The moderating effect of gender on the relationship between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior in Pakistani university teachers.

Abstract This study aimed to investigate the relationship of organizational commitment with organizational citizenship behaviors of university teachers. The current study also examined the moderation of gender on the association of organizational citizenship behavior with organizational commitment Though earlier investigations have observed demographic variables as precursors of organizational citizenship behavior, very few studies have observed the moderation of gender on the association among organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior. This study will fill the gap in the literature by delivering more insight. From a sample of (N = 250) university teachers including male (n = 126) and female (n = 124) teachers from the universities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Attock, and Wah Cantt data were gathered. The revised form of organizational citizenship behavior scale was utilized to measure organizational citizenship behavior. The organizational commitment questionnaire was utilized to measure organizational commitment among teachers. The results indicated that organizational commitment positively and significantly predicted organizational citizenship behavior. The moderation analysis revealed that at a high level of organizational commitment, female teachers showed a high level of organizational citizenship behavior than male teachers. Regarding gender differences, female teachers scored significantly higher on both organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior than male teachers.

The moderating effect of gender on the relationship between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior in Pakistani university teachers. Noman Aftab 1 , Syed Asghar Ali Shah 2 and Zeba Khan 3 * Abstract: This study aimed to investigate the relationship of organizational commitment with organizational citizenship behaviors of university teachers. The current study also examined the moderation of gender on the association of organizational citizenship behavior with organizational commitment Though earlier investigations have observed demographic variables as precursors of organizational citizenship behavior, very few studies have observed the moderation of gender on the association among organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior. This study will fill the gap in the literature by delivering more insight. From a sample of (N = 250) university teachers including male (n = 126) and female (n = 124) teachers from the universities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Attock, and Wah Cantt data were gathered. The revised form of organizational citizenship behavior scale was utilized to measure organizational citizenship behavior. The organizational commitment questionnaire was utilized to measure organizational commitment among teachers. The results indicated that organizational commitment ABOUT THE AUTHOR Zeba Khan was a student of social sciences at Pamir University. She has an interest in organizational/industrial psychology and developmental psychology. In the future, she had a plan to do a PhD in psychology. All authors of this paper have collaborated in a research group.

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
The current investigation has investigated the impact of organizational commitment on organizational citizenship behavior. It also examined the moderating effect of gender on the association of organizational citizenship behavior with organizational commitment among Pakistani university teachers. Perhaps the practically most significant and unique contribution of current research is the investigation of the moderating role of gender on the association of organizational commitment with OCB. Moderation of gender in the OCBorganizational commitment relationship is an important contribution to organizational literature. Firstly, a positive appraisal reaction in the form of organizational area OCBs directly relates to organizational commitment. Secondly, a positive association between OCB and organizational commitment exists for teachers and a stronger association is there for female teachers than male. The conclusion shows that female teachers are relatively essential for organizational commitment to positively impact organizational citizenship behavior.

