2,877
Views
0
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Research Article

Investigating the relationship between spiritual capital and job performance with organizational citizenship behaviors in employees (evidence from Iran)

ORCID Icon & | (Reviewing editor)
Article: 1692484 | Received 30 Jun 2018, Accepted 04 Nov 2019, Published online: 13 Dec 2019

Abstract

To succeed in today’s competitive world, organizations need employees with the greatest job performance; employees who value the organization and spare their efforts for organization’s success. In this regard, one of the factors promoting motivation and hope among the employees to achieve occupational success is spirituality, which refers to the belief in a super power in human affairs. The present study has aimed to study the relationship between spiritual capital and improvement of employees’ job performance with the purpose of upgrading organizational citizenship behaviors among employees of Maroon Petrochemical Company. This study is an applied research conducted as a field study. To collect the information, standard questionnaires have been used. To analyze the obtained information, the correlational research method and SPSS software have been used. The cluster sampling method has been used to select the statistical sample of the study. The findings of this study have confirmed the significant relationship between spiritual capital and job performance of employees. In addition, job performance of employees has shown a significant relationship with organizational citizenship behaviors.

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

The present study mainly focuses on the significance of spiritual capital in Iran. In recent years, spirituality and spiritual capital in organizations have attracted the attention of a large number of organization managers and researchers. The study also investigates the significance of organizational citizenship behaviors whose emergence would improve the working conditions. Spiritual capital and organizational citizenship behaviors could be regarded by managers to improve job performance.

1. Introduction

Many of today’s organizations need a huge mutation in the respect of being more competitive and keeping pace with their opponents. Therefore, a substrate must be built so that the employees would have their best performance, so that the organization would be successful. Scholars also emphasize that the mutual goal of studies in this field must be defining different personal behaviors that set new standards for the organization so that the way would be paved for employees to use the most suitable skills. One of the skills that can help employees in this regard is organizational citizenship behavior. Organizational citizenship behavior is nowadays used as a modern approach to modern management of the human force in many organizations (Asadi, Naddafi, & Shafiei Roudposhti, Citation2011). Organizational citizenship behavior is defined as a set of voluntary and personal behaviors which have not been directly designed by the official rewarding systems of the organization; but nonetheless improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the overall performance (Organ, Citation1997).

Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, and Fetter (Citation1990) define organizational citizenship behaviors in the form of five dimensions. These five dimensions are altruism (which means helping colleagues finish their jobs in abnormal conditions); sponsorship (i.e., a behavior expressed by employees who goes further than their obligatory responsibilities to do a job); civic virtue (which is politeness and respectful behaviors on employees’ behalf because of which no unnecessary problems would be created in the work environment); conscientiousness (which is tendency to tolerate unavoidable disturbances and abuses without complaining) and courtesy (how employees treat their colleagues, superiors, and customers of the organization). Ellinger et al. (Citation2013) have also stated that organizational citizenship behavior is desirable for any given organization, because it is related to important variables such as job performance, social capital, etc., and leads to organization to fulfill its objectives.

On the other hand, before taking any action, organizations rethink their behaviors towards their employees and make employee satisfaction their priority so that they would reach a high level of job performance. Lack of proper job performance on the part of employees in regards with providing suitable organizational goods and services will cause different problems for the organization in today’s competitive world (Abasi & Salehi, Citation2011). Employees’ job performance consists of task-related performance and underlying performance. These are tools that must be thoroughly and carefully examined and accurately controlled. This way, the individual and organizational goals will be fulfilled and a tool will be obtained for efficiently using the manpower of the organization (Jiang et al., Citation2012). In addition, on the one hand, increased job performance leads to the improvement of the quality of the services and production of organizations as well as promotion of organizational citizenship behaviors (Ellinger et al., Citation2013). Moreover, organizational citizenship behaviors and job performance of employees are influenced by a number of factors. One of these factors that has attracted a great deal of attention is spiritual capital. The reasons for this are that spiritual capital has an energizing nature and as a mental—spiritual source, it provides individuals with considerable achievements and benefits. People with spiritual capitals tend to be more patient when they are faced with difficulties and issues (Golparvar & Abshahi, Citation2014). On the other hand, the more people are attached to spiritual and religious principles, the more hopeful they will be when faced with problems. This is because of the fact that spirituality has some divine infrastructure based on the intervention of a supernatural or a higher power (the mighty God) in human affairs. Stress on spiritual values such as trust, valuableness and integrity of human beings, belief in high aspirations in the lives of human beings lead to the formation of a kind of trust and consequently a spiritual influence. In general, it can be said that existence of spiritual capital in the organization and the special attention that should be paid to it equip organizations with competencies and capabilities that enhance organizational citizenship behaviors and improves employees’ job performance. The literature review of the present research seeks to investigate the theoretical relationship between spiritual capital and job performance with organizational citizenship behavior in employees. Then, the research hypotheses are to be validated after formulating the hypotheses and collecting the required data. The findings of this study can be implemented by managers to promote organizational citizenship behaviors and improve job performance.

