Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Employees’ Behavior: Mediated Role of Employees Brand Knowledge in Hotels

2. Introduction

With the growing importance of customers and the increasing challenge to provide them with high quality service, it is important to go above customer expectation, especially in the hospitality sector because of the direct interaction with customer (Celiker & Guzeller, 2022). Hence, in order to achieve competitive advantage, hotels must ensure high quality service from their employees by implementing specific guidelines to fulfil customer needs (Victorino & Bolinger 2012, King et al., 2013, Ma et al., 2013). This can be achieved through OCB, because Employees with high OCB, are involved in sensitive behaviors such as, innovations, learning and high-quality relationships with peers, managers and subordinates which lead to high performance (Atatsi et al., 2019).

In exploring OCB and its outcomes, OCB is often linked with organizational effectiveness. it refers to a behavior conducted by employee involuntary that extend his/ her assigned duties (Chanko & Rahmat, 2022). Employees who exhibit OCBs engage in voluntary behaviors without expecting rewards from the organization (Nurjanah, et al., 2020). Helping your absent colleagues and trying to solve their problems, saving organization’s building and equipment’s and joining organizational meetings continuously are all examples of OCB behaviour. (Ha & Moon, 2023).

Literature is rich of factors that affect employee behavior beside OCB, as internal branding, corporate social responsibility, leader, innovation, employee learning goal orientation (Munir, 2020; Atatsi et al., 2019; and Ngo et al., 2019).

Along with other relevant organizational variables, Employee brand knowledge is also an important factor that influence employee behavior, when Employees have brand knowledge, there awareness toward brand promise to customer will increase because they will recognize their role to achieve customer value. (King et al., 2013).

However, besides the fruitful part on the relationship between OCB and employee behaviors, research has investigating the employee brand knowledge reaction to employee behavior is scarce, and no research has been conducted to investigate the impact of OCB on EBK or investigate the mediating effect of EBK on the relationship between OCB and employee performance so, some researchers as (Fathya, 2021) have pointed out the need for additional research regarding the antecedents of EBK.

Hence, the main aim of this research is to find out a new antecedent of EBK as OCB and to illustrate their effect on employee behavior.

3. Literature Review

3.1. The Link between OCB and EBK

Although Researchers start to conduct studies on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) Since the late 1970s, this term was not popular until Organ introduced it in the late 1980’s. (Adil et al., 2019). Organs who is known as the father of Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) defines it as discretionary, non-required contributions by members to the organizations that employ them.” (Organ, 2015).

According to Gelfand et al., (2007) and Robbins and Judge (2019), OCB is only one dimension of the big concept organizational behavior OB, other related core concepts are: work motivation, job attitudes, leadership, emotions, teams, negotiation, organizational culture, structure, job satisfaction, interpersonal communication, learning, change processes, conflict, work design, and work stress, personality, learning, training.

Employee brand knowledge refers to employee’s perception and understanding of what brand and company meanings and promises are and how he can convey these meanings and promises to customers or consumers. Employee brand knowledge can also be defined as what employees think about the organizational (Fathya, 2021). It is the degree to which the employee has a good understanding of the distinct brand identity and knows what the brand promises to its customers (Löhndorf & Diamantopoulos, 2014).

We are unaware of any prior research that has examined the link between OCB and employee brand knowledge in a hotel context, or the impact of OCB on employee behavior through the effect of EBK, but there is evidence that other OB components influence EBK, such as (Fathya, 2020) research; he concluded that internal communication and leadership are factors that influence the EBK and he recommended to explore new factors that influence EBK. Based on these past results. this research will shed new light on the mechanism how OCB and EBK are connected and to illustrate their effect on employee behavior, so we hypothesize the following hypothesis:

H1. Organizational citizenship behavior has a positive effect on employee brand knowledge

3.2. The Effect of Organizational Citizenship Behavior on Employee Behavior

OCB is defined as behaviour that is performed in order to help to fulfill the functions efficiently on a voluntary basis and without taking into consideration the formal reward system of the organization (Özçelika & Fındıklı, 2014). OCB are some behaviors that generally go beyond the employee’s job duty and are not clearly and directly regulated by the normal compensation system. (Yang et al., 2022)

(OCB) is characterized by efforts in any form carried out at the discretion of employees that provide benefits to the organization without expecting any reward (Shweta & Srirang, 2010).

