A multidimensional analysis of ethical climate,job satisfaction,organizational commitment,and organizational citizenship behaviors

Abstract

The high turnover of nurses has become a global problem. Several studies have proposed that nurses’ perceptions of the ethical climate of their organization are related to higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment and thus lead to higher organizational citizenship behaviors. This study uses hierarchical regression to understand which types of ethical climate, facets of job satisfaction, and the three components of organizational commitment influence different dimensions of organizational citizenship behaviors. Questionnaires were distributed to 450 nurses, and 352 usable questionnaires were returned. The findings of the article suggest that hospitals can increase organizational citizenship behaviors by influencing an organization’s ethical climate, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Hospital administrators can foster within organizations, the climate types of caring, law and code and rules climate, satisfaction with coworkers, and affective commitment and normative commitment that increase organizational citizenship behavior, while preventing organizations from developing the type of instrumental climate and continuance commitment that decreases it.

Keywords

Ethical climate job satisfaction nurses organizational citizenship behavior organizational commitment

Introduction

Nurses are the most important human resource in the medical system. Their quality and function have a profound influence on the quality of medical services. The nurses in hospitals are the first line of care takers for acute patients. They work different shifts, have a huge workload, must adapt to night life, and take the pressure of life and death on their shoulders. The nature of their work is very different from that of those who work at local clinics. Andrews and Dziegielewski,¹ using data from the Health Resources and Services Administration, concluded that a critical shortage of registered nurses (RNs) exists in the United States and that this shortage is expected to worsen. The demand for nursing services is expected to exceed supply by almost 30% in 2020. The situation in Taiwan is similar to that in the United States. According to data from the Department of Health, Taiwan, in 2010, the turnover rate of nurses was approximately 30%.² The widespread nursing shortage and high turnover among nurses have become global issues.³ While numerous factors have been linked to nurses’ turnover, job satisfaction is the most frequently cited.^4,5 Several studies indicated that individual job satisfaction is related to perceptions of aspects of the firm’s organizational climate.^6

–9 Among the prevailing organizational climates, ethical climate plays a key role in developing the context in which employees operate.¹⁰ Current research indicates that one important factor that may influence the ethical behavior of employees is the organizational ethical climate.¹¹ Deshpande¹² found that an organization could influence its employees’ job satisfaction by fostering the ethical climate. Tsai and Huang¹³ found that hospitals, too, can increase job satisfaction and organizational commitment (OC) by influencing their organization’s ethical climate.

Strong evidence exists that job satisfaction positively affects OC.^14
–16 However, the order of the causal relationship between satisfaction and commitment has not been clearly established. The prevailing view in the literature assumes satisfaction causes commitment.^17,18 Various empirical evidences support the causal precedence of satisfaction over commitment.^17

–20

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) have been researched intensively over recent years, and various factors affecting OCBs have been explored.^21
–23 Podsakoff et al.²⁴ found that attitude, such as OC, is positively correlated to OCBs in meta-analysis. Williams and Anderson²³ suggested that OC should be further explored because there is strong theoretical support for its impact on OCB performance.

On the other hand, through a literature review, this study found that research on segmented citizenship behaviors into in-role behaviors (IRBs) and extra-role behaviors is scarce. Williams and Anderson²³ suggested that a good measurement of OCBs should include items representing IRB because such an analysis could clarify whether the respondents differentiated between intra-role and extra-role behaviors. Borman and Motowidlo²⁵ and Organ²⁶ also suggested that distinction between contextual performance (like OCBs) and task (i.e. in-role) performance were both theoretically and practically important because they were probably determined by different antecedents.

Therefore, this study is conducted to examine the influence of different types of ethical climate, facets of job satisfaction, and three components of OC on IRBs and OCBs in order to help managers to identify the direction to develop an appropriate ethical climate, to reduce unethical behaviors in an organization, improve the OCBs of employees, and reduce the turnover rate of nurses.

Literature review

Ethical climate

Ethical climate is a type of organizational work climate, which is best understood as a group of prescriptive climates reflecting organizational procedures, policies, and practices with moral consequences.^27,28 Victor and Cullen²⁹ developed 36 moral climate types that were based on three criteria (egoism, benevolence, or principle) and the level of analysis (individual, local, or cosmopolitan). However, the five climate types found by Victor and Cullen in their initial work are encountered more frequently and, consequently, provide the majority of the data available for meta-analysis.²⁸ The five ethical climate types are called caring, independent, law and code, rules, and instrumental. The descriptions that follow are derived from Victor and Cullen,^29,30 Cullen et al.,²⁷ Wimbush and Shepard,³¹ and Martin and Cullen.²⁸

Caring

This climate type focuses on the benevolence ethical criterion and is based on concern for others. In this atmosphere, individuals have a sincere interest in each other’s well-being as well as in that of others within and outside the organization who might be affected by their ethical decisions.