Ultimately, since the oil and petrochemical industry and the other depending industries have a stable and significant status in the process of development of Iran, managers of this industry need to develop suitable strategies and equipment and keep pace with the existing conditions. The necessity of identifying and encouraging motivated employees with a high level of performance and proper voluntary organizational behaviors such as civic virtue, sponsorship, courtesy, etc., in the petrochemical industry are essential in the sense that I this industry, managers are always after new methods to reduce waste, increase quality, decrease the final cost, enhance their ability to respond to various needs of the customers and ultimately increase productivity. As a result, they will be able to quickly respond to the rapid changes of the current market. Also, in addition to fulfilling the domestic needs, they can play a crucial role when it comes to exportations of the country in the bad situation caused by the sanctions.

Reviewing the background of the research not only reveals the nature, value, and applied significance of the topic but also can introduce new aspects of the topic for further research. In this section, some relevant studies are presented.

Some research on spiritual capital has adopted exploratory and fundamental methods to delve into this issue. These studies aimed to address the nature of spiritual capital in order to provide a better understanding of the issue. These studies aimed to explain the concept of spiritual capital in organizations and examine how it can be used to promote organizations’ values. Some of these studies are mentioned below:

Mahadevan (Citation2013) conducted a research called spirituality in business in India. In this research, it has been stated that because of the economic crises in the past, scholars have been interested in studying the role of spirituality in business management. This study firstly traces the field of spirituality as a practical tool in business. Then, it reports managers’ beliefs about spirituality and its conceptual status in business. In the conclusion section, it has been mentioned that the concept of spirituality is applied more and more these days in business which is because of the economic and social crises.

Fransica Montemaggi (Citation2010), from the University of Cardiff, conducted a study called promoting spiritual capital. In this study, she has discussed the root of spiritual capital. She believes spiritual capital is a religious phenomenon and it is resulted from social capital.

Berger and Hefner (Citation2003) have conducted a research on spiritual capital and defined it as a subcategory of social capital which varies depending on the power, knowledge, and facilities of a person or an organization.

In 2003, Roger Finke conducted a research on spiritual capital and has opened up spiritual capital. However, he mostly paid attention to the concept and stated that religious capital depends on religious culture.

Khosrozadegan, Sirshekan, and Pourbagheri (Citation2016) conducted a research called spiritual capital as a new component of intellectual capital and came to the conclusion that intellectual capital is one of the important intangible assets in today’s businesses. They also stated that in today’s economy, knowledge is the most important capital and has replaced physical and financial capitals. Therefore, by putting emphasis on intellectual capital, they showed a basic difference between the operations of companies in the past and modern economies. They showed that in the past, value was the outcome of physical assets; whereas, in the modern economy, value is created when intellectual capital and science are used. In previous studies, some criteria that affect intellectual capital have been presented, including human capital, structural capital and relational capital. However, in this research, a criterion called spiritual capital has been discussed as a new component of intellectual capital.

Golparvar, Daraei, and Khayatan (Citation2017) have conducted a study called creating a short scale for Islamic spiritual welfare and spiritual capital and concluded that short-form scale of spiritual capital is in compliance with the definitions of spiritual capital which have been presented in various paradigms, especially in the spiritual capital paradigm as an attachment and the connection with the mighty god and commitment to religious beliefs and mottos. This scale was composed of questions based on human valuation and the continuity and reinforcement of the connection human beings have with the mighty god and godly activities.

Badakhshani (Citation2017), in a book called spiritual capital and its effect on the performance of the organization, has stated that spiritual capital in an organization is way more valuable than its financial capital and can be the origin of creation of a basic evolution in leadership and its management by the organization. In addition, spiritual capital can help the organization when it comes to having capabilities that would lead to the sustainable development and excellence of the organizations. The model selected in this book was an adaptation of the model proposed in the studies of Dana Zohar and Ian Marshall. Generally, spiritual capital, at an organizational level, has 12 indexes: self-awareness, vision-led, positive use of adversity, holistic, compassion, diversity, independence, fundamental why, reframing, spontaneity, vocation, and humility.

Moradi (Citation1393) did a study called the conceptual pattern of spiritual capital in light of the teachings of Quran. They came to the result that there is a bilateral relationship between economic capitals and spiritual capitals. They also showed that perception of the meaning of life and the purpose of creation as well as the spiritual correlation between employees are regarded as basic elements of spiritual capital and it is manifested in the services that are being presented to people. The present study reviews the abovementioned studies to describe the research variables and extract the research model.

2. Importance and necessity

Given that educating efficient and specialized manpower has become more broad and common and also there are numerous efforts that are being made in the respect of creating centers for attracting and presenting knowledge about energy and providing engineering and technical services, it has become quite clear that it is important for managers to invest in manpower in regards with increasing their job performance. In each of these domains, the role of human capital and optimum management of this capital can lead to the evolution and improvement of job performance and productivity in the industries.