There is mix between OCB and employee behavior, especially between OCB and helping behavior. The difference between OCB and employee performance was raised firstly by Katz )1946) as mentioned by Williams and Anderson, )1991)و when he differentiated between extra-role and in-role behaviors. This result was strongly supported by (Williams & Anderson, 1991). The more exciting is that OCB influences employee behavior (Lay et al., 2020; Munir, 2020; and Cho & Johanson, 2008).

On the other side employee in- role performance can be measured by: working full hour day, achieving assigned responsibilities on time and complying with organization regulating (Williams & Anderson, 1991). In- role performance is only one component of employee behaviors; other parts are deviant, helping and innovation behavior (Neubert et al., 2008). Deviant behavior is an intentional violation of organizational norms or standards of appropriate behavior (Robinson & Bennett, 1995). helping behavior is a “promotive behavior that emphasizes small acts of consideration. Creativity involves the process of producing fresh or novel ideas (Neubert et al., 2008).

Hidayah and Harnoto (2018), emphasized on how OCB favored the organization via its effect on employee performance. Based on regression analysis of 309 employees comprised their study’s sample in in Baitul Maal Wat Tamwil (BMT) of Central Java, it was indicated that high individual-level of OCB yielded greater significant employee performance. A recommendation to HR managers to increase their interests on employees OCB behaviors by encouraging extra role activities, eliminating conflicts between employees and overcoming their mistakes.

The link between OCB and employee behavior have received a great deal of attention with two main directions of research:1- the direct impact of OCB on employee behavior and the 2- indirect impact of OCB on employee behavior. Studies investigating OCB in a hotel context have mentioned that OCB has a significant positive impact on employee performance (Chelagat et al. 2015). This relationship is existing not only in hotel industry, but also in different industries as clear in the following literature.

A widely recognized research work in the field of employee behavior is (Atatsi et al., 2019), where the authors reviewed 81 research works related to employee behavior. The findings show direct positive relationships between the OCB and employee performance. OCB can also affect employee behavior indirectly through mediating the effect of job satisfaction on employee performance. Further results of the previous literature concluded that OCB acts as moderators between employee’s personality and employee performance.

In their attempt to expand OCB theory and to explore the consequences of OCB at multiple levels, Bommer and Dierdoref (2007), conducted their research on 736 employees distributed within 100 work teams in a manufacturing company in US to explore the potential relationship between group- level OCB, individual- level OCB and employee performance. Results of a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and random-coefficient regression ended up that individual-level OCB has a positive and significant impact on employee performance. Another exciting result is the moderation effect of group- level OCB on the relationship between individual-level OCB and job performance

Sugianingrat et al., (2021), study indicated that OCB affect employee performance positively with both direct and indirect impact. OCB strengthen the performance of 106 employees at the Denpasar City Social Service. Furthermore, OCB increase the influence of spiritual intelligence on the same sample employee performance.

A study that has proven the effect of OCB on employee performance is the study of (Ridwan, 2020). using path analysis, he tests his hypotheses about the relationship between organizational commitment, OCB and employee performance, based on the information collected from 241 employees who work at Private Universities in West Sumatra. Employees performance is being improved with OCB behavior. In addition, OCB is able to enlarge the role of organizational commitment influence on employee performance.

Another study to examine the factors that affect employee performance in hotels industry is what has done by Lay et al., (2020), in Fave Hotel Rungkut Surabaya, Indonesia. The results of this study found that there was a positive and significant impact of OCB on employee performance and OCB acts as acts as a mediator factor on the relationship of organizational trust to the performance employees.

