Job stressors and voluntary work behaviours: mediating effect of emotion and moderating roles of personality and emotional intelligence

• Author: Iain Coyne,Dion Greenidge
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12044
• Date: 01 November 2014
• Published date: 01 November 2014

Job stressors and voluntary work behaviours:

mediating effect of emotion and moderating roles

of personality and emotional intelligence

Dion Greenidge, Department of Management Studies, University of the West Indies

Iain Coyne, Division of Psychiatry and Applied Psychology, University of

Nottingham

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 24, no 4, 2014, pages 479–495

Framed within an emotion-centred model, the current study investigated the mediating role of negative

and positive emotion between job stressors and counterproductive work behaviours (CWB) and

organisational citizenship behaviours, and the moderating effects of personality and ability-based

emotional intelligence (EI) on the relationships between job stressors and emotions. Results from a

sample of 202 Caribbean employees across eight public and private sector organisations showed that both

positive and negative emotion mediated the relation between job stressors and citizenship behaviours,

whereas only negative emotion was found to mediate the relation between job stressors and CWB. Some

support was found for the moderating effects of personality and EI. Implications for research and practice

are discussed.

Contact: Dr Dion Greenidge, Department of Management Studies, University of the West

Indies, Cave Hill Campus, P.O. Box 64, Barbados. Email: dion.greenidge@cavehill.uwi.edu

Keywords: emotion; voluntary work behaviours; job stressors; Big Five personality; emotional

intelligence

INTRODUCTION

Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and counterproductive work behaviour

(CWB) are typically seen as discretionary, non-task in nature and, coupled with task

performance, represent three broad domains of job performance (Rotundo and Sackett,

2002). In the HR literature, OCB (sometimes termed extra-role behaviour or discretionary work

behaviour) has received recent attention (Gong et al., 2010; Frenkel et al., 2012) and is viewed as

an HR-related outcome of HRM (Knies and Leisink, 2014). Indeed, OCB ‘. . . is seen as the

critical factor in linking employee responses to performance . . .’ (Purcell and Hutchinson, 2007:

6). Within the same HR domain, CWB has been considered at the level of specific behaviours,

such as absenteeism (e.g. Hopkins, 2014) and workplace bullying (e.g. Woodrow and Guest,

2014), as well as the broader CWB concept (e.g. Chao et al., 2011). In the people

management–performance causal chain (Purcell and Hutchinson, 2007), discretionary

behaviour and attendance (a specific form of CWB) coupled with task behaviour are

hypothesised to influence organisational effectiveness.

However, although OCB and CWB are important HR-related outcomes of people manage-

ment, they have tended to be researched in isolation. Yet with consensus that both behaviours can

be conceptualised via distinct subgroups of organisationally and individually directed

behaviours (Bennett and Robinson, 2000; Gruys and Sackett, 2003), researchers have become more

interested in the commonality between the two constructs and theoretical explanations for why

people engage in them (Dalal, 2005; Spector and Fox, 2010). One such theory, Spector and Fox’s

(2002) emotion-centred model, postulates that an employee’s emotional reactions are induced by

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doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12044

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 24 NO 4, 2014 479

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Greenidge, D. and Coyne, I. (2014) ‘Job stressors and voluntary work behaviours: mediating effect of emotion

and moderating roles of personality and emotional intelligence’. Human Resource Management Journal 24: 4, 479–495.

his/her appraisal of the work environment, and that induced emotion could lead to OCB or CWB.

Positive emotion should produce OCB while negative emotions should produce CWB. Further-

more, personality and perceived control over work tasks are hypothesised to moderate the

relationship between job stressors and emotions. The purpose of our investigation was to develop

further some of the proposed relationships in Spector and Fox’s model. Specifically, we tested the

main mediation propositions of positive and negative emotion, as well as including the

moderating effects of the Big Five personality traits and ability-based emotional intelligence (EI).

As emotion plays a central role in Spector and Fox’s model, we included EI since an individual’s

ability to understand and regulate his/her emotions so as to attain desired affective states and

adaptive outcomes are particularly relevant (Wongand Law, 2002). Figure 1 shows the proposed

relationships to be tested in this study.

This study constitutes the first effort, to our knowledge, to explore the mediating effect of

positive emotion on the relationship between job stressors and citizenship behaviours, and the

moderating effects of Big Five personality traits and EI on relations between job stressors and

emotions. Moreover, research on the role of emotions, its causes, expression and consequences

in organisational settings are still vastly fragmented and limited (Brief and Weiss, 2002).

Therefore, this study enhances our theoretical understanding of how the work environment,

emotion and individual differences combine to influence OCB and CWB. Furthermore, such

knowledge would allow HR managers and/or practitioners to better develop appropriate

interventions aimed at reducing negative workplace behaviours such as CWB, and enhancing

positive workplace behaviours such as OCB. Hence, HR policies and practices could be better

directed to achieve more favourable HRM outcomes.

Theoretical framework

Emotion and OCB/CWB Emotion is defined as ‘adaptive behavioural and physiological

response tendencies that are called forth directly by evolutionarily significant situations’ (Gross,

Figure 1 Proposed relationships among study variables

Negative

Emotion

Positive

Emotion

Personality

Counterproductive

Work Behaviour

Organisational

Citizenship

Behaviour

Emotional

Intelligence

Stressors Appraisal/

Interpretation

-+

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Job stressors and voluntary work behaviours

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© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.