In addition to the significance of paying attention to the job performance of employees, the concept of organizational citizenship behavior has received a great deal of attention as an important subject in many of the studies conducted by organizational researchers. The cause of this increased importance in the recent years is the contribution of employees’ job performance to increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the organizations through the evolution of resources, innovations, and adaptability (Behrangi & Movahed Zadeh, Citation2011). Previous studies which have focused on organizational citizenship behavior are mainly of three types. The first type of these researches have focused on predicting and empirically examining the factors that create organizational citizenship behavior, namely job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational identity, organizational justice, trust, different styles of leadership, etc. On the other hand, a number of researches have focused on the consequences of organizational citizenship behavior including performance of the organization, organizational effectiveness, organizational success, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, social capital, service quality, etc. (Iqbal, Aziz, & Tasawar, Citation2012). A limited group of studies have also focused solely on the concept of organizational citizenship behavior and have attempted to propose a new definition for organizational citizenship behavior and to specify its dimensions (Askarian & Taheri Attar, Citation2012).

Thus, given the aforementioned information, reviewing organizational citizenship behavior is important because: 1-organizational citizenship behavior puts emphasis on behaviors that goes further than one’s job and therefore reduces the need for the allocation of rare resources; 2-emphasizing organizational citizenship behavior can minimize the conflicts resulted from the ambiguity associated with job expectations; 3-by determining and examining different dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior, organizations can create an environment where organizational citizenship behavior is increased and the barriers are removed; 4-it gives the managers an opportunity to have a deeper perception of the organizational citizenship behavior factors and job and organizational variables associated with them.

One of the newest structures in the domain of studies on spirituality is spiritual capital (Waetford, Citation2007). Spirituality rose as a dimension of human capital in the 18th century and it was two or three decades ago that it explicitly entered the scientific texts and studies as spiritual capital. Intangible cultural heritage, or in other words, spiritual capital, has been defined by the Convention on the Protection of the Intangible Cultural Heritage as behaviors, symbols, and rituals which are recognized by a community as a part of its cultural heritage. It is extremely important to perceive the definition provided by the Intangible Cultural Heritage to recognize this heritage in the society where people live and how to protect and preserve it. Spiritual capital is the mental—spiritual joy, power, and energy which has been created because of the psychological connection between human beings and the unique power of the mighty god and leads to purposeful and hopeful behaviors and patients as far as fulfilling small and big goals are concerned (Golparvar & Abshahi, Citation2014). Spiritual capital is an important factor and at the same time, it is quite delicate and vulnerable in the maintenance of cultural—religious differences in the face of globalization. Perception of spiritual capital in different communities encourages people to respect one another. The importance of spiritual capital is evident not only in terms of its cultural aspects but also knowledge and skills that are passed on from one generation to another through spiritual capitals. Economic and social value of the knowledge and skills that are passed on to future generations in this way are evident in the current of social groups of a country and it is equally important for both the developing countries and developed countries. Perhaps, it can be said that religious identity is one of the elements that create social connection and homogeneity in the societies. Throughout a process, because of religious identity, people become attached to religion and therefore, it plays a crucial role in the creation and formation of a collective (Golparvar & Abshahi, Citation2014).

3. The relationships between the research variables (main objectives of the study)

In the next subsections, the relationship between the research variables is investigated and the research’s main objectives are discussed.

4. Spiritual capital and organizational citizenship behavior

Scholars believe that citizenship behavior is essential for the effectiveness of any given organization. From the viewpoint of Organ (Citation1997), organizational citizenship behavior refers to a series of voluntary and personal behaviors which have not been directly designed by the official rewarding systems of the organization; but nonetheless, improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the overall performance (Organ, Citation1997). Development of social capital in the organization helps citizenship behavior so that the performance of the organization would be improved. Therefore, organizations have to create spiritual capital and develop it in order to develop citizenship behavior as well (Matin, Jandaghi, & Ahmadi, Citation2010). Spiritual capital is a factor that moves the organization and generates energy, because of which the organizations would have capabilities that would lead to their development and excellence (Zohar & Marshall, Citation2004). In fact, the thing that distinguishes these organizations from others is that they can achieve a sustainable capital. Because of spiritual capital, organizations can expand and develop their inner life and interact more with their surrounding environment (Finke, Citation2003). Spiritual capital is spiritual—mental joy, power, and energy which has been created because of the psychological connection between human beings and the unique power of the mighty god and leads to purposeful and hopeful behaviors and patients as far as fulfilling small and big goals are concerned (Golparvar & Abshahi, Citation2014). To put it differently, an organization with spiritual capital turns into a flexible and adaptable system which can reorganize itself if necessary. (Debra, Marshall, George, & Bruce, Citation2017) Organizations and societies that have such capability have a deeper sense of responsibility towards their surrounding environment. They are also more likely to have a more sustainable competitive advantage in comparison with organizations and societies that only think about their own benefits. In fact, spiritual capital is the origin of a basic evolution in leadership and management of organizations and societies. Spiritual capital in an organization is way more valuable than financial capital which can be the foundation of significant evolutions in the organizations and help them fulfill their goals and maximize their development. According to this description, spiritual capital, with its potentials, can lead to the expression of organizational citizenship behaviors (Matin et al., Citation2010).

A review of the background of relevant research shows There are several studies that have investigated the relationship between spiritual capital and organizational citizenship behavior:

Maleki, Jafari, and Abasi (Citation2017) have conducted a research called the relationship between spiritual leadership and organizational citizenship behavior with the mediating role of psychological empowerment and positive ethical atmosphere among employees of the prisons in Kurdestan province. They concluded that psychological empowerment can play a mediating role in the relationship between spiritual leadership and organizational citizenship behavior and improve organizational citizenship behavior. In other words, managers to promote spiritual capital in organization can employ organizational citizenship behaviors.