Cho and Johanson (2008), presented additional evidence on the role of OCB in improving employee performance, in this study, OCB is affected by employees and organizational commitment. The result of this research was approved using structural equation modeling implementing on a sample of 300 restaurant employees. Similarly, Munir (2020), also lightened the positive influence of OCB and other factors (transformational leadership and HR practices) on employee performance in construction firms. The conclusion is that in order to enhance the performance of employees, it is important to sustain OCB behaviors. The recommendation of this study is to explore factors acts as mediators between OCB and employee performance. Thus, the following hypotheses are provided.

H2: Organizational citizenship behavior has a positive effect on Helping behavior.

H3: Organizational citizenship behavior has a positive effect on in-role performance.

H4: Organizational citizenship behavior has a negative effect on deviant behavior.

H5: Organizational citizenship behavior has a positive effect on creative behavior.

H6: Organizational citizenship behavior has a positive effect on employees’ behavior.

3.3. The Role of Employee Brand Knowledge on Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Employee Behavior

According to researcher knowledge, only few studies have been conducted on the relationship between EBK and employee behavior. The results of previous studies illustrated the positive impact of EBK on employee behavior directly or through mediators. (Ngo et al., (2019), Xionga & King, 2019).

Brand Knowledge Based on the literature findings mentioned several antecedents and consequences of employee brand knowledge. An important review of previous literature is the study of (Fathya, 2021) who reviewed 22 journal articles related to EBK which published in Scopus database from 2010 until 2019), he mentioned that brand leadership (Nguyen et al., 2019), internal brand commitment (Biedenbach & Manzhynski, 2016), brand communication (Muhammad et al., 2019), internal branding (Nguyen et al., 2019), internal market orientation (Boukis et al., 2017), and brand-oriented leadership (Terglav et al., 2016), and internal communication activities, internal market orientation, and leadership are antecedents of EBK and employee commitment to brand value and employee ownership of the brand and employee performance, are results of EBK (Fathya, 2021).

Ngo et al., (2019), study for example concluded that EBK has a positive impact on employee performance indirectly. By implementing their research on front line service employees working in the service industry in Vietnam service sector in Vietnam, they found that EBK increase employee motivation which influence their customer oriented behavior and ended up in improving employee performance. Therefore, they recommended companies to enhance service employee performance through their brand knowledge, even indirectly, depending on mediators as employee brand identification for example.

Similar and strong results emphasized that EBK has positive influence on employee brand-aligned attitudes and behavior through the employee brand value fit with organization as a moderator which was found by (Xionga & King, 2019). their research on a sample of employee hotels in US, accelerate that hotels must an environment of trust and respect to enhance productive employee behavior. To enhance the effect of employee brand knowledge and to ensure employee productive service behaviors, it is necessary to adopt their knowledge with the brand via their employee attitudes and behavior. (King et al., 2013).

A recent study conducted by Shah, et al., (2022), on a sample of SMEs in Pakistan highlighted the positive impact of employee brand knowledge on employee innovative behavior. They mentioned also that employee brand knowledge can be enhanced through organizational learning.

To summarize, hotel employees who have brand knowledge will act outstanding service performance as mentioned by (Fathya, 2021). In the light of the past results, the following hypothesis is provided:

H7:Employee brand knowledge mediates the relation betweenOrganizational citizenship behavior and employees’ behavior.

In the meantime, and based on the literature, the following conceptual model has been depicted, to show this research independent, dependent, and mediator factors with proposed hypotheses.

Figure 1. Conceptual Model.

Figure 1. Conceptual Model.