Independent

This dimension entails the principle ethical criterion. According to this dimension of ethical climate, persons act according to their own personal moral beliefs, based upon a set of well-considered principles.

Law and code

The law and code dimension is associated with the principle ethical criterion. The climate is based on the perception dimension and requires that employees adhere to the codes and regulations of their profession or another authority.

Rules

The rules dimension is associated with the principle ethical criterion. This dimension relates to the accepted rules of conduct determined by the firm.

Instrumental

The instrumental climate involves the egoistic criterion and is primarily based on the maximization of self-interest. Individuals believe that decisions are made that serve the organization’s interests or provide personal benefits.

Job satisfaction

The idea of job satisfaction originated from the book Job Satisfaction by Hoppock.³² It refers to an individual’s emotional orientation toward his or her work. It indicates the psychological or physical satisfaction of an employee with the work environment or the work itself. Vroom³³ believed that job satisfaction is the overall feeling of an employee about his or her work rather than about what the work actually is. Smith et al.³⁴ argued that job satisfaction is the perception and emotional response of a person to their work. Locke³⁵ suggested that job satisfaction refers to the pleasant or positive emotional response that an individual perceives from his or her work or work experience. He pointed out that, instead of a group, the object of job satisfaction is individuals and is oriented to the present or past rather than the future. In addition, Price³⁶ indicated that job satisfaction is an employee’s emotional attitude toward his or her job. As a result, job satisfaction is the degree of an individual’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the internal or external aspects of his or her job.^37,38 Although the scholars do not seem to reach an agreement on job satisfaction in terms of its classification, the five facets of job satisfaction conceptualized by Smith et al.³⁴ have generally covered its content. These are as follows: (a) satisfaction with supervisors, (b) satisfaction with coworkers, (c) satisfaction with pay, (d) satisfaction with promotions, and (e) satisfaction with the work itself.

Organizational commitment

OC is commonly defined as employees’ interest in, and connection to, an organization.^39,40 Employees who are committed to their firms tend to identify with the objectives and goals of their organizations and wish to remain in their organizations.³⁹ WeiBo et al.⁴¹ reviewed the main studies of OC from Becker’s⁴² one-side-bet theory, Porter’s⁴³ affective dependence theory, O’Reilly and Chatman’s²² and Meyer and Allen’s^44,45 three-component, to today’s Cohen’s⁴⁶ two-dimensional and Somers’⁴⁷ combined theory. Although the scholars do not seem to reach an agreement on OC in terms of its classification and perspective, the three-component model of OC proposed by Meyer and Allen⁴⁵ has provided the predominant framework for OC research during the past decade.

Meyer and Allen⁴⁴ initially proposed that a distinction be made between affective commitment (AC) and continuance commitment (CC), with AC denoting an emotional attachment to, and involvement in, the organization, and CC denoting the perceived costs associated with leaving the organization. Allen and Meyer⁴⁸ later suggested a third discrete component, termed normative commitment (NC), which reflects a perceived obligation to remain in the organization.

Organizational citizenship behavior

Katz⁴⁹ pointed out that, in order to operate efficiently, an organization must possess the following three basic conditions pertaining to employees: (a) participating and staying in the organization, (b) acting according to the behavioral principles regulated by the organization, and, the most important condition, (c) automatic devotion to the organization. Bateman and Organ²¹ followed the third extra-role categorized by Katz⁴⁹ and defined it as “citizenship behavior.” Smith et al.⁵⁰ later conceptualized these contributions as “organizational citizenship behavior”, a kind of nonorganizational formal regulation and behavior that could not be assessed by a formal reward and punishment system. Organ et al.⁵¹ further explained individual behavior that is discretionary, that is not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization.

Williams and Anderson²³ divided OCBs into three dimensions (a) IRBs—the responsibilities undertaken by the employees (e.g. works full 8 hours a day, completes assigned duties on time, complies with rules and regulations); (b) OCBI—behaviors that immediately benefit specific individuals and, through these means, indirectly contribute to the organization (e.g., helps others who have been absent, takes a personal interest in other employees); and (c) OCBO—behaviors that benefit the organization in general (e.g. gives advance notice when unable to come to work, adheres to informal rules devised to maintain order).

Methodology

Sample

To conduct our survey in Taiwan, a Chinese version of the questionnaire was necessary for our subjects. A pretest of the questionnaire was performed to ensure content validity and reliability within the target context. Fifty pretest questionnaires were distributed to the participants in the training program of the Taiwan Nurses Association. In addition, five experts in the business ethics or organizational behavior areas and five RNs were invited to assess wording clarity, question-item sequence adequacy, and task relevance. Several minor modifications of the wording and the question-item sequence were made based on the comments collected from these experts.

