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Introduction
A positive and supportive context is needed for human resources to achieve sustainable
growth and performance (Luthans and Avolio, 2003; and Luthans et al., 2008). In fact,
culminating effectiveness in the light of global economic fluctuations, and fierce
competition necessitates the espousal of positive perspective at workplace. A growing
body of literature on positive psychological climate suggests that the development of work
context designed to enhance employees motivational and affective reactions at work,
is profoundly associated with sustained organizational effectiveness.
Contemporary business organizations are facing many challenges to effectively
manage their human capital more than ever before. It is not easy to attract and retain
skilled and motivated employees as they have several other job options. Another major
difficulty in conquering this challenge is the expectations of the organizations from their
employees. Organizations require employees to be proactive, show initiative while
engaging with their role and remain committed to performing at high standards (Bakker
* Research Scholar, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
(IITR), Roorkee, India; and is the corresponding author. E-mail: aks2530@gmail.com
** Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology,
Roorkee (IITR), Roorkee, India. E-mail: gargpdhs@gmail.com
*** Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (IITR),
Roorkee, India. E-mail: renurfhs@iitr.ernet.in
Psychological
2013 IUP. AllClimate and Organizational Effectiveness:
Rights Reserved. 33
Role of work Engagement
and Leiter, 2010; and Chughtai and Buckley, 2011). Cho and McLean (2009) also
suggested that it is not sufficient that they just show up; they need to be functioning
at the peak level of their potential.
There has been a shift in emphasis within the organizational behavior literature, away
from contextual factors to individual attitudes and behaviors that might be critical for
organizational effectiveness, such as employee willingness and capability to invest their
positive energies at work and working in consonance with organizational objectives, such
as work engagement. Engaged employees are optimistic and spontaneous, they tend
to exhibit positive attitudes and proactive behaviors at workplace (Schaufeli et al.,
2002). In fact, the notion of engagement signifies more stable persistent and pervasive
n.s
Theoretical Genesis
Psychological Climate
Though organizational climate research has long been substantiated in organizational
sciences for more than 50 years, employees psychological perceptions of their work
environments have received magnified attention in the management discourse of 21st
century. Psychological climate is an individual attribute (Hellriegel and Slocum, 1974),
measured in terms of how employees perceive and interpret their organizational
environments (Brown and Leigh, 1996), or the policies, practices and procedures which
are recognized and rewarded in the organization (Schneider, 1990). It is concerned with
the employees perceptions of virtually all aspects of their work environment (Parker
et al., 2003), and interpretation of them in relation to their wellbeing (Brown and Leigh,
1996). In specific, psychological climate refers to the perceptual and experiential
components of a reciprocal interaction between the organizational environment and the
Work Engagement
Engagement is one such higher order positive psychology construct which is concerned
with the employees experiences of work and organization that further determines the
extent to which they work in consonance with the organizations objectives. Schaufeli
et al. (2002) defined engagement as a positive, fulfilling, affective-motivational state of
wellbeing that is characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption. Vigor, a high level
of positive core affect, refers to the employees willingness to devote their time, effort,
and positive energy while performing job tasks. Dedication explicates the emotional
framework of engagement, in which employees experience their work as meaningful,
significant and challenging. Absorption is the cognitive aspect of engagement whereby
employees tend to be happily involved and experience their work as engrossing and
something to which they can devote their full concentration (Bakker et al., 2011).
Recent studies have posited engagement as the most influential business driver of
organizational success and performance. Engaged employees being enthusiastic,
dedicated and psychologically involved are better able to invest their active physical
strength and emotional energy towards the fulfillment of organizational goals. Although
previous researches suggest that engagement is related to workforce efficiency and
productivity, very little empirical research exists that explains the processes through which
engagement develops. Furthermore, due to its well-researched consequences,
organizations are seeking ways to embrace the concept, designing development plans,
and surveying their employees to explore what they need to take first (Wollard and Shuck,
2011). Saks (2006) has suggested that employees are likely to exchange their
engagement as a state of reciprocal interdependence for economic and socio-emotional
resources from their organization. This way, engagement has been recognized as a
Organizational Effectiveness
The underlying goal of most research on organizations is to improve their effectiveness
(Noruzi and Rahimi, 2010). The concept of organizational effectiveness has been the
central focus of researchers for more than 30 years (Cho, 2007). It has often been
described as the extent to which an organization is able to achieve its strategic and
operational goals. Organizational effectiveness is a companys long-term ability to achieve
consistently its strategic and operational goals (Fallon and Brinkerhoff, 1996, p. 14). Mott
(1972) defined organizational effectiveness as the ability of an organization to mobilize
its centers of power, for action, production and adaptation (p.17). In fact, effective
organizations tend to produce better quality products and are resilient in the face of
adversities. Three major aspectsproductivity, adaptability and efficiencyhave been
identified as primal to evaluate the organizational effectiveness (Mott, 1972), and found
to be most frequently used in various models pertaining to effectiveness (Steers, 1977;
Luthans et al., 1988; and Sharma and Samantara, 1995). Though a good deal of research
has shed light on the significant factors affecting organizational effectiveness, including
training climate and individual positive attitudes and behaviors such as commitment,
organizational citizenship behaviors, etc. (Organ, 1988; Podsakoff and Mackenzie, 1994;
and Gelade and Gilbert, 2003), yet there are less empirical evidences that support the
role of positive psychological climate and a nascent approach to work engagement in
augmenting organizational effectiveness. On the basis of the above discussion, this study
proposes the following hypotheses.