4. Methodology

4.1. Sample and Procedure

A quantitative methods illustrated in this research and a structured online questionnaire employed to collect the data. A convenience sampling approach was used. The sample size 500 hundred questionnaires were distributed and 204 usable questionnaires were returned and used for data analysis. The response rate was 50.1 %. This research targeted all the employees who are working in five, four, and three hotel stars in Jordan.

4.2. Instrument Development and Measurement Scales

The structure for this research questionnaire was comprised of four parts. The first one uses ordinal scales to capture information related to the respondent characteristics. While the second part has items that measure organizational citizenship behavior questionnaire, and the third part has items related to employees’ brand knowledge. While the fourth and the final part in the questionnaire provide items that measure employees’ behavior, and five-point Likert scale was used in all measurement scales.

For the purpose of this research Podsakoff, P. et al., (1990) was used to measure Organizational citizenship behavior scale. This scale (OCB) consist of twenty-four items. To measure Employee brand knowledge (EBK) scale, Nirmali, K.A. et al., (2018) From Kimpakorn and Tocquer, (2009) was employed and includes nine items. While, to measure employees’ behavior (EB), Neubert, M. et al., (2008) was utilized. This scale (EB) consists of a thirty-two-items divided into four dimensions, which are Helping Behavior dimension includes seven items, In-Role Performance dimension includes seven items, Deviant Behavior dimension includes twelve items, and Creative Behavior dimension includes six items. All these thirty-two items were employed to measure these four employees’ behavior scale. In addition, this employees’ behavior scale with thirty-two items showed a very important step in the process of assembling a reliable and valid tool to study employees’ behavior in various organizational settings. Therefore, and for this research purpose, the thirty-two items have been modified to be suitable for this research respondents. This research utilized these four scales tools to examine the research hypotheses.

5. Findings Analysis

For the purpose of this research and to test the research hypotheses, Structural Equation Modeling - AMOS 26.0. was performed.

5.1. Respondents Profile

The profile of the sample represented the total number of 204 respondents consisting of 63.7 percent males and 36.3 percent of respondents were females. Most respondents were young people aged less than 20 years old 11.8 percent, 77.5 percent people from 20-25, and 20 percent were 25 to 30 years old 7.8 percent, and the remainder were 30 to 50 years old. From the whole sample, only 9.8 percent were married, and the rest were singles. Considering the level of education of the sample, the majority have high school 84.3 percent, 5.9 percent have bachelor’s degrees, and the remainder had obtained a secondary school certificate. Regarding the workplace, 49 percent work at 5-star hotels, 23.5 at a 4-star hotel, and 27.5 work at a 3-star hotel or less. The sample years of experience range from less than 1 year around 49 percent, from 1 to 5 years of experience 44.1 percent, and the remainder above 5 years of experience. Their position is mostly employees at 75.5 percent, supervisors at 12 percent, assistant managers at 4.9, and managers were 7.8 percent.

5.2. Measurement and Structural Model

Using both exploratory and confirmatory methods, multi-item scales were assessed to guarantee the measures’ validity, dimensional, and reliability. To assess the conceptual model, we used reflective measurements. We used Cronbach’s alpha and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with varimax rotation on each scale to evaluate the measures’ initial reliability. Every construct has a Cronbach’s alpha value greater than 0.70 (Churchill & Peter, 1984). There was a range of alpha coefficients from 0.902 to 0.97. An EFA was then carried out to investigate the dimensionality of each construct. All of the items loaded on a single factor, suggesting that Organizational citizenship behavior, employee brand knowledge, helping behavior, in-role performance, deviant behavior, and creative behavior are uni dimensional. All factor loading exceeded the 0.70 threshold, and there was no evidence of cross-loading (Byrne, 2001). However, items of a low loading value were excluded from the analysis. To establish convergent and discriminant validity, we used composite reliability (CR), average variance extracted (AVE), maximum shared squared variance (MSV), and average shared squared variance (ASV). The CR values ranged from 0.86 to 0.94, which exceeded the recommended 0.70 threshold value (Hair et al., 2010). The AVE values were higher than the acceptable value of 0.50 (Fornell and Larcker 1981), ranging from 0.82 to 0.91. All CR values were greater than the AVE values. The values for MSV and ASV were lower than the AVE values, thus confirming the discriminant validity of the model. The convergent and discriminant validity values are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Convergent and discriminant validity table chart.