Karimi et al., (Citation2009) has done a study called examining the effectiveness of human resource measures on organizational citizenship behavior by considering the role of organizational commitment. He conducted this study in an education center in Shiraz. According to their findings, the coefficient of correlation between the variables effectiveness of human resource measures on organizational citizenship behavior by considering the role of organizational commitment was positive. In other words, he found a significant positive relationship between spiritual capital and organizational citizenship behaviors.

Badakhshani and Peyravi (Citation2010) have conducted a study called the concept of spiritual capital and organizational citizenship behavior of the Gas Company in Tehran Province prepared in the education center in Tehran. The results obtained from their examinations are indicative of the positivity of the correlation coefficient between the organizational citizenship behavior and spiritual capital variables. As a result, promoting spiritual capital improves organizational citizenship behaviors.

As mentioned above, spiritual capital and spirituality in organization can promote organizational citizenship behavior.

5. Spiritual capital and job performance

Job performance refers to the extent to which one is committed to his/her job responsibilities. In simpler words, what is meant by the job performance of employees is the extent to which employees take advantage and benefit from their resources (Peterson, Luthans, Avolio, Walumbwa, & Zhang, Citation2011). Spiritual capital refers to one’s awareness of his/her abilities, identifying the potentials of his/her surrounding environment, the ability to see issues and problems from various aspects, understanding great human values, being empathetic towards other human beings and understanding other humans, respecting the differences between humans and believing that these differences are purposeful and they can be exploited and finally, being capable of converting threats to opportunities and having a win-win approach to all levels of life (Zohar & Marshall, Citation2004). It is only when we possess the ability to think about more than our own personal benefits that we will be able to take the first step towards obtaining spiritual capital. The reason why spiritual capital enriches the lives of human beings is that it changes their views towards life and shifts their focus from themselves to the whole world surrounding them (Lillard & Ogaki, Citation2005). They also come to believe that their verbal and behavioral processes can have a significant impact on the present and future lives of others who have direct or indirect connections with them. As a result, they would be quite careful and sensitive to their own performance and try to evaluate the consequences of their behaviors and their impacts on the internal and external environments associated with them and attempt to take measures. Spiritual capital is the belief that any human being has a responsibility when it comes to other human beings; because of which they must learn who they are, where have they come from, for what they have been created, what is the purpose of their creation, and finally, to understand the extent to which they impact their surrounding environment. If we do not know why we have been born or why do we establish an organization, everything we do would be pointless. Given the aforementioned issues, it becomes clear that spiritual capital puts emphasis on the sustainability of the future of humanity and enriches their daily lives. According to this view, spiritual capital leads to the permanent sustainability of the organizations and important and basic evolutions in business methods and guarantees the competitive advantage of organizations. (Golparvar, Citation2014)

Considering the spiritual capital, organizations can be founded by being completely aware of their social responsibilities and set huge missions for themselves. The outcome of such phenomenon is nothing but prosperity, success and permanent profitability. Many scholars believe that spiritual capital revives the work and personal lives of human beings and guarantees their continuity and sustainability. Ultimately, presence of spiritual capital in an organization can make the individuals working in it more united. It also guarantees that the people working in an organization would benefit from the group advantages of an organization in an expanded win—win network. Simultaneously, this helps the organization reach sustainable development and excellence. Therefore, presence and development of spiritual capital can improve employees’ job performance (Golparvar & Abshahi, Citation2014).

A review of the background of relevant research shows There are several studies that have investigated the relationship between spiritual capital and employee performance:

Debra et al. (Citation2017) investigated the relationship between religion, spirituality, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment and they showed that spiritual capital can promote job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Petchsawang A and Dennis (Citation2012) in a study in Thailand showed that meditation and spirituality are directly correlated to performance. In other words, managers can improve performance of employees through promoting spiritual capital.

Middlebrooks and Noghiu (Citation2007) have done a research called leadership and spiritual capital. They have attempted to review the relationship between organizational values and services presented to customers by the organizations. They have also studied the advantages of spiritual capital for organizations. They have described spiritual capital as a multilayered concept of organizational values and concluded that organization can improve spiritual capital and spiritual leadership to promote organization’s performance and increase customer satisfaction.

Asli Shahraki, Dehmordeh, and Shojei Farahabadi (Citation2015) have studied the effect of the role of organizational spirituality (spiritual capital) on the administrative ethics of employees in support institutions and concluded that organizational spirituality is one of the principles that influences ethical behaviors.

