Organizational citizenship behavior based on trust in organizational spirituality and participation in non-profit service organizations: A case study in Iran

Abstract

One of the significant factors that can make the behaviors, attitudes and interactions between employees better to offer high quality services is to acquire an organizational citizenship behavior. Focusing on the organizational citizenship behavior is crucial to the organizations operating in non-profit service sectors because of having positive and direct impact and thus making them profitable, efficient and effective. This paper aims to propose a model for organizational citizenship behavior by placing the components of trust in organizational spirituality and participation in non-profit service organizations. In this study, correlation analysis and factor analysis as well as the structural equation modeling (SEM) are applied. The population consists of employees working in the largest non-profit service organization in Iran. The findings show that the proposed model is valid and reliable, and there is a significant relationship between variables in the conceptual research model.

Keywords:

• organizational citizenship behavior
• organizational spirituality
• service quality
• non-profit service organization
• case study

1. Introduction

Designing organizational systems to achieve the predetermined goals is factually realized when an organization provide a setting within which they foster an organizational citizenship behavior (Zheng et al., 2012). If an organization only relies on its own organizational behavior of employees, it can hardly attain its organizational goals. Focusing on the concept of organizational citizenship behavior and expanding its dimensions in the service sectors contributes the employees to adhere to their organization in such a way that the frontline employees, who render services to the customers, enthusiastically promote the products as well as the image of organization (Yen & Brianp, 2004).

Based on the studies carried out to know the factors affecting the service quality in an organization, it can be concluded that several factors can influence this variable. Organizational culture and organizational citizenship behavior as well as their relationships are discussed in this research (Yoon, 2009).

The quality of a product or a service is the degree of its compliance with the standard defined for that product or service (Sousa & Voss, 2006). Service quality is one of the most important concepts for explaining the future behavioral tendencies of customers (Seth et al., 2005). Quality service distribution is a fundamental strategy for the survival of service organizations. The behavioral performance of employees is the most important component of the quality of services that customers receive (Yoon & Suh, 2003).

Researchers who have attempted to explain the characteristics of successful organizations have repeatedly emphasized the concept of organizational culture and organizational citizenship behavior and believe that organizational culture can significantly affect the commitment of employees and increase the strength of organizational behavior (Piłat, 2016; Putthiwanit, 2015; Schein, 2004; Sirikarai, 2010). It can also make personal feel better about what they are doing, and as a result, it can lead to better performance and more effectiveness (Philip & McKeown, 2004).

According to aforementioned statements, it is necessary to make appropriate changes in the organizational culture and the management method in the organization together with incorporating any value such as providing quality services into the organization in order to become an efficient, effective, progressing, and excellent organization. Therefore, managers should know the existing culture in their organizations and identify and create appropriate culture and values that support their goals (Fakhar et al., 2017; Henri, 2006; Korte & Chermack, 2007; Kwantes & Boglarsky, 2007). Since employees are the most valuable capital of any organization and those who are responsible for the approaches and functions of the organization are the main role-players in guiding the transformations of the organization, it is necessary to empower human resources, while preparing them to face the changes (Haffar et al., 2014). In addition, managers should create an environment in the organization where employees are respected and their talents flourish in order to provide quality services and satisfy customers (Julia, 2011).

Due to the positive and direct effect of organizational citizenship behavior on the quality of services and consequently on the organization’s profitability, paying attention to such behaviors can be one of the ways to increase the effectiveness of organizations, which has not received much attention so far (Guo et al., 2008).

The goal of most commercial and service organizations is to obtain customer satisfaction. However, keeping existing customers is much less expensive than attracting new customers. Providing the right services will keep the customer, and the customer’s satisfaction with the provided services will also make the customer recommend the organization to others. This is a value that can provide new sales opportunities for the company through word-of-mouth recommendation. On the contrary, customer dissatisfaction with the provided services can reduce the company’s market share. Therefore, to ensure customer satisfaction, their needs and wants should be taken into account (Castro et al., 2004; Parasuraman et al., 1985).

A particular set of behaviors of employees who contact and interact with customers in providing services can have a significant impact on customers’ perception of service quality, especially voluntary and optional behaviors that employees do for both customers and the organization, and these behaviors are called organizational citizenship behaviors, which are an employee’s participation in the work environment outside the scope of that employee’s defined duties and responsibilities (Mishra, 2010). According to Graham (1994), the term of organizational citizenship behavior refers to additional activities and behaviors of employees that improve organizational effectiveness.

