Research Proposal:

A Study of the Relationship between Organisational Citizenship Behaviours,

Psychology Contract and Organisational Justice: Focusing on the Chinese
Workers

[Note: This proposal has been reproduced in anonymised from with full permission
from the student. It is reproduced using single line spacing to save paper].

Name: ????
Student Number: ????
Date of submission: dd mmm yyyy
Word account: 2122 excluding references

Contents

1 Research Background 1
2 Research aim and objectives 1
3 Literature review 2
3.1 Organisational citizenship behaviours 2
3.2 Psychological contract 3
3.3 Organisational justice 4
4 Methodology 5
4.1 Questionnaire survey 5
4.2 Sample selection and data collection 5
4.3 Research ethics 6
4.4 Data analysis 6
5 Timetable 6
6 Conclusions 7
7 References 7
1 Research Background

Fuelled by increasing globalization and international competition, many enterprises

have realised the importance of recruiting, retaining, and managing human resources,
which contribute to increasing competitiveness of organisations and gaining
sustainable competitive advantages (Nadiri & Tanova, 2010). Recently, many scholars
and practitioners devote multiple efforts to organisational citizenship behaviours. The
reason is that organisational citizenship behaviours contribute to improving
organisational performance by maximizing their job efficiency and productivity (Organ,
1988; Wagner & Rush, 2000). Jahangir et al. (2004) assert that “successful
organisations have employees who go beyond their formal job responsibilities and
freely give their time and energy to succeed at the assigned job” (p.75). From these
perspectives, organisational citizenship behaviours act as an essential role in
strengthening organisational effectiveness. Given its importance, this study aims to
examine organisational citizenship behaviours of Chinese workers in order to improve
research generalizability.

Either in academic study or in practice, organisational citizenship behaviours have

gained much attention. Hence, many scholars examine and explore the definition,
structure, antecedents and consequences of organisational citizenship behaviours.
Among all antecedents, organisational justice and psychological contract have
received much attention in the field of organisational psychology and organisational
behaviours. The existing studies have illustrated that organisational justice and
psychological contract are positively related to organisational citizenship behaviours
(Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001; Turnley et al., 2003). Through surveying samples
from United Kingdom, mainland China, France and the United States, Fok et al. (1996)
also found that employees with different cultural background had different perception
of fairness and organisational citizenship behaviours. Concerning for the difference of
culture, it is necessary to examine organisational citizenship behaviours and its
antecedents in the Chinese cultural background. At the same time, Hui et al. (2004)
point out that employment relationship is different due to different psychological,
social, and interpersonal mechanism. Furthermore, the existing studies associated
with organisational justice, psychological contract, and organisational citizenship
behaviours are rooted in western cultural background. Whether they work or not in the
Chinese cultural background has not been known. Therefore, in order to improve
research generalisability, this study attempts to identify the effect of organisational
justice and psychological contract on organisational citizenship behaviours focusing
on the Chinese workers.

This proposal is arranged as follows: section two provides research aim and
objectives. As such, section three reviews literatures associated with organisational
justice, psychological contract, and organisational citizenship behaviours. Section four
presents data collection methods. Section five provides timetable. This proposal ends
with conclusions.

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2 Research aim and objectives

The aim of this research is to examine and understand the relationship between
organisational justice, psychological contract, and organisational citizenship
behaviours.

To address research aim, the specific research objectives are presented as follows:

(1)To examine the relationship between organisational justice and psychological

contract focusing on the Chinese workers;
(2)To examine how organisational justice affects organisational citizenship behaviours
focusing on the Chinese workers;
(3)To examine how psychological contract affects organisational citizenship
behaviours focusing on the Chinese workers.

3 Literature review

3.1 Organisational citizenship behaviours

The term organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) was introduced by Organ (1977).
In 1988, Organ defined it as ‘‘discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the
formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of
the organisation’’ (Organ, 1988). Subsequently, Organ (1995) redefined OCB as
‘‘performance that supports the social and psychological environment in which task
performance takes place” (p. 95). In terms of this definition, OCB is a part of job
performance. The definition of Organ (1995) has gained considerable attention from
scholars. According to Bolino et al. (2002), OCB is defined as “the willingness of
employees to exceed their formal job requirements in order to help each other, to
subordinate their individual interests for the good of the organisation, and to take a
genuine interest in the organisation’s activities and overall mission”. This definition
has gained the support of Appelbaum et al. (2004), who defined it as “a discretionary
behaviour that is not part of an employee’s formal job requirement, but - is that which
promotes the effective functioning of the organisation”. Based on their definitions, it
can be known that OCB is an extra-role bahviour of promoting performance. In this
study, the definition of Appelbaum et al. (2004) is used to understand organisational
citizenship behaviours of Chinese workers.

