A survey on the role of mediating and moderating variables that can influence employee’s organizational citizenship behaviors of urban public service providers

The highest goal of urban development and management is to improve the quality of life and happiness of citizens. Improving the quality of life of citizens plays a variety of roles, among which the role of the municipality will be more prominent, because municipalities can provide a beautiful and pleasant view of the urban environment and landscape for the residents of the complex by providing facilities and infrastructure services in cities. In municipalities, as organizations providing public services to citizens, manpower is the most important asset of the organization and to the extent that this capital has a better quality, the chances of success, survival and promotion of the organization will increase. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the role of mediating and moderating variables that can influence organizational citizenship behaviors(OCB) of urban public service provider employees. Specifically, this study examined the effect of psychological contract fulfillment on OCB with regard to the mediating role of perceived organizational(POS) support and moderating role of job embeddedness in Tehran municipality employees (case study employees of district 6). Accordingly, this research is based on the theory of social exchange on the role of the realization of psychological contract, perceived organizational support and job cohesion in promoting OCB and tries to examine the relationship between these variables in the form of a conceptual model. This research can be considered as having the necessary innovations both from a theoretical and practical point of view. Theoretically, the relationships between research variables in previous research have received less attention, and studies of the psychological contract have focused mainly on violations and their consequences in a career relationship (Ryton and Yalabik, 2014). However, the realization of this contract and its effects on employees' attitudes and behaviors have received less attention (Rayton et al., 2015). From a practical point of view, this article can have significant executive and managerial functions.

A non-experimental, quantitative design was used in a random sample of 291 employees of Tehran municipality district 6. To measure the realization of the psychological contract Robinson's scale (1996) and in order to measure POS, OCB, and job embeddedness, Afsar & Badir scale (2016) was used. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression. To measure reliability and to estimate the internal consistency between questions and components, Cronbach's alpha coefficient calculation method was used in a pre-test. The scores obtained for the realization of the psychological contract, 0.78; perceived organizational support, 0.77; OCB, 0.73 and job embeddedness, 0.75 were obtained, all of which were calculated above 0.7, and this indicates acceptable reliability was a measure of this research.

The results of this study confirmed that the realization of the psychological contract has a positive effect on employee’s OCBs. In this regard, it is argued that greater adherence of managers to psychological contracting promotes OCB in employees. Since organizational citizenship behavior is a form of social exchange between the employees and organization, it will be enhanced by providing the necessary incentives. Thus, employees' perceptions of the fairness of employment relationships lead to improving their organizational citizenship behaviors. When employees feel that the organization has done more for them than it has promised them, they are more likely to participate in activities that benefit the organization.Research findings was also confirmed the second hypothesis, which tested the realization of the psychological contract on perceived organizational support. In other words, the implementation of such psychological contracts leads employees to consider the organization as their sponsor and support according to the theory of social exchange. In fact, part of the perceived organizational support is achieved when the employee feels that the majority organization has fulfilled its contractual requirements and that the integrity of the psychological contract generally prevails in healthy working relationships.Perceived organizational support also has a positive effect on organizational citizenship behavior. In this context, it can be said that if the managers of the organization create the feeling in the employees that the organization values them and their future work, it can lead to the formation of a positive attitude in the employees towards the organization. As a result, it promotes a sense of altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy, and civic virtue, and creates a sense of respect and esteem between employees and the organization, which ultimately leads to the promotion of organizational citizenship behaviors.Indeed, further findings revealed that Perceived organizational support also mediates the relationship between psychological contract fulfillment and organizational citizenship behavior. Therefore, it can be argued that with increasing level of implementation and realization of psychological contract, organizational citizenship behavior in the organization is improved and subsequently perceived organizational support leads to positive consequences in the workplace, the most important of which is organizational citizenship behavior. finally, the results of the study showed that job embeddedness has a positive moderating role on the relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behavior. Job entanglement consists of the underlying and perceptual forces that bind employees to co-workers, job positions, and occupational issues and accordingly, it can multiply the effects of variables such as organizational support and citizenship behavior.

Given the important role of the municipality in providing services to citizens and providing their welfare, the results of such research can be very useful. According to research limitations and future research directions, in this study, questions related to the independent and dependent variables were answered by one person and this can increase the possibility of bias. Especially in the case of variable organizational citizenship behavior that was answered by the employees themselves. One of the most important limitations of research is the use of questionnaire instrument. Since questionnaires often measure employee's perceptions, it is possible that these perceptions do not correspond to reality and that care must be taken to generalize them. Indeed, the participants of this study were the employees of Tehran Municipality District 6. Differences in the environment of different organizations and geographical locations at different times make the results more accurate and require more caution in their use in other organizations and communities.