Introduction
The teachers are individuals who are playing the most significant role in the education system and are nurturing the effectiveness and proficiency of educational organizations. So, such kind of studies should be conducted which can examine the attitudes of teachers towards the organization with the purpose of improving their performances. A teacher whose only focus is on teaching only in a particular subject is not performing the role of a "true" educator. Education encompasses transmitting values, norms, and citizenship behavior, and appropriate social behavior (Campbell, 2003). Such behaviors are originated in the classroom as well as outside the classroom. As quoted by Henry, "A teacher affects eternity; he or she can never tell where his or her influence stops." Every successful organization including universities has a workforce who can go beyond the prescribed responsibilities of their job and generously provide their energy and time for success.
The idea of organizational citizenship behavior has been widely utilized in the literature concerning organization and management in 1980s. Bateman and Organ (1983) first presented the notion of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in their study. As stated by Organ (1988), OCB can be defined as an individual working more than their responsibilities beyond their job descriptions and standards set by the organizations and making an extra volunteer work in this regard (the effort which had not been defined and included in the organization's official reward system). Podsakoff et al. (2009) defined that OCB is very imperative in inspiring the individual's performances in the organizations. Furthermore, OCB has also been stated by Peelle (2007), as the behavior of an individual which plays a major role in the prolificacy and efficiency of an organization. Three main aspects of OCB had been highlighted by Somech and Drach-Zahavy (2004): OCB contributes to the organization; OCB is voluntarily based and is multidimensional in structure. OCB is that a person does more beside her/his duties (Greenberg & Ve Baron, 2000) and puts more struggle on the organization's behalf (Yılmaz & Çokluk-Bokeoglu, 2008). Ideas such as organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior have been stated in the organizational literature as important variables in enhancing the performances of such individuals which will eventually benefit the organization. Moreover, it appears rational to accept that some OCB correlates established in organizations might also be pertinent in university settings. Bragger et al. (2005) in their study of teachers described that concepts linked to OCB were job satisfaction, workfamily conflict, and organizational commitment.
The commitment towards organization has been the focus of studies for more than three decades examining the behaviors, relations, and employees' performances at a job (Fisher et al., 2010;Sezgin, 2009). As stated by J. Meyer and Allen (1997), commitment towards an organization is a psychological state envisaging an association of employee with his/her organization and diminishes the likelihood of separation from their organization (Rego & E Cunha, 2008). The organization's success is contingent progressively on two dynamic terms: job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Westover et al., 2010). From one viewpoint, at the workplace rewards are the determining factor of organizational commitment (Ashman, 2007). Extensive studies have been made on organizational commitment in terms of antecedents, elements, associations, and consequences (Elele & Fields, 2010). As stated by J. P. Meyer and Allen (1991), organizational commitment comprises of affective commitment, normative commitment, and continuous commitment (Falkenburg & Schyns, 2007). The affective commitment displays how much an individual is affiliated with the organization. The normative commitment shows up to which degree an individual considers himself to be committed to the organization and might be inclined by social norms. The continuous commitment label the needs of a person to remain in the organization based on perceived expenses related to turnover. These three aspects propose that the employee stays in their organization since they require affective commitment. J. P. Meyer and Allen (1991) claimed that aspects of commitment can be examined all together in different degrees (Elele & Fields, 2010).
The key point of the current research is that teachers' organizational commitment shapes organizational citizenship behavior. Teacher's organizational commitment is the aspect of having a relationship with organizational citizenship behaviors. Those teachers who had developed organizational commitment have been anticipated to display more OCBs (Aydoğan, 2010). Salehi and Gholtash (2011) in their study revealed that variables of organizational commitment and job satisfaction had a positive effect on the OCB. Another study by Gautam et al. (2005) on organizational commitment and OCB had revealed that there was a substantial positive relationship between organizational commitment and OCB. Haigh and Pfau (2006), in their investigation, showed that organizational commitment, OCBs, and organizational identity might have been strengthened by internal communication (Haigh & Pfau, 2006). In their investigation, Lavelle et al. (2009), found a positive association between organizational commitment and OCB.
The gender differences among employees have been deliberated by examining the attitude, behavior, and outcomes during the last 10 years. From the organizational literature, it has been found that there is a persistence of differences related to gender (Yadav & Rangnekar, 2015). A strong agreement has been developed that differences in gender prevail regarding several employees' perceptions related to the job (Moncrief et al., 2000: Piercy et al., 2001. There is an impact of gender on the techniques in which individuals of every gender are likely to act and the ways in which interpretation of their behavior is made (Cooper & Lewis, 1995;Williams & Best, 1982). Considering as an individual feature, gender might impact an individual's apprehension of the place of work and their attitudinal reactions towards others inside an organization (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990). Additionally, gender might have an influence on whether employees are associated with their colleagues offering different types of information, opportunities, and social support (Scandura & Lankau, 1997).
The expectations of employees based on gender regarding behavior frequently make themselves apparent at a job (Eagly et al., 1995). Research has shown that females are labeled as kind, relationship-oriented, and sociable, whereas males are labeled as competent, achievementoriented, and independent (Langford & MacKinon, 2000). Eagly and Crowley (1986) had postulated that "women are expected to take care of the personal and emotional needs of others, to deliver routine forms of personal service, and, more generally, to facilitate the struggle of others toward their goals." Farrell and Finkelstein (2007) and Allen and Rush (2001) in their studies found female personnel to be more involved in a variety of citizenship behaviors as compared to male personnel. Kidder and Parks (2001) recommended that gender role anticipations might assist to increase job behaviors such as OCB. It was found by Heilman and Chen (2005) that females were anticipated to involve in organizational citizenship behavior as a consistent part of their work. It has been found by Allen (2006), that the association among promotion decisions and organizational citizenship behavior was stronger for males than for females; as males were subject to lesser anticipations as compared to females to execute citizenship behaviors, they were given a reward to a better degree when they did (in the form of promotions).
The idea of "role" is of a central position in comprehending the moderating role of gender on the association among employee performance and OCB. The gender roles generate anticipations of the behaviors essential to accomplish the role of "male" and "female." In other words, individuals are anticipated to act in means that are consistent with their socially approved gender roles. Previous investigations (Deluga, 1998;Morrison, 1994; Van Dyne & Ang,) have generally described differences among females and males in terms of performing OCBs. Some studies related to organizational perspectives have observed how gender may change the association among constructs (Babin & Boles, 1998;Organ & Ryan, 1995). Concerning gender, being female or male might be considered to influence OCBs. The empirical study of Farrell and Finkelstein (2007) showed that females engage more in OCB-helping behavior as compared to men. Few investigations have shown that males and females are similar in the level of OCB (Bukhari & Ali, 2009;Chou & Pearson, 2011;Organ & Ryan, 1995). According to the researchers (Dixon et al., 2005;Kamer, 2001;Marchiori & Henkin, 2004;Singh et al., 2004), it was found that females have higher organizational commitment.
Most existing investigations has compared the amounts of constructs demonstrated by male and female employees (Babin & Boles, 1998). Some studies on organizations have observed how gender may modify the association among constructs (Babin & Boles, 1998;Organ & Ryan, 1995). According to Lovel et al. (1999), components of OCB are consistent with womanly behaviors. Women favor job attributes including prospects of working with others, kindness, and making friends (Konrad et al., 2000). It has been advocated by "Prescriptive Stereotype Theory" that females possess a high level of collective characteristics as compared to males and these variances show how men and women differ in their roles (Eagly, 1987). There are few studies showing support that females possess a higher level of OCB behaviors than males (e.g., Lovel et al., 1999;Morrison, 1994).
The current study will examine the association between organizational citizenship behaviors and organizational commitment of teachers serving in different universities contingent on their views. Organizational citizenship behavior among teachers of universities will play a contributing role to increase their efficiency as well as of the management, the resources will be used more commendably. It will also assist the coordination of the working groups, institutional commitment, the capability of the organization to retain and attract the most efficient employees, endurance of the performance of the organization, and to equip the organization to adapt to the environmental changes (Cohen & Vigoda, 2000) Figure 1.

