gender differential paper IJCRB

ijcrb.webs.com
JUNE 2011
INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS VOL 3, NO 2
them to deal with almost every aspect, including OCB, related to task accomplishment (Organ et al.,
2006). Furthermore, owing to job autonomy, workers tend to believe that they play an important and
meaningful role in an organization, which in turn encourages them to perform a wider range of jobs
than usual (Cardona et al., 2004). On the other hand, job autonomy occasionally makes workers
underestimate the importance of other functions in an organization or their relationship with those
functions. In this case, their insensitivity to others’ needs might reduce their OCB (Pearce &
Gragersen, 1991).
Data that allows us to directly examine the OCB of IT personnel is not available. Therefore, we
focus on the work values of IT personnel instead. As discussed later, work values are considered to
have a close relationship with OCB; hence, focusing on the work values of IT personnel help us
understand their OCB more closely. The objective of this article is to investigate the relationships
between work values of IT personnel and attitudinal factors in order to forecast their OCB.
2. Extraction of Six Work Value Dimensions
We used secondary data from the Survey of Working Persons (2008) that was originally collected by
the Works Institute Recruit Co. Ltd. (hereinafter WIR). The WIR offered this data to the Social
Science Japan Data Archive (Center for Social Research and Data Archives, Institute of Social
Science, the University of Tokyo) in order to give qualified academic researchers the opportunity to
use it. The data were collected from 6,500 workers in the Tokyo metropolitan area in Japan in the
summer of 2008. From this group, 218 were classified as IT personnel.
Values play an important role in influencing people’s perception, motivation, and behavior. People’s
values comprise various subsystems of specific values that are associated with the judgment
regarding whether more specific objects are good or bad. Work values can be considered a part of
these values. They are defined as “beliefs about the desirability of specific outcomes of working”
(Hattrup, Mueller & Joens, 2007, p. 481) and are considered to influence the behavior and
orientation of workers.
By conducting an exploratory factor analysis of responses of 29 out of 32 items on the importance of
objects that workers expected to acquire through work, we extracted the following six work value
dimensions (Ueda & Ohzono, 2011). The value Challenging job (rotation sums of squared loadings
[RSSL] = 6.131) reflected the belief that something new should be acquired or produced through
work. Self-actualization (RSSL = 6.249) referred to the quest for the ideal self. Extrinsic rewards
(RSSL = 4.194) indicated the desire for extrinsic rewards such as good pay, a good workplace, and
timely promotion. Power and authority (RSSL = 4.316) referred to the desire for authority and
power in an organization. Identification with the organization (RSSL = 4.194) reflected the desire to
have a strong sense of belonging to the organization and good relationships with coworkers.
Contribution to society (RSSL = 4.506) referred to the desire to help and contribute to society.
Furthermore, while many OCB researchers have proposed various sets of OCB constructs, Organ et
al. (2006) tried to organize various OCB constructs into the following seven dimensions: helping,
sportsmanship, organizational loyalty, organizational compliance, individual initiative, civic virtue,
and self-development. Each of the above six work values is associated differently with some of these
OCB dimensions. First, challenging job and self-actualization are considered to be associated with
self-regulation of workers in and around the organization. A challenging job and stronger self-
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