Taiwan is a long, narrow island, and researchers typically divide it into north, middle, and south areas in sampling. There are different geographic features in these areas; for example, the north has highly prosperous industries, the middle is focused on commerce, and the south is mainly agricultural. Therefore, in order to achieve a generalization of the research results, the investigation targeted hospital nurses in the north, middle, and south areas of Taiwan. Three metropolitan hospitals were selected for each area sampled, giving a total of nine regional teaching hospitals. Fifty questionnaires were distributed to each hospital, resulting in a total possible sample of 450 nurses. Although there are around 130,000 licensed vocational nurses (LVN) in Taiwan, currently only 80,000 of them are nurse practitioners. This study distributed 450 questionnaires, which comprised about 1/200 of the nurse practitioner population. In addition, in prior studies on job satisfaction or OC among nurses, such as Joseph and Deshpande,⁵² Ruggiero,⁵³ and Chang and Chi,⁵⁴ the sample sizes are between 114 and 247. There are 352 validity questionnaires of this study, which should be representative of the effectiveness of the study.

The questionnaire packages (including an explanatory letter, a prestamped return envelope, and a ballpoint pen in appreciation of the subjects’ participation) were provided to nurses. The letter explained the purpose of the study and assured subjects of confidentiality. Approvals from the hospital ethical committee and head nurse were obtained before distributing the questionnaires. The completed questionnaires were returned in sealed envelopes to the principal investigator by mail or through nursing departments. Incomplete questionnaires that had, for example, missing values or double-checked items were excluded. The overall response rate (352 completed questionnaires) was 78%. The majority of the respondents were female (96.0%) and were staff nurses (77.3%). Most subjects (83.5%) were less than 35 years old, and most of them (75.6%) had worked more than 3 years. The predominant education level was college (53.4%), and their average wage was NT$30,000–NT$40,000. A summary of the sample characteristics is presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Sample characteristics

Variable	Demographics	Number	Valid percentage (%)
Gender	Male	14	4.0
Gender	Female	338	96.0
Age	Below 25 years old	74	21.0
	26–30 years old	159	45.2
	31–35 years old	61	17.3
	36–40 years old	39	11.1
	Above 41 years old	19	5.4
Nursing role	Staff nurse	272	77.3
	Administrator	32	9.1
	Advanced practice nurse	48	13.6
Job experience	Below 1 year	28	7.9
	1–3 years	58	16.5
	3–5 years	76	21.6
	5–10 years	125	35.5
	Above 10 years	65	18.5
Education level	High school or below	20	5.7
	College	188	53.4
	University	133	37.8
	Graduate school or above	11	3.1
Average wage	Under NT$30,000	58	16.5
	NT$30,001–NT$35,000	99	28.1
	NT$35,001–T$40,000	118	33.5
	NT$40,001–NT$50,000	55	15.6
	Over than NT$50,000	22	6.3

NT$: New Taiwan dollar.

Measurement of the constructs

The questionnaires about ethical climates, job satisfaction, OC, and OCB have been widely used in various research projects, and thus, their reliability and validity have been well demonstrated.^{12,55,56

–59} Completed data were entered and processed by using the software of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 12.0, and the questionnaire sources and results of factor analysis and reliability are as follows.

The Ethical Climate Questionnaire was developed by Victor and Cullen,²⁹ while the Job Satisfaction Questionnaire was developed by Cellucci and DeVries.⁶⁰ The Organizational Commitment Questionnaire used in this study was developed by Meyer and Allen.⁴⁴ Finally, the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Questionnaire followed the study by Williams and Anderson.²³ Most items were measured using five-point Likert scale ranging from mostly false (1) to mostly true (5). A principle components analysis was employed, and Varimax was used as an orthogonal rotation to extract eigenvalues of factors equaling or exceeding 1 and factor loadings equaling or exceeding the accepted criterion of 0.5.⁶¹