The staff of service sectors mediates between external and internal environments. With a reliably, politely and accountably treatment during delivering services to the customers, they can influence them in a way to perceive the quality of the services as good as possible. When the employees are surveyed by customers and there is an interaction between employees and customers, it promotes the organizational citizenship behavior (Asadollahi et al., 2011; Wen-Jung, 2017). The necessity of this issue becomes more apparent when in today’s organizations, maximizing the performance of human resources within the organization and their proper communication with the environment to be more important and can be seen as a priority in the missions of every organization. Organizations that need a major leap in efficiency should provide the ground for managers and employees to use all of their experience, abilities, and capacities to promote organizational goals (Khaksar et al., 2010). It is not possible unless the principles and rules of organizational citizenship behavior are identified and the required contexts are provided for their implementation. On the other hand, in addition to the functional importance of the concepts of research present in the opinions of experts, the importance and necessity of this research can be stated as follows:

Its appropriate theoretical and conceptual place in the new fields of behavioral science, lack of research in the field of non-profit organizations providing social support for the special class from the strata of society, the increasingly importance of the research in this field in today’s organizations, and the recommendations given to get out of unsuitable situations necessitate a practical action and creating an academic base (Hashemzadeh et al., 2011). Hence, it is necessary to conduct research in such organizations to improve performance. On the other hand, although researchers have focused on factors influencing organizational behavior, and even they have paid attention to their implications, in the present study, based on the results of previous studies, an attempt has been made to enhance the dimension of “organizational spirituality trust” which also influences the other dimensions of organizational behavior. Therefore, a new model for organizational behavior is proposed in this paper. Given the structural nature and predefined mission, a non-profit service organization in Tehran province of Iran, which provides social services and support for disabled and poor people, is considered as a case study in the present research. This organization cannot accomplish its goal unless it fosters employees with organizational citizenship behavior. Therefore, given the abovementioned, the necessity and importance of such research become clear.

2. Literature review

2.1. Theoretical background

In this section, the conceptual model of the research is presented based on the theoretical relationships between the following factors and variables affecting the research subject, which have been taken from the literature:

2.1.1. Organizational citizenship behavior

There is still no consensus among researchers about the dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior. For example, dimensions such as helping behaviors, generosity, loyalty to the organization, following orders, individual innovation, conscientiousness, personal development, politeness and consideration, civil behavior, altruism, etc., have been considered in numerous studies. Organizational citizenship behavior is derived from the models of Konovsky and Organ (1996) including five dimensions (altruism, conscientiousness, chivalry, civil behavior and politeness, and consideration), Podsakoff et al. (1990), Binestock et al. (2003), and Milliman et al. (2003). Due to the comprehensiveness and extensive use of these models in other related studies, these models are employed in the present research after localization with the conditions and characteristics of the studied non-profit service organization.

2.1.2. Organizational culture

The Denison model (Denison, 1990) was selected for the organizational culture for the following reasons:

1. This model is based on how organizational culture affects performance.

2. This model is used for change management in organizations and it clearly identifies the components of organizational culture that need to be changed.

3. This model includes complete and deep dimensions of organizational culture.

4. This model provides a new framework among organizational culture models.

5. It can be used at all organizational levels.

6. Instead of evaluating personality, it tests group behavior and measures it down to the lowest organizational levels.

In this model, four main factors including involvement in work, compatibility, adaptability and mission are considered for the dimensions of organizational culture, and each of these dimensions are measured with three indicators (Denison, 1990).

2.1.3. Service quality

The SERVQUAL model proposed by Parasuraman et al. (1985) for the service quality includes credibility, tangibleness, accountability, guarantee, and empathy, which has been used in several studies.

In the current study, organizational culture is considered as an independent variable in the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and service quality.

Also, service quality is considered as a dependent variable.

In addition, organizational citizenship behavior is considered as a mediating variable in the relationship between organizational culture and service quality. In other words, organizational citizenship behavior affects the relationship between service quality and organizational culture. Based on the conceptual model of this research, the variable of organizational citizenship behavior plays the role of an independent variable in examining its effect on the variable of service quality. Also, the variable of organizational citizenship behavior plays the role of a dependent variable in examining the effect of organizational culture on it. Moreover, the variable of organizational citizenship behavior plays the role of an independent variable in examining its effect on the variable of organizational culture.

2.2. Definitions

1. Organizational Citizenship Behavior means employees work in helping others without being required by supervisors (Dekas, 2013)

2. Organizational citizenship behavior is the voluntary action of employees that is not part of their official duties and is not directly included in the official reward system of the organization, however, enhances the effectiveness of the whole organization (Gharleghi et al., 2018; Khasawneh, 2011).

3. Organizational spirituality is defined as a set of organizational values that improve employee experiences, ease the work process, and develop a sense of wholeness, enjoyment, and attachment (Marschke et al., 2009; Moezzi, et al., 2012).

4. Participation in social services: Voluntary participation of employees in social activities such as charities and non-governmental organizations.

2.3. Organizational citizenship behavior

It is one of the key concepts that has become rapidly the most important research subject in applied psychology and organizational behavior in recent decades (Bowler et al., 2010). Employee-related activities with corporate social responsibility influences employees in addition to the positive impact on external performance of the organization. A perception of relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and job satisfaction can help organizations progress programs to increase job satisfaction and encourage employees to involve in organizational citizenship behavior (Chelsea Wymer, 2014). Organizational citizenship behaviors are important to the organization because job descriptions cannot include all the behaviors needed to achieve the organizational goals. Organizational citizenship behaviors are very important for effective organization and include behaviors that are not related to the main tasks of the job, but promote the overall performance of the organization, and generally result in customer satisfaction and financial performance and revenue growth. Previous research has shown that organizations that foster organizational citizenship behaviors create an attractive workplace and are able to hire and attract the highly qualified people (Zheng et al., 2012).