Concerning for the structure of OCB, there are different perspectives due to different
research background and cultural background. In general, the structure of OCB is
generalized into two dimensions, three dimensions, four dimensions, five dimensions,
and seven dimensions, which I have summarised and presented in table 1.

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Table 1 structure of organisational citizenship behaviours

Reference Contents
Two dimensions
Smith et al. (1983) altruism and generalised compliance
Three dimensions
Coleman and Borman (2000) interpersonal citizenship, organisational citizenship, and job/task
citizenship
Four dimensions
Graham et al. (1989) organisational obedience, interpersonal helping, organisational
loyalty, and organisational participation
Five dimensions
Organ (1988) altruism, conscientiousness, courtesy, civic virtue, and
sportsmanship
Farh, Early and Lin (1997) identification with the company, altruism toward colleagues,
conscientiousness, interpersonal harmony, protecting company
resources
Seven dimensions
Podsakoff and Mackenzie Helping behaviour, sportsmanship, organisational loyalty,
(2000) organisational compliance, individual initiative, civic virtue, and self
development

According to Table 1, different scholars present different perspectives. Among these

dimensions, the perspective of Organ (1988) has gained considerable attention from
scholars. Because of this, different scholars with different cultural background
construct different structures of OCB. At the same time, the Chinese scholars Farh et
al. (1997) also build five-dimensional structure of OCB. In order to reduce the effect of
cultural difference, this study employs the structure of Farh et al. (1997) to measure
organisational citizenship behaviours.

3.2 Psychological contract

The study of psychological contract was originated from Argyris (1960). Psychological
contract is used to understand employment relationship between employees and
employers. Employment relationship is reciprocity in terms of social exchange theory
(Rousseau, 1990). Given its importance, many scholars define and study what is
meant by psychological contract. For example, psychological contract is defined by
Rousseau (1989) as “individual’s belief in the terms and conditions of a reciprocal
exchange agreement between the focal person and another group” (p.123). In 1995,
Rousseau redefined it as “individual beliefs, shaped by the organisation, regarding
terms of an exchange agreement between individuals and their organisation” (p. 9).
This definition of psychological contract has been widely accepted by many scholars.
In this study, the definition of Rousseau (1995) is used to understand Chinese
workers’ psychological contract.

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As for the structure of psychological contract, there are different perspectives. The
earliest structure of psychological contract includes transactional and relational
dimension (Rousseau, 1990), which has gained wide application in academic study. In
here, transaction contract refers to “a set of short-term economically focused attitudes
involving limited involvement between the parties” (Raja et al., 2004). And relational
contract refers to sustain relationship with organisations depending on emotional
involvement or financial benefits (Robinson et al., 1994). Subsequently, in 1995,
Rousseau (1995) reconstructed four dimensions of psychological contract, namely
transactional, relationship, balanced, and transitional contract. Furthermore, the
Chinese scholars Hui et al. (2004) develop dimensions of psychological contract of
Chinese workers, namely balanced, relational, and transactional contracts. Therefore,
in order to reduce cultural difference, this study employs the dimension of Hui et al.
(2004) to measure psychological contract of Chinese workers.

3.3 Organisational justice

Justice in organisations has gained considerable attention from scholars and

practitioners. The reason is that organisational justice significantly affects attitudes
and behaviours of employees (Cropanzano et al., 2001). Because of this, many
scholars explore and study organisational justice in different contexts. The
organisational justice is defined by Folger and Cropanzano (1998) as ‘‘the conditions
of employment that lead individuals to believe they are being treated fairly or unfairly
by their organisation’’. According to this definition, organisational justice refers to
employees’ perception towards organisation, especially for pay and promotion. In this
study, the above definition is used to understand organisational justice of Chinese
workers.