Five meaningful factors were obtained from the Ethical Climate Questionnaire: (a) caring climate, (b) independent climate, (c) law and code, (d) rules, and (e) instrumental climate. The cumulative percentage of variance of these five factors was 64.88, and the Cronbach’s alpha ranged from 0.5172 to 0.8173. The factor loadings and coefficient alpha of ethical climate scale are presented in Table 2. Again, five facets were obtained from the Job Satisfaction Questionnaire: (a) satisfaction with supervisors, (b) satisfaction with coworkers, (c) satisfaction with pay, (d) satisfaction with promotions, and (e) satisfaction with the work itself. The cumulative percentage of variance was 66.412, and the Cronbach’s alpha ranged from 0.3961 to 0.8232. The factor loadings and coefficient alpha of job satisfaction scale are presented in Table 3. The three components identified from the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire were as follows: (a) AC, (b) CC, and (c) NC. The cumulative percentage of variance was 62.47%, and the Cronbach’s coefficient alpha ranged from 0.636 to 0.789. The factor loadings and coefficient alpha of OC scale are presented in Table 4. Finally, the three dimensions divided from the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Questionnaire were as follows: (a) IRBs, (b) OCBI, and (c) OCBO. The cumulative percentage of variance was 61.49%, and the Cronbach’s coefficient alpha ranged from 0.543 to 0.805. The questionnaire items measuring constructs are listed in Table 5.

Table 2.

Factor loadings and coefficient alpha of ethical climate

Ethical climate types	Factor loading	Cronbach’s alpha
1. Caring		0.8137
The most important concern is the good of all the people in the hospital as a whole.	0.860
What is best for everyone in the hospital is the major consideration here.	0.843
Our major concern is always what is best for the other person.	0.746
2. Independent		0.6748
In this hospital, people are expected to follow their own personal and moral beliefs.	0.795
In this hospital, people are guided by their own personal ethics.	0.728
Each person in this hospital decides for themselves what is right and wrong.	0.697
3. Law and code		0.5170
In this hospital, the law or ethical code of their profession is the major consideration.	0.815
In this hospital, people are expected to strictly follow legal or professional standards.	0.788
People are expected to comply with the law and professional standards over and above other considerations.	0.617
4. Rules		0.5960
Successful people in this hospital go by the book.	0.787
People in this hospital strictly obey hospital policies	0.701
5. Instrumental		0.5072
People are expected to do anything to further the hospital’s interests, regardless of the consequences.	0.775
There is no room for one’s own personal morals or ethics in this hospital.	0.702
In this hospital, people protect their own interests above all else.	0.584

Table 3.

Factor loadings and coefficient alpha of job satisfaction

Facets of job satisfaction	Factor loading	Cronbach’s alpha
1. Satisfaction with supervisors		0.8232
The managers I work for back me up.	0.786
The managers I work for are “top notch.”	0.783
My superiors don’t listen to me.^a	0.774
My management doesn’t treat me fairly.^a	0.744
2. Satisfaction with coworkers		0.8118
I enjoy working with the people here.	0.850
I work with responsible people.	0.780
The people I work with do not give me enough support.^a	0.778
When I ask people to do things, the job gets done.	0.697
3. Satisfaction with pay		0.7411
My hospital pays better than competitors.	0.821
My pay is adequate, considering the responsibilities I have.	0.792
My fringe benefits are generous.	0.732
4. Satisfaction with promotion		0.6289
I do not like the basis on which my hospital promotes people.^a	0.819
Promotions are infrequent in my hospital.^a	0.805
5. Satisfaction with work itself.		0.3961
I would rather be doing another job.^a	0.698
I get little sense of accomplishment from doing my job.^a	0.667
My job is interesting.	0.651

^aThese items are reverse coded.

Table 4.

Factor loadings and coefficient alpha of organizational commitment

The three components of organizational commitment	Factor loading	Cronbach’s alpha
1. Continuance commitment		0.7889
I feel that I have too few options to consider leaving this hospital.	0.853
Too much of my life would be disrupted if I decided I wanted to leave my hospital now.	0.813
One of the few negative consequences of leaving this hospital would be the scarcity of available alternatives.	0.701
If I had not already put so much of myself into this hospital, I might consider working elsewhere.	0.662
2. Normative commitment		0.6996
This hospital deserves my loyalty.	0.778
I would not leave my hospital right now because I have a sense of obligation to the people in it.	0.737
Even if it were to my advantage, I do not feel it would be right to leave my hospital now.	0.693
3. Affective commitment		0.6356
Each person in this hospital decides for themselves what is right and wrong.	0.800
In this hospital, people are guided by their own personal ethics.	0.737
In this hospital, people are expected to follow their own personal and moral beliefs.	0.698

Table 5.

Factor loadings and coefficient alpha of organizational citizenship behaviors

Organizational citizenship behaviors	Factor loading	Cronbach’s alpha
1. IRB		0.7628
Performs tasks that are expected of him or her.	0.757
Adequately completes assigned duties.	0.684
Fulfills responsibilities specified in job description.	0.643
Meets formal performance requirements of the job.	0.601
2. OCBI		0.7648
Goes out of his/her way to help new employees.	0.805
Helps others who have heavy workloads.	0.706
Helps others who have been absent.	0.668
3. OCBO		0.6602
I attend functions that are not required but that help the university’s image.	0.728
I make suggestions to improve the organization.	0.654
I volunteer for tasks that are not required.	0.543

IRB: in-role behaviors.