At the group level, organizational citizenship behavior can also play a vital role in workgroups. Although group organizational citizenship behavior levels do not need to be coordinated, a group with a strong social background can begin to recognize the customs and group etiquette that leads to learning, regulation, and so on, and the members of the group mutually influence on each other which affects group organizational citizenship behavior. The chief of the group, who have a top position, can increase the level of organizational citizenship behavior.

Various names have been suggested to describe meta-function behavior, such as organizational citizenship behavior, social-oriented behavior, spontaneous behavior, meta-function behavior, and implicit performance (Asadollahi et al., 2011). The most relevant conceptualization that has been ever commonly considered meta-function organizational citizenship behavior, was first used to show how a meta-function behavior relates to job satisfaction. These behaviors could not be prescribed for a specific job in advance. (Dehghan et al., 2015). Benson and Loosemore (2017) concluded that inter-organizational justice is one of the key elements for the successful delivery of a construction project when people believe that business affairs are fair, they are more likely to have positive behavior of organizational citizenship such as: coordinated work, constant effort, respect for others and cooperation to solve problems. The results showed that interpersonal justice is a key element in creating positive organizational citizenship behavior in construction projects. Gerke et al. (2017) stated that researchers, managers, and politicians can use organizational citizenship behavior and inter-organizational citizenship behavior to promote inter-organizational relations, innovation, competitive advantage, values, and attitudes. Citizenship behavior not only leads to better use of resources, but also improves sustainability (Chiu & Chen, 2005).

Jehanzeb and Mohanty (2020) investigated the effect of organizational justice on organizational citizenship behavior taking organizational commitment as a mediator. In addition, Jehanzeb (2020) studied the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior, employee development, and perceived organizational support. Also, Chang et al. (2021) addressed the relationships between organizational culture, organizational citizenship behavior, organizational innovation and knowledge sharing. Moreover, Fatma et al. (2022) examined the relationship between customer citizenship behavior and corporate social responsibility. Furthermore, Abbasi and Ismail (2023) scrutinized the effect of citizenship behavior and trust on workplace deviance.

2.4. Organizational citizenship behavior and organizational spirituality

Spirituality in organization is an evolving phenomenon that has attracted the attention of many researchers and scholars at various levels. Spirituality in the workplace involves attempting and reaching an ultimate goal in a person to live a working life in order to establish a strong relation between the person and his colleagues and other people who somehow participate in his work and also a compatibility of basic people’ belief with organization’s values (Kim, 2014). Organizational spirituality is defined as a set of organizational values that enhance the experiences of employees, facilitate the work process, and develop a sense of completeness, enjoyment, and connection with others (Marschke et al., 2009). Nowadays, training and promotion of ethical codes and organizational spirituality in the organization are important issues for organizational managers and organizations. For this reason, a new paradigm of organizational and management research has turned towards scrutinizing and explaining the dimensions and indicators of organizational spirituality and the factors that affect or are affected. Spirituality gives a person a new insight into himself and surprisingly increases self-confidence and makes a person more stable in his work. The reasons for the importance and necessity of spirituality, especially spirituality in workplaces can be mentioned as follows (Beyzad et al., 2012):

1. The prevailing of spirituality on the organization and workplaces gives employees an ability to gain an integrated perspective on their organization, family, and community.

2. Nowadays it seems that wherever the employees work, they are looking for something beyond material rewards in their work environment. They are looking for something meaningful, promising, and they want to balance work and life.

3. The phenomenon of uncertainty in the current environment has led organizations to enjoy the spirituality conveying full meaning of sustainability and to resolve the conflict between order and disorder in the organization.

4. Today’s intelligent employees select those organizations that provide desirable and pleasant workplace. Employees in the organization are looking for something beyond material needs. Generally, the importance and necessity of spirituality in the workplace is in a such a way that it can infuse responsibility into organizations, humanity, community, activity, and the environment.

Spirituality at work is a special state that has spiritual, emotional, cognitive, and mystical dimensions and includes attractive work, which is characterized by a favorable feeling of well-being and belief in doing meaningful work that pursues a high goal, and the alignment of one’s values, work beliefs and the feeling of independence with this feature that is linked and spiritually connected with something higher than oneself, and the feeling of solidarity, which is the same feeling of connection with others and a common goal. According to Milliman’s et al. (2003) viewpoint, spirituality in a workplace involves attempts toward an ultimate goal of individual in his or her life, establishing a tight relationship with his/her co-workers and a compatibility of personal belief with organizational values. The spirituality in a workplace has three aspects: meaningful work, solidarity feeling, and alignment of values. Workplace’s spirituality affects the components of organizational behavior and organization. Managers and leaders of organizations can make this feeling by forming spirituality in working environments and using immaterial tools to believe that their work is meaningful, purposeful, and challenging, and that these functions will provide the organization with a platform for growth and development. Creating spirituality in the work environment makes the employees feel that they are members of the organization, and that the employees should support each other in the organization and integrate themselves with the goals of the organization and its missions. Under these conditions and in these working environments, employees will show organizational citizenship behavior. The creativity and initiative of employees in such an organization will emerge and help the organization to achieve its goals (Beyzad et al., 2012). Managers can foster organizational citizenship behavior by creating or improving a positive work environment. Spirituality in the work environment is one of the factors that create job attitudes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job participation, and reducing the rate of leaving the organization. On the other hand, a positive attitude towards the job increases the employee’s interest and willingness to perform citizenship behavior. Employees who are satisfied with their job and enjoy doing it and feel meaningful in their work are more inclined to have organizational citizenship behavior.