6. Spiritual capital and employee commitment

Human resources is a critical factor to the survival of organizations and it is the most important factor in the development of communities and organizations (Peterson et al., Citation2011). Thus, development and success of organizations, in addition to technological strategies, depends also on suitable strategies in the field of human resources. People in organizations have different attitudes. Occupational attitudes are defined as different attitudes and perspectives that individuals have about their jobs, and in turn, depend on their work experience. In other words, attitude is a positive or negative feeling or a mental state that is learned and organized through experience and it has a particular effect on individual’s response to other individuals, and different situations and subjects (Robbins, Citation2003). Indeed, attitudes indicate different reflections of individuals’ perceptions on different subjects. Desirable evaluations can lead to positive effects on subjects, individuals or incidents, while undesirable evaluations may lead to negative effects on individuals. Among these attitudes, organizational commitment is recently interested by researchers. Organizational commitment at work increases employees’ happiness and promotes individual’s involvement to the work and organization. Spiritual capital improves employee commitment through increasing perception of human values, increasing empathy and understanding other people, respecting differences of humans. In other words, spiritual capital, beyond financial tools, increases the sense of belonging to work and organization. (Matin et al., Citation2010)

A review of the background of relevant research shows There are several studies that have investigated the relationship between spiritual capital and organizational commitment:

Djafri and Kamaruzaman (Citation2017) studied impact of spirituality on organizational commitment in Malaysia and they showed that spirituality and spiritual capital had a positive and significant impact on organizational commitment.

Mahakud and Khagendra (Citation2015) showed that organizational spirituality has a direct impact on organizational commitment in the public sector.

Pradhan, Pradhan, and Jena (Citation2016) investigated the relationship between spirituality and business implications in India and showed that spirituality can promote organizational commitment and job satisfaction.

In other words, promoting spiritual capital in organization can improve employees’ morale and organization’s ethical values such as organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior.

7. Organizational commitment and job performance

Organizational commitment is an attitude that helps an employee to explain his attitudes to the job and organization. This attitude increases individual’s involvement so that he considers the organization’s success as his own success and as a result, he does his best to promote organization’s performance (Ellinger et al, Citation2013). This involvement in this study is explained through commitment to organization and commitment to performing quality work in organization. Commitment to organization refers to organization’s efforts to achieve its goals and objectives and effort for its survival and commitment to quality means performing the tasks assigned as good as possible, which in turn increases quality of products and services. On the other hand, job performance refers to the extent to which individuals attempt to perform their tasks. Simply, employees’ job performance means to what extent they employ organization’s resources (Peterson et al., Citation2011). Accordingly, improving organizational commitment of employees is one of the ways to enhance job performance. Based on the issues discussed above, the aims of this study are briefly:

  1. Examining the relationship between spiritual capital and commitment among employees.

  2. Examining the relationship between commitment and job performance of the employees.

  3. Examining the relationship between commitment and organizational citizenship behavior of employees.

  4. Examining the relationship between job performance and organizational citizenship behavior of employees.

  5. Examining the relationship between spiritual capital and organizational performance of employees.

  6. Examining the relationship between spiritual capital and organizational citizenship behavior.

8. Methodology

This applied research was a field study in which standardized questionnaires were adopted to collect the required data. The statistical population of the study encompassed all employees in Marun Petrochemical Complex, Mahshahr, Khuzestan, Iran. The study samples were selected by cluster sampling method.

The statistical population of the study included 1800 people and the statistical sample based on Cochran’s formula was equal to 316 people. The percentage of women and man in the sample was 9.6% and 90.4%, respectively. The percentages of individuals under 30, between 30 and 40, and greater than 40 were 10.8%, 62.7%, and 26.5%, in order. In addition, the education level of individuals in the sample was as follows: diploma (2.4%), associate degree (10.8%), bachelor’s degree (45.8%), and masters and above (41%).

Several meetings were hold to increase participation of employees at various sectors and to explain the research objectives and its benefits for the employees as well as for whole the company. In addition, several training meetings were hold to increase employees’ perception of the research topic and their variables. These meetings led to the staff’s willingness to cooperate in completing the research questionnaires. These meetings were conducted to encourage staff to respond correctly to research questions and no staff bias was provided.

In order to collect the data, standard and validated questionnaires were used:

In this study, the Golparvar Spiritual Capital Questionnaire was used to measure spiritual capital consisting of four components: Spiritual valuation (six questions), Having a private and strong connection with god (six questions), Importance of spirituality (six questions), Spiritual effectiveness (three questions). (Golparvar & Abshahi, Citation2014)

And Byre et al. (Citation2005) job performance Questionnaire was used to measure job performance consisting of two components: Job performance of employees is measured from two dimensions: task-related performance (six questions) and underlying performance (seven questions). Byrne et al. (Citation2005) and Conway (Citation1999).

In this study, Podsakoff et al. (Citation1990) Organizational citizenship behavior Questionnaire was used to measure Organizational citizenship behavior, consisting of five components: altruism is measured by four questions, sponsorship is measured by four questions, conscientiousness is measured by four questions, civic virtue is measured by four questions and courtesy is measured by four questions (Podsakoff et al., Citation1990).

Also measure organizational commitment, the questionnaire developed by Ellinger (2013) has been used. In this questionnaire, two dimensions of organizational commitment, i.e., commitment to the company and commitment to quality, have been studied using 12 items. (Ellinger et al., Citation2013).

Cronbach’s alpha coefficient confirmed the reliability of the questionnaires. Correlation tests were run in the SPSS software for the data analysis.

