Impact of personality on organisation citizenship behavior (OCB) : a study of Indian railways

Abstract

Relationship between personality and Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is widely discussed in western academic research. Past research in this area has reported mild to strong relation between personality and OCB. Aim of this research is to explore the relationship between Guna personality classified as Sattva, Rajas and Tamas in Indian philosophy and OCB, on the test bed of Indian Railways. For purpose of this research, Guan inventory developed by S (Elankumaran, 2004) has been adopted by modifying it from a multiple choice questionnaire to Likert scale based questionnaire. For OCB part, inventory developed and tested by Blackley and(Moorman, 1995) has been used. Data sample is collected from various places across Indian Railways. Collected data has shown a reliability factor 0.599 for all questions. Preliminary analysis of data show a tendency of respondents towards Sat Guna. Factor analysis of OCB responses yield 7 factors against 4 reported in the framework of Blackley and (Moorman, 1995). The 7 factors are identified and named in parlance of Indian railways. For Guna part, 5 personality traits are identified. Impact of Guna personality on OCB of respondents is examined with help of SPSS software. A total of 48 hypothesis are tested to find the impact of Guna personality on OCB. Anova tests between Guna traits and OCB factors yield 9 significant results. Guna personality is found to impact OCB of a person but the results show a faint correlation between two. Broadly speaking, people with dominant Sat Guna reflect a higher OCB as compared to those with dominant Rajas and Tamas leanings. Also people with dominant Tam Guna show lower OCB as compared to Sat Guna. Impact of control variables like age, gender, experience, qualification etc is examined both on OCB and Guna personality. It is found that 'Grade' and 'Qualifications' of employees report maximum impact on their personality and OCB. Control variables like Gender, age, family type, Language of instruction, no of siblings etc don't show much impact on Guna and OCB. Data analysis on studying impact of Guna personality on OCB ,in parlance of Indian Railways, provides evidence of a faint relationship between the two. Inherent limitations of this research and a few policy recommendations based on the findings are explained in the concluding chapter.