Hypothesis

Social exchange theory⁶² is most often used to explain why an employee is willing to display OCB. This theory is based on two assumptions, reciprocity and equity. When an employee experiences a relatively positive influence or perception in an organization, he or she will return the favor in the most economic and effective way, and the OCB is one of the best way of showing that. This proves that the ethical environment of an organization has an influence on employees in terms of OCB. For example, when an employee receives a caring climate from the organization or supervisor, that is, benefits from the organization or supervisor, an idea of returning the favor grows in the mind of the employee, who will in turn repay the organization or supervisor with positive behaviors. Thus, many studies point out that a company needs to establish a strong ethical climate, which is important for the prevention of unethical behaviors.^63,64 However, the effect of different types of ethical climate on IRBs, OCBI, and OCBO was rarely studied, except that Leung⁶⁵ divided the five types of ethical climate developed by Victor and Cullen²⁹ into ethical climates of high level (including caring climate and law and code climate) and low level (including instrumental and independent climate) to investigate the influence on OCBI and OCBO. The result shows that there is negative correlation between a low-level ethical climate and OCBO but a positive correlation between high-level ethical climate and OCBO. Leung⁶⁵ suggests that the low-level ethical climate, such as an organization focusing on personal interests or personal morality, is less capable of facilitating OCBs in an employee, as the employee will tend to rationalize his or her unethical behaviors. The higher level climate having an emphasis on principles, such as a company focusing on regulations and professional guidelines, is more likely to develop a mutual relational contract and facilitate OBCs. In addition, in a company focusing on a caring ethical climate, the supervisor is more willing to satisfy the employees’ needs, to promote them and value their contributions, and the employees are more willing to repay with good behaviors. Therefore, Deshpande¹² found that if a manager believes there is a high-level caring ethical climate in his or her organization, it is more likely that there will be more ethical behaviors from the employees. Based on these investigations, the following hypotheses are proposed:

H1-1: When a hospital has an ethical climate that is “caring,” “independent,” “law and code,” and “rules,” nurses are more capable of displaying high-level IRBs. On the other hand, when a hospital has a more instrumental ethical climate, it is unlikely that nurses will show high-level IRBs.

H1-2: When a hospital has an ethical climate that is “caring,” “independent,” “law and code,” and “rules,” nurses are more capable of displaying high-level OCBI. On the other hand, when a hospital has a more instrumental ethical climate, it is unlikely that nurses will show high-level OCBI.

H1-3: When a hospital has an ethical climate that is “caring,” “independent,” “law and code,” and “rules,” nurses are more capable of displaying high-level OCBO. On the other hand, when a hospital has a more instrumental ethical climate, it is unlikely that nurses will show high-level OCBO.

Williams and Anderson²³ divided job satisfaction into extrinsic and intrinsic components and found that the extrinsic component may be used for forecasting OCBO and the intrinsic component for OCBI. Murphy et al.⁶⁶ also separated job satisfaction into five facets and found a significantly positive correlation between OCBs and all facets of job satisfaction (supervisors, work itself, coworkers, and pay) except promotion. From the studies mentioned above, it is clear that job satisfaction is an important antecedent of OCB. However, there is only one facet of job satisfaction in most of the studies mentioned above, except studies by Murphy et al.⁶⁶ and Bolon.⁶⁷ In both of these, it is divided into five facets, and the OCBs are not divided into IRBs, OCBO, and OCBI as suggested by Williams and Anderson.²³ Therefore, this study explores the relationships between the five facets of job satisfaction and the three dimensions of OCBs (IRBs, OCBO, and OCBI). Based on the investigations above, the following hypotheses are proposed:

H2-1: Nurses are more capable of displaying higher level IRBs when more satisfied with supervisors, coworkers, pay, promotion, and the work itself.

H2-2: Nurses are more capable of displaying higher level OCBO when more satisfied with supervisors, coworkers, pay, promotion, and the work itself.

H2-3: Nurses are more capable of displaying higher level OCBI when more satisfied with supervisors, coworkers, pay, promotion, and the work itself.

In Weiner’s⁶⁸ model, commitment was viewed as the totality of these internalized beliefs and was responsible for behaviors that (a) reflect personal sacrifice made for the sake of the organization, (b) do not depend primarily on reinforcements or punishments, and (c) indicate a personal preoccupation with the organization. Because these are characteristics that could be used to describe OCBs, additional support is provided for commitment being an antecedent of OCBs.