9. Conceptual model of the research

The view that the employees of an organization have towards their colleagues and customers of the organization has an impact on the success and prosperity of the organization. Organizational citizenship behavior helps employees create a space for empathy and cooperation within an organization, facilitate the process of fulfilling the set goals. As a result, an informal and unofficial atmosphere would be created and employees would be more motivated to work. In this respect, states that spiritual capital can lead to the expression of behaviors beyond job tasks and to the improvement of job performance. He defines spiritual capital as follows: skills and experiences that are specifically related to one’s religion, including religious knowledge, familiarity with the faith and religious doctrine and companionship with worshipers and believers. Therefore, knowledge, familiarity, and companionships for reaching religion helps people in holding religious ceremonies. Religious experiences improve the capacity for the production of religious capitals. Ultimately, spiritual capital contains a degree of expertise and achievement of a particular religious’ culture. Competence and expertise refers to knowledge of and familiarity with religious ceremonies, beliefs, and emotions. To completely participate in a religion, one must be familiar with how and when the rituals and prayers are done and also be aware of the stories and history of that religion. To have a complete understanding of a religion, we must have inner and emotional experiences. Religious activities such as prayers, ceremonies and essential and inner experiences not only increases and validity of a religion, but it also reinforces the emotional relationship of people with that given religion. Along with this emotional achievement and religious commitment, religious capital is formed. This capital helps people describe the religious activities and make them more satisfied.

In the research model, the effect of organization’s investment in spiritual capital on the commitment and performance of employees has been reviewed. This model suggests that organization’s investment in spiritual capital acts as a catalyst in regards with the creation of an attitude in employees, their commitment to the company and quality of the products, and mental norms of employees. In this model, instead of attitude, commitment to the quality of services as a mental norm of employees has been presented, because commitment to the company is a universal attitude which is resulted from how a company treats its employees. Therefore, many service organizations consider commitment to the quality of services as a standard norm and as a norm that is expected by employees instead of employees’ attitude. In fact, this model also suggests that commitment to the company and commitment to the quality of the services is resulted from the behaviors of employees (job performance and organizational citizenship behavior). In addition, this model reviews the direct effects of spiritual capital on these two behaviors and the effects of job performance on organizational citizenship behavior. The research model is shown in Figure .

Figure 1. The model for the relationship between research variables.

Figure 1. The model for the relationship between research variables.

Based on the research model outlined above, the research hypotheses are as follows:

Table 1. Results of testing the research hypotheses

To measure and test the research hypotheses, the statistical method correlational analysis has been used. Therefore, to calculate the correlation between variables, Pearson correlation coefficient has been extracted using SPSS software. The results of this analysis have been presented in the table .

10. Discussion and conclusion

Based on the results presented in the table 1, the first hypothesis of the research is confirmed; meaning that there is a significant relationship between employees’ commitment to the company and spiritual capital. This relationship is positive and relatively strong. According to this result, making efforts in the respect of improving spiritual capital can increase employees’ commitment to the company. Thus, it is recommended to managers to reinforce the spiritual capital among employees in the respect of making them more committed to the company.

In other words, job commitment is one of the most important issues in improving organizational performance. This research suggests that spiritual capital can be employed to promote organizational commitment. Accordingly, it suggests that organizational culture to include spirituality valuations, speaking with God, more attention to spirituality, and spiritual influencing. The results of this hypothesis are consistent with the results of Fares and Kamaruzaman (Citation2017).

Based on the results presented in the table 1, the second hypothesis of the research is confirmed; meaning that there is a significant relationship between employees’ commitment to quality and spiritual capital. This relationship is positive and relatively strong. According to this result, making efforts in the respect of improving spiritual capital can increase employees’ commitment to quality. Thus, it is recommended to managers to reinforce the spiritual capital among employees in the respect of making them more committed to quality and increased satisfaction of employees of organization’s products and services.

Based on the results presented in the table 1, the third hypothesis of the research is confirmed; meaning that there is a significant relationship between employees’ commitment to the company and their job performance and this relationship is direct. Based on this description, employees’ commitment to the company improves their job performance. Thus, it is recommended to managers to facilitate the job performance of employees to reinforce their commitment to the company. The results of this hypothesis are consistent with results of Debra et al. (Citation2017).

According to the results presented in the table 1, the fourth hypothesis of the study is rejected; meaning that no significant relationship was observed between employees’ commitment and organizational citizenship behavior.

According to the results presented in the table 1 above, the fifth hypothesis of the study is rejected; meaning that no significant relationship was observed between commitment to quality and job performance of employees.

Based on the results presented in the table 1, the sixth hypothesis of the research is confirmed; meaning that there is a significant relationship between employees’ commitment to quality and their organizational citizenship behavior and this relationship is direct. Based on this description, employees’ commitment to quality can improve their job performance. Hence, it is recommended to managers to reinforce employees’ organizational citizenship behavior to develop and expand their commitment to quality.

Based on the results presented in the table 1, the seventh hypothesis of the research is confirmed; meaning that a significant relationship has been observed between employees’ job performance and their organizational citizenship behavior and this relationship is direct. Based on this description, an improvement in employees’ job performance increase the expression of organizational citizenship behaviors on the part of employees. Hence, it is recommended to managers to reinforce employees’ organizational citizenship behavior in order to improve their job performance. This finding is consistent with Karimi et al., (Citation2009) research findings.

