Relation between Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Human Resources Response : Case Study : 6 th District of Iran Gas Transmission Operations

Organizational citizenship behavior is a set of volunteer and optional behaviors, which are not one’s formal responsibilities. These behaviors put individuals in a state in which they do their job responsibilities voluntarily beyond the expectations. The response of human resource of any organization can be improved with the organizational citizenship behavior in way that may result in the organization progress. Thus, this research aimed at investigating and explaining organizational citizenship behavior and its relation with human resource response. This study is carried out with correlation in descriptive-analytical method. Its statistical universe was consisted of 498 employees working in the 6th District of Gas Transmission Operations. The results showed that organizational citizenship behavior of the employees working in the 6th District of Gas Transmission Operations has significant relation with their response. Moreover, the employees responded positively to five aspects of organizational citizenship behavior and had behaviors, which were identical to human resources. Finally, ranking the aspects of organizational citizenship behavior showed that sportsmanship had the highest rank and altruism the lowest.


Introduction 1.
Rapid developments are increasing the ambiguity, uncertainty and complexity of organizations day after day, the fact that results in radical changes occurring in key advantages of effectiveness.If, once, having certain skills to do routines in the organization was considered as a criterion to measure the effectiveness of employees; now these kinds of evaluation indexes are changed fundamentally since in many cases, responsibilities and working conditions in which an employee should play his/her rules bear basic ambiguities.Moreover, rapid and increasing developments require development managers to provide conditions in which an organization can match these changes (Sobhani Negad et al, 2010).
One of the most important characteristic of each organization to work in changeable conditions is to have human resources who are willing to participate in successful changes throughout the organization without formal requirements dealing with their job.The behaviors that run beyond the formal expectations of function but are very crucial and even necessary to survival of organization and were defined as organizational citizenship behaviors (Zareie Matin, 2010).Successful organizations need staffs working more than their usual responsibilities and response beyond the expectations of the organization.Organizational citizenship behavior describes measures, in which staffs act further from the prerequisite requirements of their own function and this may result in increased effectiveness of the organization (Abili, 2012).When Denis Oregon et al, (1983), for the first time, used the term "Organizational Citizenship Behavior" two decades passed.Oregon defines organizational citizenship behavior as follows, "consciousness and sound behavior of an individual which cannot be recognized directly and explicitly by formal reward system but in general improves the organization performance."consciousness and sound" does not refer to the behavior that is required and determined on employment contract.This behavior is the personal freely selected behavior that if the employee chooses to ignore it no punishment will await him/her (Podsakoff, 2000).There is no agreement on the aspects of organizational citizenship behavior.Studies by Podsakoff showed that about 30 different aspects of organizational citizenship behavior have been identified, which are categorized in seven objects or subjects: 1) helping behaviors, 2) forgiveness and magnanimity, 3) organizational courtesy, 4) organizational obedience, 5) personal initiative, 6) civil behavior, and 7) personal development (Saidi Nejad, 2007).
Organizational citizenship behavior may improve employees' productivity, the number of workgroups, communications and cooperation between the employees.Moreover, it encourages teamwork, reduce rate of errors and increase participation and engagement with the organizational issues, and in general, it creates a proper organizational atmosphere.Organizational citizenship behavior causes the quality of employees' performance to be increased by influencing inner factors of the organization including organizational atmosphere, improving morale, increasing organizational commitment, job satisfaction, reducing turnover intentions, absence and, job destructive behavior and external factors of the organization including job satisfaction, qualities of the services and costumers' courtesy (Castro et al., 2004).
According to Cohen and Vigoda (2000) the advantages of organizational citizenship behavior are as following: improving the productivity of management and employees, more effectiveness of consumption and assigning resources, lowering maintenance costs and improving the ability of organization to employ qualitative forces based on the resources of the organization.Organizational citizenship behavior results in having a group of employees who are committed to the organization.The mere existence of organizational citizenship behavior (especially self-sacrifice, dutifulness and patience) reduces turnover and absence of the employees.The employees, who are committed to the organization stay with the organization for a long time, produce qualitative production and help to improve the status of the organization based on different attitudes.Logically, we can assume that organizational citizenship behavior can improve the internal work environment of the organization.
Since these issues related with human resources, and considering different needs concerning job, motivation and individuals' personality, studying individuals' reaction to inevitable changes in the organization seems to be a necessity.In this respect, it would be helpful for the managers as the change agents, to study the organizational changes and resistance to the changes or accepting them.There are many different responses between different levels of the employees (top and middle managers, employees and workers …) in many organizations (Chaudron, 2010).One of the documentary evidence about the individual's reaction and behavior in the organization is that the organization and its members resist against the changes.Resistance against the changes can turn into a resource to develop opposition and divergence of views (McNamara, 2010).
Based on the mentioned matters, the objective of the present research is to study the relation between organizational citizenship behavior and the reaction of the human resources due to the fact that the aspects of organizational citizenship behavior causes different responses on the part of the employees, which would have many positive or negative effects on the organization.Thus, the main question of the research is that "is there a significant relation between organizational citizenship behavior and the reaction of the human resources?"