In terms of understanding organisational justice, different scholars provide different

types. The earliest study on organisational justice shows that it has two primary
dimensions, namely distributive and procedure justice (Greenberg, 1990). In here,
distributive justice refers to “feelings of fairness surrounding the allocation of
organisational resources, including pay, bonuses, terminations, or any other
resources that an organisation can provide to employees” (Deutsch, 1975).
Procedural justice refers to “feelings of fairness regarding the procedures associated
with determining promotions, terminations, performance ratings, bonuses, or anything
else of value that the organisation provides” (Thibaut & Walker, 1975, cited in Roch &
Shanock, 2006). In addition, some scholars provide three-dimensional structure of
organisational justice, namely distributive justice, interactional justice, and procedural
justice (e.g. Bies & Moag, 1986). They define interactional justice as “feelings of
fairness concerning for how employees are treated within the organisation”. This
three-dimensional structure has gained considerable application in the academic
study. Furthermore, Colquitt (2001) provides four-dimensional structure, namely
distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice. From these
perspectives, there has not consistent findings about the structure of organisational

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justice. In order to better identify the structure of organisational justice, the scale of
Colquitt (2001) is used in this study.

4 Methodology

In terms of research objectives, among research strategies presented by Yin (1994),

survey is applied in this study, aiming to understand respondents’ actual attitudes,
perspectives, and behaviours. In this study, primary data collection methods are
employed in order to gain actual information of Chinese workers.

4.1 Questionnaire survey

In this study, questionnaire survey aims to identify Chinese workers’ actual

perspectives and attitudes towards organisational justice, psychological contract and
organisational citizenship behaviours. The process of conducting questionnaire
survey is presented as follows:

The first step is to design questionnaires of this study. The questionnaire includes four
sections. More specifically, section one is used to establish the samples’
characteristics, which includes a series of indicators, such as gender, age, marriage,
and tenure. Correspondingly, section two is used to measure organisational
citizenship behaviours. In this section, the scale of Hui et al. (1999) is used, which
includes 15 items. Section three is used to measure psychological contract which also
employs the scale of Hui et al. (2004). Furthermore, section four is used to measure
organisational justice which uses the scale of Colquitt (2001). A five point Likert type
scale used to assess Chinese workers’ identification degree with each indicator
(1=strongly disagree; 5=strongly agree).

The questionnaire will be pilot tested with 10 employees from the company and
amendments made as necessary.

4.2 Sample selection and data collection

The second step is used to send collection questionnaires. In this study a systematic
random sample of employees will be selected from the human resource records of
the ????? Company in China which employs 750 people. These records are stored in
salary order by department. In order to ensure 95% confidence and a margin of
error of 5% I require 254 responses (Saunders et al., 2009). Assuming a response
rate of 52.7% (Baruch and Holtom, 2008), this means I will have to administer my
questionnaire to 482 employees using SurveyMonkey using work emails. The
questionnaire will be administered in Chinese. I have gained the company’s
agreement by contacting with human resource department manager. Assurances
have been given that all respondents’ information is confidential and anonymous.

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 4.3 Research Ethics

Permission has been given in writing by the company to undertake this research. I
have agreed that the data will be anonymised and it will not be possible to identify
individuals. In addition, the company name will not appear anywhere within the
dissertation, thereby preserving anonymity.

Individual respondents will be told in the questionnaire covering letter that their
participation is optional.

4.4 Data analysis

The final step is to do data analysis. In terms of the received data, some statistic
analysis techniques are used to analyse the received data, such as descriptive
statistic analysis, confirmation factor analysis, correlation analysis and regression
analysis. All of these operations will be achieved by using SPSS software.

5 Timetable

The timetable of this dissertation is presented below:

Table 2 Timetable of this Dissertation

March April April May May June June July July Aug.
Task Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week
3,4 1,2 3,4 1,2 3,4 1,2 3,4 1.2 3,4 1,2
Select topic
Confirm research
questions
Research proposal

Questionnaire
survey
Data entry and
analysis
Introduction and
literature review
Methodology
Findings and
discussions
Conclusions and
Recommendations
Final format and
indexing
Print, bind submit

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Key dates within this are:
Submission of dissertation: dd mmm yyyy

I confirm I have the resources to pay for the SurveyMonkey software subscription.
There are no associated travel costs.

6 Conclusions

This proposal provides a framework for the writing of this dissertation. In general,
research background, literature review, research objectives, methodology and
timetable have been provided in this proposal, aiming to better conduct the writing of
this dissertation.

7 References

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Girard, C., Serroni, C. (2004). Organizational citizenship behavior: A case study of
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Argyris, C. (1960). Understanding organisational behaviour. London: Tavistock

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