Outcome
Organizational citizenship behavior Gender (Moderator) Figure 1. Conceptual framework of the present study.

Research hypotheses
On the basis of the literature reviewed, hypotheses formulated are as follows: Hypothesis 1: Organizational citizenship behavior will be positively predicted by organizational commitment among teachers.
Hypothesis 2: Female teachers will show more organizational commitment than male teachers.
Hypothesis 3: Female teachers will exhibit more organizational citizenship behavior as compared to male teachers.
Hypothesis 4: Gender will moderate the association of organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior among university teachers.

Participants and procedure
The data was collected from the sample of teachers (N = 250) of the university which was comprised of female (n = 124) and male (n = 126) teachers. Five universities in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Attock, and Wah Cantt were approached. Participants' age ranged from 25 to 50 years. Masters, MS/MPhil, and Ph.D. were the qualification of the teachers. The participants' designations were associate professors, assistant professors, lecturers, and research associates/ demonstrators. An experience of a minimum of one year was the inclusion criteria of participation in this study. The study involved a survey.
The data were collected from the teachers by visiting them at their university. Informed consent was obtained from the teachers. Teachers were assured that the information given by them will be retained as confidential and will be utilized for the purpose of research only. Study instruments were distributed and after filling participants were collected by hand and they were acknowledged for their participation in the research. For moderation, process by Hayes (2013) was used to compute moderation analysis in IBM SPSS 23.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale (OCBS)
The revised form of 13 item scale (Williams & Anderson, 1991) of OCB (Somech & Drach-Zahavy, 2004) was utilized for measuring OCB (M = 50.49). The responses to the items were along a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1). Reliability was.70 for the present study. This scale included items like "Helps others who have been absent." A high score on the OCB scale meant that there is high organizational citizenship/organizational commitment.

Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ)
In this study organizational commitment questionnaire consisting of 9-item designed by Mowday et al., (1982) and colleagues were utilized (M = 36.56). The responses to each question in the scale were along a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1). α reliably for the current study was .86.

Gender
Gender was measured through the demographic sheet. This scale included items like "I talk up this organization to my friends as a great organization to work for." A high score on the organizational commitment scale meant that there is high organizational commitment.

Results
Tables 1 and 2 shows that the reliability of the organizational commitment questionnaire and organizational citizenship behavior scale is at a satisfactory level. The correlation between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior is although weak but is significant.   Table 3 shows that organizational commitment is significantly and positively predicting organizational citizenship behavior (β = .16, p <.05). It shows that organizational commitment adds 16% more variance in predicting organizational citizenship behavior. Gender is not predicting organizational citizenship behavior significantly. OCB = organizational citizenship behavior, OC = organizational commitment Table 4 shows that females (M = 51.3, SD = 5.42) scored significantly higher than males (M = 49.69, SD = 5.21, t (248) = 2.21, p = .019) on organizational citizenship behavior. Table 4 also shows that females (M = 38.14, SD = 5.28) scored significantly higher than males (M = 35.01, SD = 6.11, t (248) = , p = .000) on organizational citizenship behavior. Table 5 indicates that gender is moderating the association of organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (B =.34, p <.05, ∆R 2 =.034). Gender adds 3.4% extra variance in the association of organizational commitment with organizational citizenship behavior. Table 6 shows that the positive association between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior is stronger and significant (steeper and significant slope) for female teachers (B =.315, p <.001), and for male teachers this effect is nonsignificant. Figure 2 shows the moderating effect of gender on the relationship of organizational commitment with organizational citizenship behavior. The moderation graph reveals that there is a significant positive relationship between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior for females, but no relationship between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior for males. The positive association among organizational domains of organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior for teachers is stronger (steeper and significant slope) for female teachers as compared to male teachers. This conclusion might show that comparatively female teachers are essential for a relationship between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior.

