RESILIENCE, SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING AND COMMITMENT AS PREDICTORS OF OCB

Abstract

Research on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has received considerable attention over the past few decades. While many dispositional and attitudinal antecedents to OCB have been established, little attention has been given to its relationship with psychological resource capacities like resilience. Similarly, resilience is a much explored construct in clinical and developmental psychology, however, little is known about how it operates in a workplace context. Also, the underlying mechanism as how resilience relates to OCB is vastly understudied. In this study, a path analytic model was developed and tested in which the effects of resilience on OCB were hypothesized to be mediated through the joint effect of affect balance, life satisfaction and organizational commitment components. The model also positions affective commitment as mediating the effects of normative and continuance commitment on OCB. Structural Equation Modeling supported the hypothesized model. Results were consistent with broaden-and –build theory of positive emotions and theory of reciprocity. There was particularly strong support for the role of affect balance and life satisfaction in mediating the influence of resilience on affective and continuance commitment respectively. In contrast to previous findings, it was found that resilience positively relates to continuance commitment. However, the hypothesis that normative and continuance commitment would positively relate to OCB through affective commitment could not be supported. The theoretical and applied significance of these findings is discussed. This way, the study tested the applicability of resilience in an organizational context to predict positive outcomes