According to the results for the eighth hypothesis, a direct and strong correlation exists between the spiritual capital and job performance in employees. This finding is in line with the findings of other researchers (e.g., Badakhshani, Citation2017; Moradi, Citation1393; Asli Shahraki et al., Citation2015) who confirmed the relationship between spiritual capital and organizational performance. Accordingly, it is suggested to improve the performance in organizations through promoting spiritual capital. Therefore, it is recommended that organizations’ managers to promote factors such as spiritual valuation, speaking with God, spirituality, and spiritual influencing in organization.

The test results of the ninth hypothesis also indicated that there was a direct and strong relationship between spiritual capital and employee’s organizational citizenship behaviors. This finding was approved by Maleki et al. (Citation2017) and Badakhshani and Peyravi (Citation2010); hence, we recommend to promote intellectual capital in the organization in order to improve organizational citizenship behaviors. In other words, factors such as spiritual valuation, speaking with God, spirituality, and spiritual influencing in organization can promote organizational citizenship behavior.

11. Limitations of the study and recommendations for future research

In summary, the present study, In the literature section addressed the concepts “spiritual capital” and “organizational citizenship behavior” to better understand the research variables. Then, the relationship between the research variables was examined and discussed. Accordingly, the research hypotheses were developed. Finally, the validity of the hypotheses was assessed through collecting the required information from the target statistical population, i.e., Marun Petrochemical Company.

Like other studies, this research has some limitations. Limited components of spirituality were considered in the present study; hence, future studies can include more components of spiritual capital. On the other hand, the statistical population of the study was also limited as such the findings can be compared with the ones in similar future studies.

In this study, spiritual capital is generally seen as separate from religion and includes components such as spiritual privacy and spiritual value. This helps ensure that all employees are considered beyond religion on the basis of human nature. However, according to the religious doctrine of spiritual capital in different religions and religions can have other components. In future studies, spiritual capital in different religions can be examined separately.

In addition, future research can examine impact of spiritual capital on the mental and physical health of employees as well as issues such as absenteeism and leaving work. Future research can also explore factors promoting spiritual capital as well as factors reducing it and their implications in organizations.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the maroon petrochemical company [2000].

Notes on contributors

Abdolah Khademi Moghadam

Abdullah Khademi Moghadam holds a Ph.D. degree in Human Resource Management from Tehran University and is a faculty member in Iran. He has conducted studies on spirituality and spiritual capital of organizations in Iran. In his Ph.D. thesis, he developed a spirituality model using qualitative research methodology. Moreover, he has carried out some research on social capital, social intelligence, and spiritual intelligence. His main research interest is behavioral and human resources in public and private organizations.