According to Fernando’s viewpoint (2005), organizational spirituality increases the level of self-actualization in employees; self-actualization means the full use and exploitation of the individual’s talents, capacities, and potential abilities in an organization where spirituality prevails. In an organization where spirituality prevails, people cultivate their potential talents with peace of mind, and the tendency to spirituality, which is a trans-psychological need, is satisfied in employees. In other words, organizational spirituality becomes a tool that can be used to develop personality and bring a person to self-fulfillment. When employees experience a sense of unity and completeness in the organization, their work activity will go beyond their job duties, because they feel that if they do something beyond their duties for the organization and their colleagues, the benefit of this work will be directed to themselves; They are confident that in the future that colleagues and managers will rush to help in case of having a problem.

3. Research methodology

3.1. Conceptual model

There has been no consensus among researchers on the dimensions of organizational behavior yet. Generally, the five dimensions proposed by Konovsky and Organ (1996) that have been most accepted by researchers are as follows: altruism, conscientiousness, respect and dignity, chivalry and virtue. In this study, the models introduced by Konovsky and Organ (1996), Podsakoff et al. (1990), Binestock et al. (2003), and Milliman et al. (2003), a new organizational citizenship behavior consisted of the following nine dimensions is developed : citizenship virtue, altruism, chivalry, conscience, courtesy, organizational, loyalty, trust in spirituality, and participation in social services. The conceptual model of this research is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Conceptual model of the study.

3.2. Statistical population and sample

Determining the sample size is extremely important for the ability of generalizing the test results. There are various methods to determine the sample size. In the present study, the Cochran’s formula was used to determine the sample size (Equation 1).

(1) $n=\frac{N\times {Z^2}_{\frac{\alpha }{2}}p\left(1-p\right)}{N{\epsilon }^2+{Z^2}_{\frac{\alpha }{2}}p\left(1-p\right)}$(1)

where N is the statistical population size, n is the statistical sample size, Z is the standard normal variable, which is equal to 1.96 at the 0.95 confidence, p is the success ratio, which is considered as 0.5, and this is intended to estimate the maximum sample size, which is considered to generalize the results of the sample to the entire population, ε is the researcher’s accuracy (the considered amount of error) which was considered as 0.05. In fact, this calculation was conducted with a 5% error level:

In this research, the population were selected from the staff of a non-profit service organization in Tehran province including Managers and professionals (N = 700) who are distributed in 41 offices and a staff office from which 248 people were chosen as a sample according to relation (1).

$n=\frac{N\times {Z^2}_{\frac{\alpha }{2}}p\left(1-p\right)}{N{\epsilon }^2+{Z^2}_{\frac{\alpha }{2}}p\left(1-p\right)}=\frac{700\times {\left(1/96\right)}^2\times 0/5\times 0/5}{700\times {\left(0/05\right)}^2+{\left(1/96\right)}^2\times 0/5\times 0/5}\cong 248$

Due to limitation, centralized and availability of population, and in order to ensure the accuracy of sampling, in this study, 300 questionnaires, 20% additional to the sample size, were constructed to reimburse the effects of missed and uncompleted questionnaires and the items left unanswered by respondents on the results. Out of the 300 distributed questionnaires, 293 ones were completed which the rate of returned questionnaires was 97 percent and applied in the calculations.

The second statistical population is related to the service quality assessment questionnaire provided by this organization to the supported clients in order to identify the gap between the clients’ expectations and perceptions of all dimensions of service quality. The number of supported households at the time of distribution of the questionnaire was 53,718. According to the following equation, the sample size of 381 was obtained:

$n=\frac{N\times {Z^2}_{\frac{\alpha }{2}}p\left(1-p\right)}{N{\epsilon }^2+{Z^2}_{\frac{\alpha }{2}}p\left(1-p\right)}=\frac{53718\times {\left(1/96\right)}^2\times 0/5\times 0/5}{53718\times {\left(0/05\right)}^2+{\left(1/96\right)}^2\times 0/5\times 0/5}=381$

In order to increase the accuracy of sampling and eliminate the effects of missing, incomplete and unanswered questionnaires on the results of the research, the number of 460 questionnaires, which was about 20% more than the sample size, was distributed among the statistical population. Out of 460 distributed questionnaires, 453 questionnaires were completed and sent to the planning and information technology management of Tehran province, which indicated that the return rate of questionnaires was 98%.

3.3. Data collection

n this study, the researcher-made questionnaire was used. Information related to organizational citizenship behavior was designed by adopting the organizational behavior models proposed by Konovsky and Organ (1996), Podsakoff et al. (1990), Binestock et al. (2003), and Milliman et al. (2003). Table 1 shows the structure of this questionnaire. The size of the variables in these questionnaires is a 5-point Likert scale, which is one of the most common measurement scales.