Construct	OCB	EBK	HB	INR	DB	CB
OCB	0.865
EBK	0.870	0.911
HB	0.907	0.823	0.878
INR	0.932	0.862	0.823	0.886
DB	-0.36	0.45	0.342	0.455	0.934
CB	0.782	0.621	0.712	0.634	0.581	0.921
AVE	0.821	0.875	0.838	0.860	0.901	.0.915
MSV	0.784	0.853	0.792	0.814	0.889	0.891
ASV	0.522	0.445	0.622	0.664	0.464	0.673
CR	0.860	0.911	0.871	0.901	0.912	0.941

Note: OCB organizational citizenship behavior, EBK employee brand knowledge, HB helping behavior, INR in-role performance, DB deviant behavior, CB creative behavior, square roots of average variances extracted (AVEs) shown on diagonal.

Table 1. Convergent and discriminant validity table chart.

Construct	OCB	EBK	HB	INR	DB	CB
OCB	0.865
EBK	0.870	0.911
HB	0.907	0.823	0.878
INR	0.932	0.862	0.823	0.886
DB	-0.36	0.45	0.342	0.455	0.934
CB	0.782	0.621	0.712	0.634	0.581	0.921
AVE	0.821	0.875	0.838	0.860	0.901	.0.915
MSV	0.784	0.853	0.792	0.814	0.889	0.891
ASV	0.522	0.445	0.622	0.664	0.464	0.673
CR	0.860	0.911	0.871	0.901	0.912	0.941

Note: OCB organizational citizenship behavior, EBK employee brand knowledge, HB helping behavior, INR in-role performance, DB deviant behavior, CB creative behavior, square roots of average variances extracted (AVEs) shown on diagonal.

All independent and dependent latent variables were included in one single multifactorial confirmatory factor analysis model in AMOS 26.0. The CFA was performed using the maximum-likelihood estimation. During CFA, the model demonstrated a good fit. The chi-square/df value was 2.35, the comparative fit index (CFI) value was 0.91, the adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI) value was 0.90, and the Tucker-Lewis coefficient (TLI) was 0.98. The root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) value was 0.05. All values were above the acceptable threshold (Hair et al., 2010).

For model fit, we used structural equation modeling (SEM) in AMOS 26.0. During the SEM procedure, we determined that the model yielded a good fit as recommended. The cmin/df value was 2.44, the CFI value was 0.96, the AGFI value was 0.92, and the TLI value was 0.98. The RMSEA value was 0.05; which was smaller than 0.08 (Hair et al., 2010). in this context, it is possible to continue testing the hypotheses through SEM shown in Figure 2.

The results listed in Table 2 show that organizational citizenship behavior has a positive impact on employee brand knowledge. Moreover, the results indicated that the highest impact was for helping behavior (t= 10.329, p= 0.000), followed by the in-role performance (t= 10.125, p= 0.000), and the lowest impact was for deviant behavior (t= -3.337, p= 0.000). Thus, all the study’s hypotheses were supported as shown in the table below.

5.3. Mediation Test

For the mediation test, we perform the mediation analysis proposed by Baron and Kenny (1986) approach by using the direct and indirect effects based on the bootstrap procedure (500 samples) and bias-corrected bootstrap confident interval (95%). The results show that the direct relation between organizational citizenship behavior and employee behavior was significant H6 accepted, and the employee brand knowledge partially mediates the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and employee behavior H7 accepted (β=0.888, P<.05). As shown in Table 3 below.