Research Literature 2.
Studying the relation between the personalities and organizational citizenship behavior Choi (2007) 2011), two individual and social aspects of organizational citizenship behavior and their relation with job satisfaction were measured and the results showed that all the factors of job satisfaction play an important role in predicting organizational citizenship behaviors.In the other approach to organizational citizenship behavior as an outcome of the organizational conditions, Farooqui (2012) studied the relation between these two elements and reported their positive relation with organizational citizenship behavior.Jafari et al. in their article reported that organizational citizenship behavior is an inevitable need involving increasing organizational effectiveness and in addition, they studied how this behavior can be created and categorized (Jafari et al., 2013).Finally, another article developed a combination of studies by Jahed and Jafari et al. in the form of a new research, which supported the findings of two previous researches (Lee Hee Ung, 2013).
In 2014, a study carried out by Gita Kumari & Kumar Pradhan et al. titled, "Human Resource Flexibility and Organizational Effectiveness: Role of Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Employee's Intent to Stay".The objective of this research was to develop a comprehensive theoretical pattern with the aim of studying interactive relations between human resource flexibility and organizational effectiveness.Furthermore, they tried to show the effect of organizational citizenship behavior and the employee's intent to stay with the organization and the relation between human resource flexibility and organizational effectiveness.Their findings showed that in a number of Indian organizations as the statistic universe of research, if we take steps toward creation the organizational citizenship behavior, the employees' motivation to stay with the organization would be increased and by increasing human resource flexibility the organizational effectiveness would be increased.Their presented conceptual model included human resource flexibility, the aspects of organizational effectiveness, organizational citizenship behavior, and the employees' intent to stay with the organization.
In 2014, a study was carried out by Francis titled, "Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Demographic Factors" among the employees in oil industry of Nigeria.This study aimed at filling the gap between organizational citizenship behavior and some demographic factors among the employees in oil industry of Nigeria and its results showed that demographic factors play an important role in organizational citizenship behaviors.Turek (2015) carried out a research titled, "the Influence of Human Resources Management Practices on Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Mediating the Role of the Person's Size and Organizational Fit".The objective of the research was to explain how human resources management practices and person's size and organizational fit relate to the organizational citizenship behavior.The suggested model showed the relations, in which the research findings admitted current knowledge about the relations of organizational citizenship behavior in working environment and extending these behaviors in terms of the role of the person's size and organizational fit.

Research Hypotheses 3.
Main hypothesis: there is a significant relation between organizational citizenship behaviors and the response of human resources.

Subordinate Hypotheses 4.
1.There is a significant relation between organizational citizenship courtesy and human resources reaction.2. There is a significant relation between organizational citizenship volunteer behavior of civic virtue and human resources reaction.3.There is a significant relation between organizational citizenship behavior of consciousness and human resources reaction.4.There is a significant relation between organizational citizenship behavior of altruism and human resources reaction.5.There is a significant relation between organizational citizenship behavior of sportsmanship and human resources reaction.
Conceptual Model of the Research 5.