Table 1. The structure of organizational citizenship behavior questionnaire

Variable Organizational citizen behavior	Components	Items
	Virtue of citizenship	1–8
	Altruism	9–14
	Conscience	15–22
	Chivalry	23–28
	Courtesy	28–32
	Organizational loyalty	32–39
	Obedience	39–43
	Trust in(organizational) Spirituality	44–53

4. Results

4.1. Validity of the questionnaire

4.1.1.

To determine the validity, construct and content validity were used.

4.1.2. Formal validity measurement results

A. Qualitative: In the Questionnaire for Measuring the Behavioral and Organizational Behavior of Organizations, items 7, 12, 16, 35, they needed to be corrected and the desired reforms were implemented.

B. Impact Score results show that all questions have a score of more than 1.5, so all questions in the designed questionnaires are quantitatively highly valid. All items were retained and identified for future analysis.

4.1.3. Content validity measurement results

A. Qualitative: The recommendations provided by the specialists in terms of Persian grammar, use of appropriate words, placement of items in their proper place and appropriate scoring were applied in the questionnaire.

B. Quantitative: The results of the Content Narrative Ratio (CVR) indicate that all questions are larger than the number of the Lawshe table, which is estimated as 0.62. This means that the questions designed for the questionnaire are necessary and important.

4.1.4. Quantitative results of the Content Narrative Index (CVI)

The content validity index (CVI) results indicate that all score questions are above 0.79 and are appropriate.

4.2. Reliability of the questionnaire

In the present study, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, which is one of the most common reliability measuring instruments was used to determine reliability. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was calculated and evaluated for the variables, questionnaires, “Citizenship Behavior, Organizational Behavior” using the SPSS software. Table 2 presents the estimation of reliability for organizational citizen behavior questionnaire based on Cronbach alpha. According to Table 4, the reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed. The results presented in Table 3 indicate the internal consistency of most of the items that make up the scale.

Table 2. Estimation of reliability for organizational citizen behavior questionnaire based on Cronbach alpha

Number of Indices	Cronbach alpha Coefficient
0.895	9

Table 3. Estimation of scale reliability for organizational citizenship behavior questionnaire based on Cronbach alpha

Variable	Components (scales)	Items	Average scale by deleting any item	Variance of scale by deleting any item	Correlation of item with scale (part with whole)	Value of Cronbach alpha by deleting any item
Organizational citizenship behavior	Virtue of citizenship	1–8	29.93	20.58	0.85	0.867
	Altruism	9–14	29.49	23.56	0.64	0.8845
	Work Conscience	15–22	29.74	23.56	0.64	0.884
	Chivalry	23–28	30.45	20.87	0.62	0.891
	Courtesy	29–32	29.67	24.46	0.47	0.896
	Loyalty	33–39	3.07	25.65	0.88	0.864
	Obedience	40–43	29.69	254.95	0.30	0.905
	Trust	44–53	30.02	20.93	0.81	0.870
	Participation	54–57	29.86	21.66	0.71	0.879

4.3. Sample demographical description

Descriptive analysis of the research data is shown in Table 4 according to the personal traits of the respondents.

Table 4. Personal characteristics of respondents

Individual Characteristics		Frequency	Frequency Percentage	Percentage of Variable Frequency	Cumulative Frequency Percentage
Gender	Male	211	72	72	72
	Female	82	28	28	100
	Total	293	100	100
Qualifications	Diploma	0	0	0	0
	A.A.	54	18.4	18.4	18.4
	B.A.	127	43.3	43.3	61.8
	M.A.	112	38.2	38.2	100
	Total	293	100	100

4.4. Normality tests

In this study, the validity of the variables was adopted from the valid Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the Shapiro-Wilk test. These tests are used to allow for the use of Pearson regression and correlation coefficient on independent and dependent variables to prove the normality of the data given the following hypotheses.

H₀:

The data of variable i is a normal distribution.

H₁:

the data of variable i is not a normal distribution.

As seen in the Table 5, the significant level of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the Shapiro-Wilk test for all variables of urban behavior variable is less than 0.05, so all the data available for distribution are abnormal.

Table 5. Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test and Shapiro-Wilk Test of variable scales of organizational citizenship behavior

Test Scale	Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test			Shapiro-Wilk Test
	Statistics	Degree of Freedom (df)	Level of Significance (Sig.)	Statistics	Degree of Freedom (df)	Level of Significance (Sig.)
Citizenship Virtue	0.091	293	0.000	0.976	293	0.000
Altruism	0.099	293	0.000	0.943	293	0.000
Work Conscience	0.101	293	0.000	0.977	293	0.000
Chivalry	0.095	293	0.000	0.960	293	0.000
Courtesy	0.101	293	0.000	0.929	293	0.000
Organizational Loyalty	0.090	293	0.000	0.975	293	0.000
Organizational Obedience	0.186	293	0.000	0.916	293	0.000
Trust in Spirituality	0.067	293	0.003	0.979	293	0.000
Participation in Social Services	0.152	293	0.000	0.933	293	0.000

In should be noted that in this research, since the Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling were exploited as the data analysis method, the non-normal or normal distribution of data is not important. The normality of data is only important for studies that use regression analysis and Pearson’s or Spearman’s correlation coefficients.

