational Commitment and

Citizenship behavior

Leadership Styles

Human Resource

Practices

(HRP)

OrganizationalCitizenship

Behavior

Organizational

Commitment

Literature ReviewOrganizational Citizenship Behavior

Bateman and Organ (1983) first conceived the concept of organizational citizenship behavior. Organ

(1988) defined organizational citizenship behavior as Individual behavior that is discretionary, not

directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes theeffective functioning of the organization

Smith et al. (1983) first gave a measure of citizenship behavior. Their first factor was altruism

(behavior directly intended to help a specific coworker) and second factor was GeneralizedCompliance (behavior that is more impersonal and representative of compliance with norms defining agood worker)

The most used and widely accepted dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior are

suggested by Organ (1988). He expanded the concept of Smith et al. (1983) into five dimensions:altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy, and civic virtue.

Williams and Anderson (1991) proposed two constructs of organizational citizenship behavior:

(1) OCBO (carrying out role requirements well beyond minimum required levels and helpingorganization in achieving goals), (2) OCBI (helping a specific other person with a relevant task). But

OCB is mostly treated as a one-dimensional construct (Bateman & Organ, 1983; George, 1991).


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Organizational citizenship behavior is associated with different organizational and individual

outcomes. According to Podsakoff et al. (2000) in-role behavior caused 9.3% in performance

evaluation while OCB caused 12% variation.It is also found in literature (MacKenzie, Podsakoff, & Paine, 1999; Podsakoff & MacKenzie,

1994; Avila, Fern, & Mann, 1988) that managers either consciously or unconsciously value citizenship

behavior in employees while evaluating their performance.

Organizational CommitmentThere are number of ways in which organizational commitment can be defined and there is noconsensus amongst the researchers on it (Scholl, 1981; Benkhoff, 1997; Mowday, 1998) but the most

popular definition of organizational commitment is multi-dimensional approach of Meyer and Allen

(1984). They defined OC as having three facets: (1) affective commitment as an employee's emotionalattachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization, (2) continuance commitment

as commitment based on the costs that employees associate with leaving the organization, and (3)

normative commitment as an employee's feelings of obligation to remain with the organization.

Inverson and Buttibieg (1999) found that four dimensions that are affective, normative, lowperceived alternatives, and high personal sacrifice, best describe organizational commitment. There are

many other descriptions of OC as well. However in this study, Meyer and Allen (1984)

conceptualization is used.

Human Resource Management Practices

Ahmed, (1999) defined HRM as a strategic approach to acquiring, developing, managing, motivatingand gaining the commitment of an organizations key resources, its employees.

Human resource management emerged as a distinct school of thought in 1970s with the

development of human resource accounting theory (Storey, 1995a). There are many ways in which

human resource management is defined in literature (Guest, 1989; Storey, 1995a). Some call humanresource management the same as personnel management or industrial relations while others consider

it as different approach for integration of people management with business strategy (Storey, 1995b).

Organizations where human resource practices are implemented, employees feel more

committed to these organizations and they want to exhibit extra role behavior for the benefit oforganization. Researchers have found a positive association of human resource management practices

with organizational commitment (Arnett & Obert, 1995; Pfeffer & Veiga, 1999; Dessler, 1999) andorganizational citizenship behavior (Cappelli & Rogovsky, 1998; Allen & Rush, 1998; Tremblay et al.1998).

On the basis of above arguments H1 and H2 of this study have been developed.

Leadership Styles

There are as many definitions of leadership as there are number of authors. Leadership styles have been

divided into (1) transformational leadership style enhanced by Avolio, Bass, and Jung (1999) (toinclude articulating a vision, providing an appropriate model, fostering the acceptance of group goals,

high performance expectations, and intellectual stimulation), (2) transactional leadership style (toinclude contingent reward behavior, contingent punishment behavior, non-contingent reward behavior,non-contingent punishment behavior), (3) Path-goal theory leadership (to include role clarification

behavior and the specification of procedures, supportive leadership behavior) (House, 1971), andfinally, (4) Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory of leadership (Gerstner & Day, 1997).