6.
The present study investigated the efficiency of scientific theories involving organizational citizenship behavior and human resources reaction in the 6 th district gas transmission operations and tried to develop applied knowledge dealing with the quality of relation and effectiveness between these two variables.This study is an applied research by its goal ISSN 2039-9340 (print) Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 143 and is analytical and correlated research by its method of data gathering.Its statistical universe was consisted of 498 people.A questionnaire was used to gather and analyze data and information.Given economizing on time, costs and human resources, in this research two questionnaire of Oregon's organizational citizenship behavior (1983) and human resources' reaction of which, the latter (questionnaire of human resources' reaction) was localized and researcher-made.The former consisted of two sections.In the first, demographic questions were asked from which descriptive information about the respondents was gathered.In the second, the main questions (in line with the research goals) were asked.For questionnaire scoring, the highly agreement with the item was scored 5 and weakly agreement with the item was scored 1 and the respondent's idea was asked on a spectrum from completely agree to completely disagree.Cronbach Alpha coefficient was used to evaluate the reliability of the questionnaire.To do this, 30 people were selected randomly from the statistical universe and were given human resources reaction questionnaire, and then their superior authorities (the person directly in charge) were given the organizational citizenship questionnaire to answer questionnaire.In this way by using SPSS software, Cronbach Alpha was calculated for human resources reaction and organizational citizenship questionnaire as 0.932, 0.928, respectively.It seemed that the questionnaire has required reliability since the value of Alpha coefficient was higher than accepted value for application goals, that is, 70%.Content validity was used to measure the validity of the questionnaire.

Testing the Main Hypothesis of the Research 7.
Linear bivariate regression test was used to test whether the relation between organizational citizenship behaviors and human resources reaction in 6 th district gas transmission operations is significant.However, first, we used Chi-square test to study the level of employees' organizational citizenship behaviors.Table 1 shows the results of the test.The results of Chi-square test (p<0.01:Chi-square = 33.391)showed that the level of employees' citizenship behaviors is medium.Bivariate regression test was used to predict changes of human resources reaction in relation with organizational citizenship behaviors and the relation between them.Table 2 shows the results of the test.Table 2 shows correlation coefficient between organizational citizenship behaviors and human resources reaction.Correlation coefficient between these two variables is 0.754 with significance level of (p=0.000).Given the value of adjusted determination coefficient (0.567), organizational citizenship behaviors had a significant effect of (p<0.01) on human resources' reaction.The results of Chi-square test (p<0.01:Chi-square + 50.082) showed that the level of organizational citizenship courtesy about the employees of the 6 th District of Gas Transmission Operations was high.Subordinate hypothesis 2: There is a significant relation between organizational citizenship volunteer behavior of civic virtue and human resources reaction.
Chi-square test was used to study the level of organizational citizenship behavior of civic virtue of the employees and table 5 shows the results.The results of Chi-square test (p<0.01:Chi-square = 48.691)showed that the level of organizational citizenship behavior of civic virtue about the employees of the 6 th District of Gas Transmission Operations was low.Subordinate hypothesis 3: There is a significant relation between organizational citizenship behavior of consciousness and human resources reaction.
Chi-square test was used to study the level of organizational citizenship behavior of consciousness of the employees and table 6 shows the results.The results of Chi-square test (p<0.01:Chi-square = 73.246)showed that the level of organizational citizenship behavior of consciousness about the employees of the 6 th District of Gas Transmission Operations was high.Subordinate hypothesis 4: There is a significant relation between organizational citizenship behavior of altruism and human resources reaction.
Chi-square test was used to study the level of organizational citizenship behavior of altruism of the employees and table 7 shows the results.145 The results of Chi-square test (p<0.01:Chi-square = 33.391)showed that the level of organizational citizenship behavior of altruism about the employees of the 6 th District of Gas Transmission Operations was low.Subordinate hypothesis 5: There is a significant relation between organizational citizenship behavior of sportsmanship and human resources reaction.
Chi-square test was used to study the level of organizational citizenship behavior of sportsmanship of the employees and table 8 shows the results.The results of Chi-square test (p<0.01:Chi-square = 64.918)showed that the level of organizational citizenship behavior of sportsmanship about the employees of the 6 th District of Gas Transmission Operations was high.
Ranking the Aspects of Organizational Citizenship Behavior 8.According to the results of Friedman test, among the aspects of organizational citizenship behaviors about the employees of the 6th District of Gas Transmission Operations, sportsmanship (with ranking average=3.92)occupies the first rank, and altruism (with ranking average=2.15)occupies the fifth rank.In other words, considering the results of this test one can say that out of the aspects of organizational citizenship behaviors, sportsmanship behavior has the highest priority and altruism behavior has the lowest priority involving increasing positive reaction of human resources.