4.5. Results of exploratory factor analysis

The size of the sampling adequacy (KMO) as well as the sig value of the Bartlett Test in the exploratory factor analysis by SPSS is 0.623 and 0.000, respectively. Table 6 shows the results of the KMO and Bartlett index test for organizational citizenship behavior.

Table 6. KMO and Bartlett index Test for organizational citizenship behavior variable

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy		0.623
Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity	Approx. Chi-Square	18887.871
	Degree of Freedom (df)	1596
	Level of Significance (Sig.) (Sig.)	0.000

According to the KMO, data number and the Bartlett test number (Sig <0.05), it can be concluded that the data are appropriate for factor analysis. All of 57 items were designed to measure the factor of organizational behavior of the organization. The items were classified into 13 factors, which are explained as total variance as shown in table. Table 7 shows that these 13 factors together account for 77% of the variance of the scores.

Table 7. Total table of explained variance for organizational citizenship behavior variable

Components	Initial Special Values			Special Values of Non-Rotating Extraction Factors			Special Values of Rotating Extraction Factors
	Total	Variance Percentage	Cumulative Percentage	Total	Percentage	Cumulative Percentage	Total	Percentage	Cumulative Percentage
1	17.45	30.615	30.615	17.45	30.615	30.615	6.273	11.005	11.005
2	6.958	12.207	42.822	6.958	12.207	42.822	6.137	10.767	21.772
3	3.073	5.392	48.214	3.073	5.392	48.214	4.916	8.624	30.396
4	2.696	4.729	52.943	2.696	4.729	52.943	4.578	8.032	38.427
5	2.400	4.210	57.153	2.400	4.210	57.153	3.795	6.658	45.086
6	1.881	3.301	60.453	1.881	3.301	60.453	3.348	5.874	50.960
7	1.835	3.220	63.673	1.835	3.220	63.673	2.982	5.232	56.192
8	1.692	2.969	66.642	1.692	2.969	66.642	2.812	4.934	61.125
9	1.552	2.724	69.366	1.552	2.724	69.366	2.276	3.992	65.118
10	1.328	2.330	71.695	1.328	2.330	71.695	2.082	3.653	68.771
11	1.281	2.247	73.943	1.281	2.247	73.943	2.051	3.598	72.368
12	.106	1.941	75.884	1.106	1.941	75.884	1.725	3.027	75.395
13	1.054	1.848	77.732	1.054	1.848	77.732	1.332	2.337	77.732
…	…	….	….
56	0.009	0.016	99.990
57	0.006	0.010	100.000

Based on the presented background and the conceptual model of the research, the variable of organizational behavior is composed of nine dimensions. It can be concluded that the organizational behavior questionnaire with the following structure including item 57 has the appropriate and acceptable structural validity. Table 8 illustrates the structure of the organizational citizenship behavior questionnaire.

Table 8. The structure of organizational citizenship behavior questionnaire

Variable Organizational citizenship behavior	Components	Items
	Virtue of citizenship	1–8
	Altruism	9–14
	Conscience	15–22
	Chivalry	23–28
	Courtesy	28–32
	Organizational loyalty	32–39
	Obedience	39–43
	Trust in (organizational) Spirituality	44–53

In addition, to analyze the factors of exploration of citizenship behavior in the organization, the scale of the treatment of citizenship behavior in the organization is examined using discourse analysis and the results are given in Table 9. To calculate the validity of the Behavioral and Organizational Behavior Scale, the method of item analysis (calculating the correlation coefficient of each item with its own subscale score) was used. Significance is provided. According to Table 9, all items show a positive and significant correlation with their subscales score in all nine subscales indicating that their validity is constant.

Table 9. Validity of scale of organizational citizenship behavior variable using item analysis

Organizational Citizenship Behavior Variable Dimensions	Validity Coefficient
	Spectrum Correlation Coefficient	Level of Significance
Citizenship Virtue	0.0 – 626.804	0.001
Altruism	0.0 – 694.811	0.001
Work Conscience	0.0 – 254.783	0.001
Chivalry	0.0 – 562.865	0.001
Courtesy	0.0 – 792.851	0.001
Organizational Loyalty	0.0 – 654.790	0.001
Organizational Obedience	0.0 – 753.833	0.001
Trust in Spirituality	0.0 – 343.795	0.001
Participation in Social Services	0.0 – 792.834	0.001

4.5.1. Evaluation of the measurement model of organizational citizenship behavior dimensions

The relationship of organizational citizenship behavior variable as the latent variable with constituent structures and indicators can be examined and analyzed with Reflective Measurement Model. Testing of reflective measurement models includes three main steps:

4.5.2. Model reliability test

4.5.2.1. Reliability of observable variables (factor loading)

The Reflective Measurement Model is a homogeneous model if the absolute value of each of the observable variables corresponding to the latent variable of that model is at least 0.7 and is significant at the intended level. Based on the results shown in Table 10, all reagents for nine reflective structures have external loads above the threshold value (0.7).