Discussion
The current study has observed the relationship of organizational commitment with organizational citizenship behavior. The current study also examined the moderating effect of gender on the association of organizational citizenship behavior with organizational commitment among the teachers of higher learning institutions (universities). Perhaps the practically most significant and unique contribution of the present research is the investigation of the moderating role of gender on the association of organizational commitment with OCB. The moderation of gender in the OCBorganizational commitment relationship is the important contribution of the present study for organizational literature. Firstly, a positive appraisal reaction in the form of organizational area OCBs directly relates to organizational commitment. Secondly, a positive association between OCB and organizational commitment exists only for female teachers. This conclusion shows that female teachers are relatively essential for a positive association between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior.
Supporting Hypothesis 1, an organizational commitment was found to be a positive and significant predictor of organizational citizenship behavior (Table 3) and is lined with the study conducted by Mogotsi et al., (2011) on teachers who found a significant positive association among organizational commitment and OCB. Another study by Bakkshi et al., (2011) also supports hypothesis 1 of this study by revealing that there was a significant positive association between organizational commitment and OCB. This substantial association between organizational commitment and OCB of teachers and enhancing emotional commitment in teachers makes a greater influence on citizenship behaviors. This improves citizenship behavior that usually improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the activities within the organizations. So, the managers have to make attempts to make congruence among values of the organizations and their employees and they should be in consistent with each other in a manner that employees will be able to make themselves liable for the success of their organization and will enhance the organization's performance by playing their role in performing citizenship behaviors.
Supporting Hypothesis 2, female teachers showed more organizational commitment than male teachers and has been verified by the results (Table 4). This finding is consistent with the results of the investigations by Guarino et al. (2006) and Shukla and Waris (2016). This finding is also in line with the study of Shekhar and Kumar (2017) which showed that females have shown more commitment as compared to their male counterparts in the profession of teaching. The reason behind this is that as far as the profession of teaching is concerned, females are more interested than males because of the reason that males considers this profession as a chance besides several other opportunities for a job.
Supporting Hypothesis 3, female teachers have exhibited more organizational citizenship behavior as compared to male teachers (Table 4). This is also in line with the results of a study by Mostafa et al. (2015), who showed that female teachers were higher on organizational citizenship behavior than male teachers. Thus, female teachers are having more propensities in helping their organization apart from their prescribed duties. These results are also in line with the results of Hafidz et al. (2012), who inferred that females exhibit more OCB. Organizational commitment and OCB is more in female teachers as additional duty to assist students because of the reason that the spirit of empathy, altruism, gregariousness, cooperation, and interpersonal orientation has been reported to be of higher level in females.
In support of Hypothesis 4, gender moderated the association of organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior among university teachers and is evident from Table 5. Figure 2 demonstrates the moderating effect of gender on the relationship of organizational commitment with organizational citizenship behavior. The moderation graph reveals that there is a significant positive relationship between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior for females, but no relationship between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior for males. The relationship of organizational commitment to organizational citizenship behavior is significant for female teachers. This conclusion might show that comparatively female teachers are essential for a positive relationship between organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior. This relationship is observed only in female teachers, which might be because of the reason that they tend to behave more ethically than males (Beu et al., 2003). In the investigation by Reis and dos (2015), gender was observed as a moderator on the relation of OCB with nonwork-related behaviors. It was found that females' behavior was more influenced by OCBs. So, we have conditions to affirm that women's behavior is more likely to be affected by OCBs. This finding shows that comparatively female teachers are essential for having a positive association between organizational commitment and OCBs in the organization.
The conclusions of the present study reveals that an increased level of organizational commitment will improve teacher's organizational citizenship behavior that will, in general, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the university. Devoted manpower is enthusiastic to stay in the organization based on the values and goals of the organization and eager to go beyond the obligatory responsibilities that might serve as a vital aspect of the success of the organization. The presence of such forces in an organization will result in increased performance and will diminish the absence of the teachers and turnover plans resulting in increasing commitment level and displays prestige of the university well in the society and will initiate more progress and development of the university. When the employees show commitment to their organizational citizenship behavior will also be increased. So, management has a vital role in creating such a culture in the organization that teachers accept the goals of the organization, participate in the management and activities of the organization, and wish to stay working in the organization, and have an innovative and creative attitude for the organization.

Practical implications
The conclusions of this study have interesting repercussions for university administration. Firstly, OCB is essential for boosting organizational commitment, creating spontaneous behaviors a domain that cannot be ignored by the administration. Furthermore, we found that gender played an important role in employees' behavior patterns. As far as female teachers are concerned, when they exhibit organizational citizenship behavior they also exhibit more commitment towards the organization in which they are serving. There is quite a lot of fascinating explanations to consider that gender might be directly related to OCB. For instance, Kidder (2002) discussed that females could be anticipated to display more helping behaviors as compared to males, as altruistic behaviors "fit" the gender role of the feminine. Over the years, researchers, for instance, Lovell et al. (1999) described that females, as compared to males, are more worried about assisting others. In contrast, males seemed to be more assertive, task-oriented, and aggressive and deemphasize the relationship aspect in the job setting (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001).

Limitations and suggestions
There are some limitations to the present study in certain aspects. Firstly, a cross-sectional survey design has been utilized which is regarded to be limited in creating causal associations among the study variables. Other issue is of social desirability due to the self-reported kind of data gathering. The influence of subjectivity can be overcome by utilizing multiple methods in the collection of data which may involve an interview. Thirdly, the nonrandom sampling also creates some limitations. In the future, variability in the sample may be increased, and also the sample size may be increased which increases the generalizability of the findings.