Background of Study
The economist predicted there is one-third of real estate agencies will lose their job or need to change to other industries in 2016. Compare to 2006 each real estate agency could sell 21.26 houses per year, in 2015 each estate agency only could sell 6.02 houses, which means many agents may not get the appropriate financial reward in almost 6 months. The financial award comes from the 5% of the total estate price.
Real estate agents who have bad performance or others who need to find new jobs are worried about their future. In this difficult time, if employees are able to stand by their team members and think positively, it will be easier for both team and team members to get through this economic downturn. Psychologists suggest that the employees who have more positive emotions have more ability to endure the difficulties and have more ability to bounce back when facing frustrations than the employees who have more negative emotions. (Luthans, Youssef & Avolio, 2007b) Therefore, in this research the researcher uses the concept of positive psychology in the work team to examine how to create the positive and supportive environment in the real estate industry. Through discussing positive psychology, the researcher intends to familiarize organizations and employee’s ways to make the workplace a more positive one and to make employees stay hopeful during the difficult period.
Psychological Capital (PsCap) helps individuals sustain their effort and perseverance within the context of the workplace. Many research results already showed that individuals with a high level of PsyCap tends to have more desirable behaviors such as organizational citizenship behavior. (Luthans, 2002; Lyubomirsky &
King, 2005).
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Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has been defined as those behaviors that “are not part of the employee’s formal requirements, but nevertheless, promote the effective functioning of the organization” (Organ, 1998, p, 4). The value of OCB is that it is extra-behaviors that cannot be expected and required by organizations’ formal regulation and job description, but it affects organizations’ performance (Organ, 1988;
Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine & Bachrach, 2000; Smith, Organ & Near, 1983).
Organizational citizenship behavior is especially important to the real estate industry for team members to share their information and support their teammates when they have poor performance and to defend the team against competitors and difficulties.
Teamwork is a very common and important work style in real estate industry. In the real estate working process, team members share their new client information to the teammates and try to sell the house to a client together. The advantages of teamwork in real estate agencies are that they have a bigger market and that they can develop the new clients together. Members of the same team also help and encourage other team members when they have poor performance and encourage other team members don’t give up in this tough period. In this study, the researcher explored team identification and team cohesion to examine how to create the positive workplace and examine the factors that contribute to supporting in the work environment. Team identification and team cohesion have been identified as important antecedents to stimulate desirable behaviors because teamwork creates strong emotional connections and loyalty to the team that can influence members to feel we-ness and willing to stay in the team to help each other to finish the same goal and go through the challenges (Kidwell &
Mossholder, 1997).
Therefore, in this study the researcher explores teamwork, specifically team cohesion and team identification, as moderators. This research examines how teamwork
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can strengthen the influence of PsyCap on organizational citizenship behaviors both in individual level and team level so that organizations understand the effect of team identification and cohesion to create a strong connection between team members that is conducive to producing more organizational citizenship behaviors from employees with higher psychological capital.
Objective of Study
As the research about organizational citizenship behaviors is blooming, many concepts have been found to predict OCB. Psychological capital has also been investigated as an important variable which relates to organizational citizenship behaviors. However, although organizational citizenship behaviors have been studied widely in organizations, very limited studies so far have considered teamwork as a moderator between psychological capital and organizational citizenship behaviors.
People are creatures of the society. Good interaction in the group may enhance positive emotion and altruistic behaviors in team members. Therefore, this study helps in having a better insight of influential moderators including team identification and team cohesion between psychological capital and organizational citizenship behaviors which have not yet been explored in extant research, according to the researcher’s knowledge from a review of the literature.
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Research Questions
Drawing from the objectives stated for this study, the following questions are put forward for further investigation:
1. Will Psychological Capital have an effect on Organizational Citizenship Behavior?
2. Does a moderator effect of Team Identification exist on the relationship between Psychological Capital and Organizational Citizenship Behavior?
3. Does a moderator effect of Team Cohesion exist on the relationship between Psychological Capital and Organizational Citizenship Behavior?
Scope of Study
A limitation of this study is that the researcher only focuses on psychological capital related to OCB, and team identification and cohesion as moderators. Some other important variables not mentioned in this research may also influence OCB. The purpose of the study is to study organizational citizenship behavior at real estate agencies in the Taiwan context; the sample is constituted of real estate agents who have or had teamwork experience in organizations in Taiwan. This study only focused on OCB of the participants as the outcome variable, not the other behaviors in organizations. Due to the size of the sample, the research result may not represent the whole country or the entire industry.
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Definition of Terms
Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCB) is individual behavior that is not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system and supports the social and psychological environment in which task performance take place (Organ 1997;
1998).
Psychological Capital
Psychological Capital (PsyCap) is an individual’s positive psychological state of circumstances and probability for success based on motivated effort and perseverance.
It consists of the four positive psychological recourses of hope, efficacy, optimism and resilience (Luthans, Avolio, Avey & Norman, 2007a).
Team Identification
Team identification can be defined as the process by which team members perceive themselves in terms of the values, goals, interests, norms and sense of emotion they share with other team members (Janssen & Huang, 2008).
Team Cohesion
Team cohesion can be defined as group members depersonalize their feelings, perceptions, and behaviors towards the group. Therefore, high degrees of loyalty group members are willing to stay in the group (Lin & Peng, 2010).
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