Table 10. Criteria for evaluating the measurement model of organizational citizenship behavior variable

Reagent Structure		Model Reliability Test				Model Validity Test		Model Quality
		Factor Loading		Reagent Reliability	Compound Reliability	Convergent Validity (AVE)	Differential Validity?	CV Com	Result
		Absolute Value	T Statistics
Citizenship Virtue	Mb4	0.844	44.965	0.712	0.899	0.748	Yes	0.456	Yes
	Mb5	0.857	42.117	0.734
	Mb6	0.893	61.803	0.797
Altruism	Mb11	0.773	23.310	0.598	0.900	0.692	Yes	0.470	Yes
	Mb12	0.865	45.766	0.748
	Mb13	0.780	18.464	0.608
	Mb14	0.903	111.125	0.815
Work Conscience	Mb20	0.831	34.982	0.691	0.887	0.724	Yes	0.424	Yes
	Mb21	0.810	29.741	0.656
	Mb22	0.907	84.391	0.823
Chivalry	Mb24	0.781	9.569	0.610	0.899	0.750	Yes	0.464	Yes
	Mb25	0.927	47.495	0.859
	Mb27	0.883	20.768	0.780
Courtesy	Mb29	0.697	13.065	0.486	0.877	0.643	Yes	0.404	Yes
	Mb30	0.840	29.852	0.706
	Mb31	0.887	46.019	0.787
	Mb32	0.772	26.592	0.596
Organizational Loyalty	Mb33	0.763	24.807	0.582	0.864	0.560	Yes	0.344	Yes
	Mb34	0.714	18.509	0.510
	Mb35	0.715	19.191	0.511
	Mb38	0.809	45.448	0.654
	Mb39	0.737	23.131	0.543
Organizational Obedience	Mb40	0.810	25.254	0.656	0.885	0.659	Yes	0.416	Yes
	Mb41	0.798	31.881	0.637
	Mb42	0.838	42.215	0.702
	Mb43	0.801	22.874	0.642
Trust in Spirituality	Mb45	0.747	17.537	0.558	0.885	0.562	Yes	0.385	Yes
	Mb46	0.736	15.949	0.542
	Mb47	0.820	46.841	0.672
	Mb48	0.771	29.572	0.594
	Mb49	0.709	17.927	0.503
	Mb50	0.708	16.341	0.501
Participation in Social Services	Mb54	0.871	50.186	0.759	0.911	0.775	Yes	0.500	Yes
	Mb55	0.929	119.764	0.863
	Mb57	0.837	31.091	0.701

Table 10 shows the values of T for the significance of each factor load. At 95% confidence level, the absolute value of these values is greater than 1.96.

4.5.2.2. Compound reliability

Other measurements for evaluating model reliability include compound reliability measurement in which the values must be greater than 0.7. This index is not calculated for the latent variable of the compound measurement model, as shown in Table 10.

4.5.2.3. Reagent reliability

The second power of the external load of a standard reagent indicates that how much of a change in an item is described by the structure and goes back to the variance extracted from an item (Table 10).

4.5.3. Model validity test

4.5.3.1. Convergent validity (AVE)

The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) is measurement for the convergent validity. It is at least 0.5, and is a limit that a latent variable describes the variance of its corresponding reagents (Table 10).

4.5.3.2. Divergent validity

There are two methods for measuring divergent validity: The Transverse Load Test and the Fornell-Larker Load Test which are known as divergent validity at the structural level and the reagent level.

4.5.3.3. Diagnostic validity at the structure level or fornell-larcker criterion

One of the measurements for controlling the differential validity is the Fornell-Larker criterion in which the second root of the value of AVE (on the diameter elements) of all structures must be greater than the highest correlation between the structure and other structures in the model. According to the results provided in Table 11, the Fornell-Larker criterion is established for all reflective structures.

Table 11. The second root comparison matrix of the AVE value and the correlation coefficients of the structures (Fornell-Larker criterion)

Structures	Courtesy	Organizational Obedience	Trust in Spirituality	Chivalry	Citizenship Virtue	Participation in Social Services	Altruism	Work Conscience	Organizational Loyalty
Courtesy	0.80
Organizational Obedience	0.50	0.81
Trust in Spirituality	0.25	0.49	0.75
Chivalry	-	-	0.17	0.866
Citizenship Virtue	0.34	0.356	0.444	-	0.865
Participation in Social Services	0.42	0.561	0.584	-	0.649	0.880
Altruism	0.46	0.509	0.364	-	0.717	0.615	0.832
Work Conscience	0.434	0.393	0.454	-	0.567	0.619	0.561	0.851
Organizational Loyalty	0.516	0.585	0.643	-	0.667	0.783	0.652	0.575	0.740

4.5.3.4. Quality test of the reflective measurement model

The quality of the model is measured by Construct Cross Validated Communality (CV Com). The positive values (shown in Table 10) indicate the appropriate quality of the Reflective Measurement Model. The carried-out evaluation indicates the approval of the proposed structural model regarding the organizational citizenship behavior. Figure 2 displays the model of reflexive measurement of organizational citizenship behavior.

Figure 2. Model of reflexive measurement of organizational citizenship behavior.

4.6. Discussion

It was concluded based on the results that the current state of organizational culture and citizenship behavior is in a good situation; this is because of the organizational culture and the organizational citizenship behavior of the initial founders of this non-profit service organization. This result is consistent with the theoretical background presented earlier.