The first component, AC, refers to the employees’ emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization.⁴⁸ Many studies proved that there is a positive correlation between AC and intra-role performance.^69,70 AC was also regarded as an important factor for predicting extra-role behaviors, such as OCBs.⁶⁸ O’Reilly and Chatman²² found that AC could significantly predict OCBO. Both Steer⁷¹ and Angle and Perry⁷² found similar results. However, some studies attained different research results; for example, Williams and Anderson²³ found that there was no relationship between OC (including AC and NC) and OCBs. In addition, Shore and Wayne⁷³ indicated that there was a correlation between AC and OCBs, but it was insignificant. Although past studies did not have consistent conclusions with respect to the relationship between AC and IRBs, OCBI, and OCBO, most of the studies still believed that AC has a positive influence on these three dimensions.

The second component, CC, refers to commitment based on the costs that an employee associates with leaving the organization.⁴⁸ It has been suggested that CC may be negatively linked to certain work behaviors.⁴⁰ One of the explanations is that employees with strong CC believe they are “trapped” in a “no choice” situation (i.e. they have to stay with the organization even though they do not want to); as a result, they react with anger toward the situation and, accordingly, behave negatively.⁴⁰ Both IRBs and OCBs are work-related behaviors; therefore, employees with stronger CC may be more reluctant to perform IRBs and OCBs.

The third component, NC, refers to the employees’ feelings of obligation to remain in the organization. NC may be developed based on socialization experiences provided by the family, culture, and employing organization. A young person would learn about the general appropriateness of organizational loyalty from his or her family and the surrounding cultural environment.^40,68 NC may also be rooted in feelings of indebtedness toward an organization for its supply of certain benefits, for example, tuition reimbursement or in-house training. The feelings of obligation may continue until the employees feel that they have “paid back” the debt.⁴⁵ In the study by O’Reilly and Chatman,²² NC (referred to as internalization) affected the employees’ OCBs. Pearce and Gregersen⁷⁴ pointed out that employees with a high degree of responsibility show the work behavior of OCB. Since the sense of responsibility is the major factor in NC, we can infer that NC has a positive relationship with IRBs and OCBs. Thus, we hypothesized that

H3-1: When having a higher level of AC and NC, nurses are more capable of displaying high-level IRBs. On the other hand, when having a higher level of CC, nurses are less capable of doing so.

H3-2: When having a higher level of AC and NC, nurses are more capable of displaying high-level OCBI. On the other hand, when having a higher level of CC, nurses are less capable of doing so.

H3-3: When having a higher level of AC and NC, nurses are more capable of displaying high-level OCBO. On the other hand, when having a higher level of CC, nurses are less capable of doing so.

Findings

Hierarchical regression is used to investigate the influence of five types of ethical climate, facets of job satisfaction, and the three components of OC to IRBs, OCBI, and OCBO. The result is shown in Table 6. The hierarchy 1 of each pattern shows that the control variables have significant influence on IRBs (adjusted R² = 0.086, F = 8.251, p = 0.000) and OCBI (adjusted R² = 0.061, F = 6.056, p = 0.000).

Table 6.

Hierarchical regression results

Dependent variable	In-role behaviors (model 1)	OCBI (model 2)	OCBO (model 3)
Hierarchical 1 (control variables)
Gender	0.064	0.077	−0.066
Age	0.426^***	−0.178^*	−0.033
Job experience	−0.291^***	0.308^***	0.163^*
Education	−0.062	−0.060	0.031
Adjusted R²	0.086	0.061	0.010
F	8.251^***	6.056^***	1.803
Hierarchical 2 (add ethical climate)
Gender	0.085	0.034	−0.062
Age	0.429^***	−0.213^***	−0.031
Job experience	−0.282^***	0.250^***	0.105
Education	−0.071	−0.019	0.069
Caring	0.111	0.058	0.156^**
Independent	−0.029	−0.053	0.029
Law and code	−0.054	0.150^*	0.062
Rules	−0.064	0.407^***	0.330^***
Instrumental	−0.025	−0.135^**	0.004
Adjusted R²	0.084	0.309	0.209
F	4.166^***	16.381^***	10.079^***
Hierarchical 3 (add job satisfaction)
Gender	0.088	0.015	−0.068
Age	0.409^***	−0.192^**	−0.054
Job experience	−0.267^***	0.263^***	0.143^*
Education	−0.069	−0.037	0.067
Caring	0.017	0.160^*	0.030
Independent	−0.053	−0.074	−0.026
Law and code	−0.058	0.178^**	0.068
Rules	−0.075	0.351^***	0.288^***
Instrumental	−0.044	−0.106^*	−0.008
Supervisor	0.055	−0.036	0.115
Coworker	−0.074	0.227^***	0.006
Pay	0.071	0.058	0.114
Promotion	0.057	−0.011	0.105
Work itself	0.071	0.076	0.097
Adjusted R²	0.089	0.349	0.254
F	3.153^***	12.823^***	8.256^***
Hierarchical 4 (add organizational commitment)
Gender	0.077	0.012	−0.078
Age	0.383^***	−0.174^**	−0.063
Job experience	−0.268^***	0.253^***	0.139^*
Education	−0.082	−0.039	0.055
Caring	0.014	0.137^*	0.020
Independent	−0.063	−0.071	−0.047
Law and code	−0.047	0.184^**	0.087
Rules	−0.083	0.339^***	0.283^***
Instrumental	0.017	−0.060	0.052
Supervisor	0.005	−0.047	0.085
Coworker	−0.081	0.212^***	−0.005
Pay	0.079	0.081	0.109
Promotion	0.082	0.011	0.105
Work itself	−0.010	0.056	0.055
AC	0.154^*	0.065	0.168^**
CC	−0.182^**	−0.079	−0.017
NC	0.230^***	−0.046	0.035
Adjusted R²	0.143	0.354	0.270
Change R²	0.060^***	0.011	0.022^*
F	4.027^***	10.951^***	7.731^***