References

  • Abasi, M., & Salehi, S. (2011). The effect of internal marketing on customer care in the insurance industry (case study: Insurance companies in the city of Tehran). Insurance Research Journal, 26(2), 145–15. (in Persian).
  • Ali, U., & Rizwan, D. Q. (2010). Spiritual consciousness in banking managers and its impact on job satisfaction. International Business Research, 3(2), 65–72.
  • Asadi, M., Naddafi, G. H., & Shafiei Roudposhti, M. (2011). Survey on relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior in public library librarians (Case: Public libraries in Yazd). Journal of Library and Information Science, 14(1), 125–153. (in Persian).
  • Askarian, M., & Taheri Attar, F. (2012). Organizational culture and its role in formation of organizational citizenship behavior from the viewpoint of the headquarters experts of the ministry of education. A New Approach to Management Education, 3(2), 21–34. (in Persian).
  • Asli Shahraki, R., Dehmordeh, M., & Shojei Farahabadi, H. (2015). The impact of the role of organizational spirituality (intellectual capital) on the administrative ethics of employees in supportive organizations. Second National Conference on Accounting and Management: Tehran. (in Persian)
  • Badakhshani, F. (2017). Spiritual capital and its influence on organizational performance (pp. 135). Tehran: Book of Mehrban Publishing. (in Persian).
  • Badakhshani, F., & Peyravi, S. H. (2010). Assessment and evaluation of spiritual capital in an educational-research organization. Esfahan university. (in Persian).
  • Behrangi, M., & Movahed Zadeh, A. (2011). Development of education management based on the relationship between educational transitional leadership and organizational citizenship behavior of teachers. Quarterly Journal of Education, 27(2), 30–37. (in Persian).
  • Berger, P. L., & Hefner, R. W. (2003). Spiritual capital in comparative perspective. Unpublished Paper.
  • Byrne, Z. S., Stoner, J., Thompson, K. R., & Hochwarter, W. (2005). The interactive effects of conscientiousness, work effort, and psychological climate on job performance. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 66(2), 326–338. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2004.08.005
  • Conway, J. M. (1999). Distinguishing contextual performance from task performance for managerial jobs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(1), 3. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.84.1.3
  • Debra, D. J., Marshall, A., George, W. R., & Bruce, W. E. (2017). Religion and spirituality in the workplace: A quantitative evaluation of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. 1–18.
  • Ellinger, A. E., Musgrove, C. F., Ellinger, A. D., Bachrach, D. G., Baş, A. B. E., & Wang, Y. L. (2013). Influences of organizational investments in social capital on service employee commitment and performance. Journal of Business Research, 66(8), 1124–1133. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2012.03.008
  • Fares, D., & Kamaruzaman, N. (2017). The impact of workplace spirituality on organizational commitment A case study of Takaful agents in Malaysia. Humanomics, 33(3), 384–396. doi:10.1108/H-02-2017-0018
  • Finke, R. (2003). Spiritual capital: Definitions, applications and new frontiers. Unpublished Article. 3.
  • Golparvar, M., & Abshahi, J. (2014). The relation between subliminal life and islamic spiritual capital with emotional exhaustion, 1(1), 87–97. (in Persian).
  • Golparvar, M., Daraei, N., & Khayatan, F. (2017). Formation of a short form of intellectual capital and Islamic spiritual well-being. Religious Studies, 11(32), 167–188. (in Persian).
  • Gopal, M. C., & Khagendra, G. N. (2015). The influence of workplace spirituality on organisational commitment among public sector employees. Journal of Organisation & Human Behaviour, 35–50.
  • Iqbal, H. K., Aziz, U., & Tasawar, A. (2012). Impact of organizational justice on organizational citizenship behavior: Empirical evidence from Pakistan. World Applied Sciences Journal, 19(9), 1348–1354. (in Persian).
  • Jiang, K., Lepak, D. P., Han, K., Hong, Y., Kim, A., & Winkler, A. L. (2012). Clarifying the construct of human resource systems: Relating human resource management to employee performance. Human Resource Management Review, 22(2), 73–85. doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2011.11.005
  • Karimi, A., Tabarsa, G. H., & Rahimi, F. (2009). Investigating the effect of human resource actions on organizational citizenship behavior considering the role of organizational commitment. Management Thought, 2(1), 103.
  • Khosrozadegan, H., Sirshekan, S., & Pourbagheri, I. (2016). Intellectual capital is a new component of intellectual capital. National Conference on Accounting and Management. Shiraz. (in Persian)
  • Lillard, D. R., & Ogaki, M. (2005). The effects of spiritual capital on altruistic economic behavior. Unpublished Research Proposal. Cornell University and Ohio State University.
  • Mahadevan, B. (2013). Spirituality in business: Sparksfrom the anvil, in conversation with suresh hundre, Chairman, and MD, Polyhydron Pvt. Ltd. IIMB Management Review, 25(91), 103.
  • Maleki, H., Jafari, M., & Abasi, K. (2017). The relationship between spiritual leadership and organizational citizenship behavior with the role of mediator of psychological empowerment and ethical, climate. Ethics Quarterly in Technology and Technology, 4(11), 11. (in persian).
  • Matin, H. Z., Jandaghi, G., & Ahmadi, F. (2010). A comprehensive model for identifying factors impacting on development of organizational citizenship behavior. African Journal of Business Management, 4(10), 1932–1945.
  • Middlebrooks, A., & Noghiu, A. (2007). Reconceptualizing spiritual capital: A meso-model for organizational leadership. In S. Singh-Sengupta & D. Fields (Eds.), Integrating spirituality and organizational leadership (pp. 675–681). New Delhi: MacMillan.
  • Montemaggi, F. (2010). Followers of jesus: Journey into an evangelical Christian church in Wales, Cardiff: Cardiff University. Unpublished Dissertation. Misunderstanding faith: When ‘capital’ does not fit the ‘spiritual’. The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, 5(5), 179–192. doi:10.18848/1833-1882/CGP/v05i05/51728
  • Moradi, M. (1393). Conceptual model of spiritual capital in the light of Quranic teachings. Islam and Management Research, 5(1 and 11), 41–61. (in Persian).
  • Organ, D. W. (1997). Organizational citizenship behavior: It’s construct clean-up time. Human Performance, 10(2), 85–97. doi:10.1207/s15327043hup1002_2
  • Petchsawang A, P., & Dennis, D. (2012). Workplace spirituality, meditation, and work performance. Management Spirituality & Religion, 189–208. doi:10.1080/14766086.2012.688623
  • Peterson, S. J., Luthans, F., Avolio, B. J., Walumbwa, F. O., & Zhang, Z. (2011). Psychological capital and employee performance: A latent growth modeling approach. Personnel Psychology, 64(2), 427–450. doi:10.1111/peps.2011.64.issue-2
  • Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Moorman, R. H., & Fetter, R. (1990). Transformational leader behaviors and their effects on followers’ trust in leader, satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors. The Leadership Quarterly, 11(2), 107–142. doi:10.1016/1048-9843(90)90009-7
  • Pradhan, K. R., Pradhan, S., & Jena, L. K. (2016). The study of workplace spirituality and job outcomes, in Indian information technology industry. International Journal Strategic Business Alliances, 5(1), 54–68. doi:10.1504/IJSBA.2016.078244
  • Robbins, S.P. (2003). Organisational behaviour (10th ed). San Diego: Prentice Hall.
  • Waetford, C. M. R. (2007). A literature review of spiritual capital, developments of spirituality in the workplace, and contributions from a Māori perspective (Unpublished Bachelor Dissertation in Management and Employment Relations). University of Auckland, New Zealand.
  • Zohar, D., & Marshall, I. (2004). Spiritual Capital: Wealth we can live by. London, UK: Bloomsbury.