A Study of the Multiple Relationships between Organizational Citizenship and Life Satisfaction of Employees at the University of Isfahan

Today, organizations are thought as organisms with independent identities different from those of their members. It is believed that they can affect the behavior of employees with their identity. Organizational citizenship has become an important component of every organization. Organizations have taken a serious responsibility to provide citizens with an opportunity for getting involved in the democratic values of society. Life satisfaction is the manifestation of changes in psychology, from dealing with psychopathological damages to optimizing quality of life. Happiness, a subset of the positive psychology, is considered to be a positive characteristic and one of human’s psychological needs. Organizational citizenship behavior, in a variety of organizational settings, intends to promote life satisfaction among employees. The present study is conducted to investigate the multiple relationships that are supposed to exist between organizational citizenship and life satisfaction of employees at the University of Isfahan. This article gives a summary of previous studies in which the relationship between organizational citizenship and life satisfaction of employees are investigated. By reviewing these studies we can see that organizational citizenship is effective in life satisfaction. They provide us with an evidence that it is possible to develop life satisfaction through improving organizational citizenship. Statistical population consists of all tenure employees who were employed in the academic year 2009-2010. The research method is one of descriptive-correlative. The statistical sample includes 99 employees (46 women & 53 men) who were selected by random cluster sampling method. Research instruments consist of two questionnaires (Poodsakoffs's organizational citizenship behavior questionnaire and Diener's life satisfaction questionnaire). The instrument's reliability was calculated through Alpha cronbach coefficient (0/85 and 0.79, respectively). The collected data was analyzed through descriptive (frequency, percentage, average) and inferential (regression analysis, t-test, ANOVA) statistics.Discussion of Results & The results of the study show that there is a significant relationship between organizational citizenship and life satisfaction among research subjects. In fact, the multiple dimensions of organizational citizenship (conscientiousness, sportsmanship, sacrifice, and humanism) can predict the life satisfaction of employees. However, there is not a significant difference with regard to demographic characteristics and research variables In general, some researchers have argued that the overall ratings of employee's performance correspond to an employee’s overall value to an organization. This argument suggests that the weight that managers attach, when forming evaluations, to dimensions of organizational citizenship (conscientiousness, sportsmanship, sacrifice, and humanism) corresponds to the impact that these behaviors have on life satisfaction.Organizations should constantly pay attention to organizational citizenship and its multiple dimensions. Higher levels of organizational citizenship will result in better life satisfaction of employees and rates of social disorders begin to reduce. In fact, organizational citizenship is one of the main components of any successful organization. As a component of any basic health system in an effective organization, organizational citizenship paves the way for life-long learning among employees and enhance employee's life satisfaction.We suggest that managers apply effective approaches in organizational citizenship in order to mobilize employees according to organizational goals. It is necessary that they consider improvising organizational citizenship and take personal and organizational factors together. Considering the importance of organizational citizenship in increasing employee's life satisfaction, it is recommended that managers take this issue seriously and move towards a high level of efficiency and effectiveness.