AC: affective commitment; CC: continuance commitment; NC: normative commitment.

^*p < 0.05, ^**p < 0.01, ^***p < 0.001.

When ethical climate is added as an independent variable in hierarchy 2, the overall R²s of patterns 2 and 3 increase and reach significance level, suggesting that the dimensions of ethical climate are important variables for the prediction of OCBI and OCBO. It is found in pattern 1 that the five ethical climate types fail to achieve significant influence on the IRBs. Pattern 2 indicates that the rules and law and code ethical climate have significant positive influence, whereas instrumental climate has significant negative influence on OCBI. Pattern 3 shows that the caring and rules ethical climates have significant positive influence on OCBO.

After job satisfaction is added as an independent variable in hierarchy 3, the overall R²s of patterns 2 and 3 increase and reach significance level, indicating that all patterns have reached significance level. It is found in pattern 1 that the five facets of job satisfaction have no significant influence on IRBs. Pattern 2 indicates that the satisfaction with coworkers has significant positive influence on OCBI, whereas pattern 3 shows that the five facets of job satisfaction have no significant influence on OCBO.

When the three components of OC are added as independent variables in hierarchy 4, the R²s of patterns 1 and 3 increase and reach the significant level, indicating that all three components are important variables for prediction of IRBs and OCBO. It is found in pattern 1 that AC and NC both have significant positive influence on IRBs, and CC has negative influence. Pattern 2 indicates that none of the three components has significant influence on OCBI, whereas pattern 3 shows the employees’ AC has significant positive influence on OCBO.

Discussion

The findings of the present study show that the five ethical climate types and five facets of job satisfaction have no significant influence on IRBs. This is consistent with the finding of Leung,⁶⁵ which suggests that the five ethical climate types and all dimensions of job satisfaction have no significant influence, indicating no significant influence on IRBs no matter what type of ethical climate there is in an organization or how well the employees are satisfied with their jobs. Therefore, the hypotheses H1-1 and H2-1 are not supported.

Furthermore, the results shown above suggest that the caring, rules, and law and code types of ethical climate have a significant positive influence on OCBI, whereas the instrumental ethical climate has significant negative influence. In addition, caring and rules types of ethical climate have significant positive influence on OCBO. This coincides with the positive correlation between the high-level ethical climate (including caring, rules, and law and code types), as defined by Leung,⁶⁵ and extra-role behaviors and the negative correlation between low-level ethical climate and extra-role behaviors. Therefore, hypotheses H1-2 and H1-3 are partially supported. On the other hand, it is found in pattern 2 that when the satisfaction of an employee with his or her coworkers grows higher, it is easier for him or her to display OCBI behaviors. However, the other facets of job satisfaction do not have significant influence on either OCBI or OCBO. This is consistent with the finding of Bolon,⁶⁷ who suggested that all dimensions of job satisfaction have no significant influence on OCBI except satisfaction to coworkers. In addition, five facets of job satisfaction do not have significant influence on OCBO. Thus, hypothesis H2-2 is partially supported, and H2-3 is not supported.