Methodology
Participants and Procedures
The respondents in our study were executives/supervisory level employees nested within
different service organizations. Data were collected from 300 participants via mail or in-
person. Eighty one percent of our sample population was male and the average age of
the respondents was 34 years. Organizational tenure averaged 5.35 years and around
67% were educated at post graduation level (management and engineering backgrounds).
Measures
Psychological Climate: Psychological climate was measured using the Psychological
Climate Measure developed by Brown and Leigh (1996). The scale consists of six
subscales, namely, supportive management, role-clarity, contribution, recognition, self-
expression and challenge, and includes a total of 21-items (e.g., management makes
it perfectly clear how my job is to be done; doing my job well really makes a difference).
The reliability measure of this scale was 0.84.
Work Engagement: Work engagement was measured using the Utrecht Work
Engagement Scale (UWES-9) developed by Schaufeli et al. (2006). The scale consists
of 9-items and measures three sub-dimensions of engagement, namely, Vigor (e.g., At
my work, I feel bursting with energy), Dedication, (e.g., My job inspires me), Absorption
(e.g., I get carried away when I am working). All items relating to these three sub-
dimensions were measured on a seven-point scale ranging from 0 = Never to 6 = Always.
Cronbach alpha () for this scale was 0.87.
Organizational Effectiveness: An 8-item scale developed by Mott (1972) was used as
a measure of organizational effectiveness. The scale consists of 8 items, e.g., Thinking
now of the various things produced by the people you know in your division, how much
are they producing? Their production is, measured on a five-point scale ranging from
1 to 5. Each item needed a different adjective as its response, so the scaling of the items
was different. The Cronbachs alpha () was 0.81.
2008). However, with regard to large sample base, 2 has its limitations in
rejecting the good-fitting models on the basis of poor evaluation (Giorgi, 2010).
Therefore, a number of other fit indices have been recommended to assess the
good-fit of the model (Giorgi, 2010);
b. The Comparative Fit Index (CFI), acceptable value 0.95;
c. The Normed Fit Index (NFI), acceptable value 0.95; and
d. The Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), a value less than 0.08
is deemed as a good fit (Wijhe et al., 2011).
Results
Table 1 presents the mean, standard deviation, inter-item correlation and reliability indices
for the key variables. As evident from Table 1, the key variables were significantly
correlated: psychological climate and work engagement (r = 0.53, p < 0.01); psychological
climate and organizational effectiveness (r = 0.41, p < 0.01); work engagement and
organizational effectiveness (r = 0.47, p < 0.01). Besides, the standardized regression
estimates (denoted by ) presented in Table 2 explicate a positive and significant
association between the study variables.
Accordingly, with the aim of placing engagement as the mediator variable, the following
two conditions were set: (a) whether the direct path from psychological climate to
organizational effectiveness was greater than the path under the condition of mediation
(M1); and (b) whether the direct path from the predictors, i. e., psychological climate
and work engagement, to the criterion variable under the mediated condition was
significant (M2). Since condition (a) was negative and condition (b) was positive, the
results (see Table 3) showed that work engagement is a full mediator between the
relationship of psychological climate and organizational effectiveness. When we loaded
work engagement into the relationship model of psychological climate and organizational
effectiveness, the original relationship between these variables disappeared. Therefore,
work engagement has been found to be significantly mediating the relationship between
the predictor variable and criterion variable.
Psychological climate was significantly and positively related to organizational
effectiveness ( = 0.38, p < 0.01), specifying the mediated path of work engagement in M2
reduced this relationship to = 0.11, p > 0.05. Thus, results provide full support for H4.
Acknowledgment: The funding agency for this study was the University Grants Commission
which provided a grant in the form of Junior Research Fellowship to pursue a full-time Ph.D.
from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. However, the implications, conclusions and
recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the
funding body.
References
1. Alfes K, Shantz A D, Truss C and Soane E C (2012), The Link Between Perceived
Human Resource Management Practices, Engagement and Employee Behavior:
A Moderated Mediation Model, The International Journal of Human Resource
Management, pp. 1-22.
2. Bakker A B (2011), An Evidence-Based Model of Work Engagement, Current
Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 20, pp. 265-269.
3. Bakker A B and Demerouti E (2007), The Job Demands-Resources Model: State of
the Art, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 22, pp. 309-328.
Reference # 06J-2013-07-02-01