Transformational and transactional leadership styles may help to develop trust, loyalty, and

commitment among the employees. These leadership styles may also help to boost up the employeesand provide an environment where all the employees may exhibit extra role behaviors. In general, all

of these leadership behaviors have been found to be positively and significantly correlating with

organizational citizenship behavior (Podsakoff et al., 2000). Researchers also associate the


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characteristics of leaders with the development of organizational commitment (Bennis & Goldsmith,

1994; Bennis & Townsend, 1995).

On the basis of above arguments H3 and H4 of this study have been developed.Hence, on the basis of this literature, we developed the following hypotheses:

H1: Human resource management practices are positively associated with organizational

commitment of university teachers in Pakistan.

H2: Human resource management practices are positively associated with organizational

citizenship behavior of university teachers in Pakistan.H3: Transformational leadership style is positively associated with organizational

commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors.

H4: Transactional leadership style is positively associated with organizational commitment

and organizational citizenship behavior.Since, both human resource practices and leadership styles have a strong effect on the

organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors. We believe that human resource

practices may be more important determinants of commitment and extra role behaviors than leadership

styles. As the organizations that promote HR practices, for their valued human capital, may help todevelop an environment that is more supportive to enhance employees affiliation with their

organizations. Effective HR practices may go above and beyond leadership styles to flourish extra role

behaviors among the organizational members. Hence following can be hypothesized:H5: Human resource management practices will predict the organizational commitment and

organizational citizenship behavior, over and above the leadership styles.

MethodologySample

Universities were selected on the basis of convenience sampling because of geographical dispersion

and large population it is not possible to study all the universities. So a representative sample was

selected. Among those, there were three public sector and three private sector universities located inIslamabad.

Individual participant i.e. teachers were selected on the basis of quota sampling. A sample of200 teachers from different universities was selected. It was ensured that lecturers, assistant professors,

associate professors and professors have appropriate participation in the survey in proportion to thepercentage of each group in total population. Out of these 200 questionnaires, a total of 122 useable

responses were received yielding a response rate of 61%.

Instruments

We took three of human resource management practices including compensation practices, promotion

practices, and performance evaluation practices. The reason was that these practices reflect thefinancial aspects of the overall HR practices which serve more relevance in the context of a developing

country like Pakistan. Similarly, the leadership styles included transformational and transactional

leadership styles because these two leadership styles are considered more important for the growth andeffectiveness of organizational members. Organizational commitment and citizenship behavior were

measured as one dimensional construct. Following scales were used and were tested for their

reliabilities which are reported in Table 1.

Organizational citizenship behavior: 12 item measure by Podsakoffet al. (1990) and Williamsand Anderson (1991).

Organizational commitment: 24 item measure by Allen and Meyers (1990) OCQ Leadership style: 33 items measure by Bass and Avolios (1995) MLQ Human resource management practices: 15 item measure by Teseema and Soeters (2006)

questionnaire.


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Data Collection and Analysis

Data was collected through a self administered questionnaire. In addition to that postal mail or/and

email was also used for the universities which were geographically dispersed. Filled questionnaireswere sorted out to separate incomplete or inappropriate questionnaires. Correlation analysis was used

to find out the associations between all study variables. Multiple regression analysis was used to find

out the predictions of organizational citizenship behavior and organizational commitment by hrpractices and leadership styles and the unique variances explained by them.

Results and DiscussionTable 1 shows the mean, standard deviations, and correlations of the study variables. Organizational

commitment has a mean of 3.16 with standard deviation .319. Human resource pratices has a mean of3.27 and standard deviation .489. Organizational citizenship behavior has a mean of 3.35 and standard

deviation .447. Transformational leadership has a mean of 2.88 and standard deviation .465. Finally

transactional leadership style has a mean of 3.69 and standard deviation .642. The correlation analysisreveals that the human resource practices were positively related to organizational commitment (r =

.38; p < 0.01) but they were unrelated to organizational citizenship behavior (r = .13; n.s). Similarly

transformational leadership had a positive relationship with organizational commitment (r = .23; p

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