Moreover, it is discovered from hierarchy 4 that the three components of OC all have significant influence on IRBs. AC and NC have significant positive influence on IRBs, and NC has greater influence on IRBs than AC. This proves the meta-analysis of the antecedent, correlative, and consequential variables conducted by Meyer et al.,⁵⁹ who suggested that in countries outside of North America, in particular those in Asia, where collectivism is practiced, the OCBs have profound correlation with NC. Also, NC is related to the employees’ sense of responsibility, and therefore, the employees are more capable of completing whatever job given to them when NC is greater. In addition, when the employees’ emotional dependency on the organization grows stronger, they are more capable of performing the IRBs. This matches the findings of Allen and Meyer⁶⁹ and Mathieu and Zajac⁷⁰ that AC is positively correlated to the intra-role performance. On the other hand, when an employee has no better choice but staying at the organization he or she works for, the in-role performance of the employee starts to decline. Therefore, hypothesis H3-1 is fully supported.

On the other hand, it is found in this study that the three components of OC have no significant influence on OCBI. This is partially consistent with the finding of Williams and Anderson²³ that OC has no significant influence on OCBI. Therefore, hypothesis H3-2 is not supported. However, this study finds that AC has significant and positive influence on OCBO, and this is consistent with the findings of Angle and Perry,⁷² O’Reilly and Chatman,²² and Steer⁷¹ that AC helps significantly in the prediction of OCBO. Thus, hypothesis H3-3 is partially supported.

Conclusions and limitations

In response to the serious shortage and high turnover rate of nurses, how a medical facility improves job satisfaction and OC through the formation of ethical climates in the organization and ultimately achieves a state in which employees are willing to demonstrate a high level of OCBs, improve business efficiency and service quality, and lower the costs has become one of the important issues in a fiercely competitive environment.

It is found that the caring climate has significant positive influence on the OCBO of nurses, the law and code climate has significant positive influence on OCBI, and the rules climate has significant influence on OCBO. In addition, the instrumental climate has significant negative influence on OCBI. Therefore, based on the results above, it is suggested that the management tier of a medical facility focuses on the development of the caring, law and code, and rules climate. Particularly, it is most important to address the caring climate. However, the instrumental ethical climate should be avoided.

Another conclusion of this investigation is that AC has significant positive influence on IRB and OCBO. Also, the result supports the finding of Chen and Francesco⁵⁷ that the influence of AC is greater on OCB than on IRB. As a result, it is suggested that medical facilities should improve nurses’ AC and NC and avoid CC in order to develop their IRB, OCBI, and OCBO; that is, when the employees approve of the target, value, and mission of an organization, they are more willing to do their best for and contribute to the organization. Moreover, some studies suggest that when employees feel that the organization is treating them nicely, for example, fair treatment⁴⁸ or participation in decision making,⁷⁵ they are more likely to develop AC.

In addition, it is found that the CC has significant negative influence on IRB, and, although not significant, has negative influence on OCBI and OCBO as well. Therefore, it confirms the previous findings that the CC is negatively correlated to the job behaviors desired by an organization. Meyer and Allen⁴⁴ suggest the important antecedents for CC, one being the accumulated side bets (e.g. pension funds) and the other being the possibility to get another job (e.g. lack of the skills to perform a different job).

Finally, it is detected that NC has significant positive influence on the IRB, and it is shown that the finding of Meyer et al.⁵⁹ in their meta-analysis on the antecedent, correlative, and consequential variables of the three components of OC that NC has the strongest influence on OCB, in particular in the countries outside of North America. According to the categories of national cultural features proposed by Hofstede,⁷⁶ Taiwan is a country of collectivism. Also, Moorman and Blakely⁷⁷ argue that code commitment exists in countries of collectivism at a higher level, thus with a greater possibility of OCB.

There are several limitations of this study. Most of the researchers agree that the common method variance is a latent issue in the study of management; that is, the source of error comes from measurement errors rather than the constructs to be measured. However, when the independent or dependent variables of a study structure are collected using a single questionnaire on a group of test subjects, the issue of common method variance exists. This issue, of course, may be embedded in this study.

Also, Martin and Cullen²⁸ discovered from the investigation of the antecedent and consequential variables of ethical climate that an organization’s external environment (e.g. globalization and crossing between cultures) and organizational types (e.g. different functional departments, profitable, or nonprofitable organization) are some of the important antecedent variables that have an influence on ethical climate. Nevertheless, studies on the antecedent variables influencing ethical climate are still rare. In this study, the influence of different organizational types on the ethical climate, and thus the job satisfaction, OC, and OCB of nurses, was not considered the organizational types (e.g. metropolitan or teaching hospitals) and department levels (e.g. emergency room, dialysis room or other departments). In addition, different geographic regions (northern, middle, southern Taiwan) of the hospital would be antecedent variables that influence ethical climates. Future studies could explore the influence of the above-mentioned antecedent variables that influence ethical climate.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

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