Distributed Teams: Software Organizations

ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOUR OF DISTRIBUTED TEAMS: A STUDY ON THE MEDIATING EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE IN SOFTWARE ORGANIZATIONS

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A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF

THE ACADEMY OF HRD
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In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree

FELLOW IN HUMAN RESOURCES AND ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT
By

Harry Charles Devasagayam

 January 2012

Approved by:

Prof. Dr. N M Agrawal, IIM -Bangalore

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Prof. Dr. V Nagadevara, IIM -Bangalore

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Prof. Dr. K S Gupta

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Director- Academy of HRD 

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Abstract

Globalization has changed the dynamics of team working in software development. Part of adapting and accepting globalization is to work with a heterogeneous group of people located in different parts of the world with different perceptions, different attitudes and varied characteristics. The challenge for software development organizations in this scenario is to source, coordinate and manage an adept pool of professionals and help them work for complementing tasks of distributed teams, keep them motivated so as to practice extra role behaviors which will in turn help the organization grow its business.

However, in order that distributed employees feel motivated, valued and respected; the organizations through their employee friendly policies create an environment for people to perceive organizational support and role efficacy. A fairly supportive system and effective utilization of competencies is likely to create a sense of organization being fair to employees.

This research examined the relationships between perceptions of organizational support, role efficacy and organizational citizenship behavior by examining the mediating effects of organizational justice.

A questionnaire was given to 970 software professionals. The responses of 276 people selected through a convenience sample across globally located software organizations was used for the study. The data collected from the responses was analyzed using factor analysis to rule out factors not contributing to the study. Further the data was analyzed using correlation coefficient and hierarchical regression tests to find out the relationship and mediating effects between variables.

There are seven hypotheses in this study. All of which has been accepted. As predicted a significant relationship was found between perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behavior mediated by organizational justice and role efficacy and organizational citizenship behavior mediated by organizational justice. Among the justice dimensions procedural justice was significantly related to OCB. Distributive justice has been found to predict sportsmanship, Altruism and, Conscientiousness and is negatively related to general compliance and civic virtue. Interpersonal justice was found to predict Altruism, General compliance and Civic Virtue, and negatively related to Sportsmanship and informational justice has been found to predict all the dimensions of OCB. The results show that certain behaviors are driven by the sense of being valued and trusted while other behaviors are common and individual specific.

This study suggests that when software organizations seek to provide distributed members with a sense of comfort in distributed locations and employees are allowed some control over processes that determine the organizational outcome, they are more likely to perceive that their organization is supportive, feel affectively committed and are more willing to engage in citizenship behaviors. Thus software organizations desiring to create an organizational climate among distributed team that fosters organizational support, role efficacy and citizenship behavior must make every effort to improve perceptions of organizational fairness in their organizations.

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Distributed Teams: Software Organizations