The factor of “chivalry” is not correlated with “altruism” and “participation in social services”. This itself can be one of the influential factors in providing low quality support services to clients. According to the concept of “chivalry” which consists of emphasizing the positive aspects of the organization instead of its negative aspects, and generally under the title of employees’ ability to adapt to the difficulties and incompatibilities of the work environment without protesting or complaining verbally and officially, with the reduction of the “chivalry” dimension, the negative aspects of the “politeness” and “organizational obedience” dimensions increase.

The factor of “trust in the spirituality of the organization”, which was added to the model in this research, has a high correlation with other factors. The factor “participation in social services” also has a good correlation with other factors except the factor of “chivalry” and this demonstrates the meaningfulness of the proposed model regarding organizational citizenship behavior.

The variable dimensions of service quality (expectations and perceptions) are highly correlated.

Measuring service quality is a basic prerequisite for quality improvement because services cannot be improved until quality needs are identified. The analysis of research questions shows that there was a gap between the expectations and perceptions of clients in all dimensions of service quality. In all cases, the level of expectations of clients was beyond the level of their perceptions. Therefore, the clients were not satisfied with the quality of the services received in all the studied dimensions.

There was a huge quality gap between the expectations and perceptions of clients regarding the dimension of responsiveness which indicates that officials and employees are less available when clients need them, the employees of the organization do not help and assist the clients with enthusiasm, the employees do not announce the exact time of providing the services, and they do not provide the services to the clients as soon as possible.

The dimension of guaranteeing obtained the highest average rank in the structure of expectations, women who are the heads of families constitute the majority of people supported by this non-profit service organization. Therefore, morals and characteristics such as trustworthiness, confidentiality of employees, politeness, responsiveness, and the necessary skills to perform the tasks are expected.

The dimension of empathy achieved the highest average rank in the structure of perceptions. In this regard, this n on-profit service organization respects the wishes and expectations of its clients, and the supporting services were categorized and provided according to their needs.

There is a significant relationship between organizational culture and organizational citizenship behavior, between organizational citizenship behavior and overall service quality, and between organizational culture and overall service quality, and all hypotheses have been proved.

The relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and the overall quality of services is a meaningful relationship and shows that with positive organizational citizenship behavior, dissatisfaction and poor-quality supporting services can be reduced, in other words, increasing positive organizational citizenship behavior leads to providing services with quality and reduce customer dissatisfaction.

5. Conclusion and suggestion

Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), reliability and validity of the proposed model for organizational citizenship behavior, with the addition of “trust in the spirituality of the organization” and “participation in social services” was proven in this paper. Based on this model and its corresponding questionnaire, organizations can measure the components of “trust in the spirituality of the organization” in addition to measuring organizational citizenship behavior. In fact, organizational spirituality was considered and it reduced the cost, time, and repetition of questions that might make employees bored in answering them. According to the proposed model, the effect of organizational culture on service quality can be measured by the mediating role of organizational citizenship behavior. In addition, based on this model, it was proved that organizational spirituality is hidden in the heart of the organizational citizenship behavior and there is no need to evaluate the organizational spirituality separately. As a result, The Milliman’s theory can be violated. The proposed model can be considered as one of the most common models in the world in the field of organizational citizenship behavior and its relationship with organizational culture.

The main limitations of the present research can be mentioned as follows:

• Lack of necessary cooperation in answering the questions and reluctance of some employees to complete the questionnaires,

• Existence of a conservative spirit in the experts and personnel of the organization and the supported clients when completing the questionnaire,

• Use of the questionnaire that may not measure all aspects of a variable,

• The geographical and executive scope of the research, which was only conducted in one non-profit service organization in Tehran province of Iran.

Some suggestions for further studies can be made as the following:

This research was carried out in one of the non-profit service organizations in Iran with unique characteristics, it is suggested to investigate the proposed model in other non-profit service organizations. In addition, examining the effect of organizational culture on service quality in non-profit service organizations by considering the role of the mediating variable of organizational citizenship behavior can be another interesting topic. Also, it is suggested to investigate the impact of organizational citizenship behavior on service quality by considering the moderating variable of job satisfaction in non-profit service organizations. Moreover, a conceptual model should be designed for the effect of organizational citizenship behavior dimensions in the recruitment and training processes of non-profit service organizations.

Correction

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was not supported by any funding.

Notes on contributors

Mohammad Khalilzadeh

Dr. Mohammad Khalilzadeh holds a Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering from Sharif University of Technology. Dr. Khalilzadeh is a Professor / Researcher at the CENTRUM PUCP university in Lima, Peru, which is the top-ranked university in Peru and one of the top 10 universities in entire Latin America. He is also an Associate Professor at Science and Research University, Tehran, Iran, where he has been teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses on Industrial Engineering. Dr. Khalilzadeh used to be the Head of Department of Industrial Engineering at the Science and Research University. He has a considerable number of published papers in prestigious national and well-known ISI and SCOPUS indexed international journals with high impact factors. His main research interests are: Project Management, Supply Chain Management, Human Resource Management, Optimization and MCDM.

Hamid Ghesmati

Mr. Hamid Ghesmati holds a Masters degree in Industrial Engineering from Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran. Mr. Ghesmati is one of the managers of Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation in Tehran, Iran.