Discussion and Conclusions 9.
Organizational citizenship behavior has positive effect on human resources reaction and improves the quality of services.Employees who express organizational citizenship behaviors may have the ability to improve the quality of services and their own capabilities, since they try to help others as much as possible.
As came from the research results, organizational citizenship behavior of employees working in the 6 th District of Gas Transmission Operations has a significant relation with their reactions.Thus, it is required to improve organizational citizenship behavior of employees working in the 6 th District of Gas Transmission Operations as much as possible.In this respect, we suggest that top managers of this complex hold in service education in order to improve organizational citizenship behavior of the employees.
Considering the research findings and analysis, among the different aspects of organizational citizenship behavior, sportsmanship occupies the highest rank, and altruism occupies the lowest rank.These results of this research conformed to the findings of the research carried out by Hoveida & Naderi (2008).In their study, altruism component was lower than average.However, in comparison to Kim (2006), it was not the case.Kim observed that the value of altruism was higher than average and was directly and significantly related with job satisfaction, affectionate commitment and public acceptance.However, in the present research altruism aspect was lower than average.The research findings conformed to researches carried out by Hoveida & Naderi (2008) and Allen, Facteau & Facteau (2004) dealing with consciousness.According to Allen, Facteau & Facteau, consciousness was higher than average and it has a direct and significant relation with cooperation, empathy and personal innovation.Toreh et al. (2005) concluded that among the aspects of organizational citizenship behavior, the highest average assigned to sportsmanship and the lowest to being chivalrous.Saiedi Negad (2007) observed that there were a sufficient level of altruism, sportsmanship and civil behavior in his studied organization but being chivalrous and genericity were not as much.The results of Hasani (2005) showed that among the studied employees, out of the aspects of organizational citizenship behavior, civil behavior had the highest and being chivalrous the lowest values.The difference between the results of the present research and other mentioned ones are due to different statistic universe, organizational culture and job duties and the fact that organizations differ dramatically concerning professional and behavioral aspects.

Suggestions 10.
In order to improve other aspects, some programs are suggested to improve the studied components among the employees, for example encouraging employees to develop creative suggestions in line with solving the problems of organization, active participation in organizational meetings, communicating good news of organization to others and goal communities.
introduced a set of personalities existing in work environments who can predict organizational citizenship behaviors.Whiting et al. (2009) carried out a meta-analytical experiment to study the relation between organizational citizenship behaviors and their different outcomes both in individual and organizational levels.In this respect, another research carried out on the relation of stressful factors of role and organizational citizenship behavior by Chiaburu et al. (2011).Then Eatough et al. (2011) developed a model based on five factors of personality attributes and organizational citizenship behaviors.In the other study by Jahed et al. (

Table 1 .
The level organizational citizenship behaviors of human resources

Table 2 .
General indicators of regression analysis about the effect of organizational citizenship behaviors on human resources reaction

Table 3 .
Regression coefficient of organizational citizenship behaviors on human resources reactionISSN 2039-9340 (print)There is a significant relation between organizational citizenship courtesy and human resources reaction.Chi-square test was used to study the level of organizational citizenship courtesy and human resources reaction and table 4 shows the results.
Each increased unit in the value of citizenship behaviors causes human resources reaction to be increased amount to 0.960 units.The following regression equation can be developed to predict the value of human resources reaction resulted by organizational citizenship behaviors:

Table 4 .
Level of organizational citizenship courtesy of human resources reaction

Table 5 .
Level of organizational citizenship behavior of civic virtue of human resources reaction

Table 6 .
Level of organizational citizenship behavior of consciousness of the human resources

Table 7 .
Level of organizational citizenship behavior of altruism of human resources

Table 8 .
Level of organizational citizenship behavior of sportsmanship of human resources

Table 9 .
Ranking the aspects of organizational citizenship behavior