6. Discussion

The findings of this research approved that there is a positive mediation role of employees’ brand knowledge on the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and employees’ behavior in hotels. Consistently, and according to the literature who provide a study conducted in hospitality field in Vietnam by Van Nguyen., Lu., Hill., & Conduit (2019), who suggested that there is a mediating role of brand knowledge on employees’ brand citizenship behaviour and proposed the influence of brand leadership and internal branding on employee brand citizenship behaviour by brand knowledge of hospitality employees. In the same Vine, Atatsi et al., (2019); Munir, (2020); Ngo et al., (2019) and King et al., (2013), who proposed that employee brand knowledge is a significant role that may impact positively on employee behavior. In addition, Fathya, (2021); Ngo et al., (2019); Xionga and King, (2019) Shah, et al., (2022) approved that increase employees brand knowledge, may increase there awareness toward brand promise to customer which increment the service quality.

Moreover, our findings approved that organizational citizenship behavior has a positive effect on employees’ behavior and its dimensions, helping behavior, in-role performance, and creative behavior. These results are agreeable with Celiker and Guzeller, (2022); King et al., (2013); Ma et al., (2013); Neubert et al., (2008); and Victorino and Bolinger, (2012), who demonstrated that employees with high organizational citizenship behavior are more encouraged to behave positively towards innovations, learning behavior and build a positive relationships with other employees, managers and subordinates in the organization, which may lead to high quality of performance (Atatsi et al., 2019).

On the other hand, organizational citizenship behavior proposed a negative effect on employees’ deviant behavior. This outcome is consistent with the researchers in the literature who proposed that the most the employees who have a deviant behavior in the organizations are affected negatively by low organizational citizenship behavior (Chanko & Rahmat, 2022; and Ha & Moon, 2023; and Nurjanah, et al., 2020).

To summarize, the findings of this study, postulated that hotel employees who have brand knowledge may behave positively and present an outstanding service performance. Moreover, have a positive innovative ideas, high performance, and helping behaviour towards others in the hotel. While, Jordanian hotel employees who have not a brand knowledge towards their hotels which affect their behaviour negatively towards their hotels and others, and acting inappropriately in their hotels such as negative word of mouth, which may affect the level of service quality.

7. Conclusion

In this research, the role of employees’ brand knowledge as a mediator between organizational citizenship behavior and employees behavior in hotels is examined in Jordanian hotel context. The results show that employees’ brand knowledge has a positive role between organizational citizenship behavior and employees’ behavior in Jordanian hotels. In addition, positive effect has been found between organizational citizenship behavior on employees’ behavior helping behavior, in-role performance, and creative behavior. While, a negative effect has been found between, organizational citizenship behavior on employees’ deviant behavior. Therefore, these results may present a value and originality to the hotel research field and provide a deep understanding and practical implications to the hotel managements and sector on how the employees in the hotels may behave and affected by their organizational citizenship behavior. In addition, this research has a number of limitations as well, such as the sample from the hotel sector cannot be generalized and may not be suitable to apply in different sectors, using a quantitative methods and survey can be considered a limitation in this study.

8. Theoretical and Practical Implications

This research provide more theoretical knowledge to the literature in the citizenship organizational behaviour and employees behaviour, in the hotel area and extend the literature review knowledge by examining the mediation role of employees’ brand knowledge on the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and employees’ behavior in Jordanian hotels. Moreover, the findings of this research provide a practical implications to the hoteliers in Jordan. Moreover, a significant results is presented, which may help the hotel managers to understand and to know how to deal with their employees behaviour based on their brand knowledge. That means the hotel managers have to be more concern about the employees knowledge regarding their hotel brands. Which will positively enhance their employees behaviour according to this research findings. Accordingly, to improve the effect of employee brand knowledge and to enhance employee productive service behaviors, hotel managers need to develop their knowledge with their hotel brand and their hotel employees. Consequently, the hotel service quality may presented in a better way for the hotel guests in Jordan.