2011 Fourth International Joint Conference on Computational Sciences and Optimization
Relationship between Universities Organizational Culture, Teachers' Psychological
Empowerment and Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Xinghong Jiang
Economy and Trade College
ChongQing Technology and Business University
Nan’an District, Chongqing, China
e-mail:jxh00016@163.com
Abstract—This paper discusses the relationship between
University Organizational Culture, Teachers’ Psychological
Empowerment and Organizational Citizenship Behavior
through the questionnaire and analysis. It shows that
University Organizational Culture has a very strong influence
upon Teachers’ Psychological Empowerment and
Organizational Citizenship Behavior. On one hand, the
hierarchy-oriented and Market-oriented University
Organizational Culture may lead to distorting the implication
of Teachers’ Psychological Empowerment. On the other hand,
both University Organizational Culture and Teachers’
Psychological Empowerment can exert an effective prediction
of Organizational Citizenship Behavior. And Organizational
Culture can affect Teachers’ Organizational Citizenship
Behavior both directly and indirectly through the psychology.
Therefore, it’s of significance for the university’s development
and reformation to establish the organizational culture
reflecting the nature and logic of the university, acknowledge
the teachers’ subject status, and respect their academic rights.
Keywords-Organizational Culture; Psychological
Empowerment; Organizational Citizenship Behavior
I. INTRODUCTION
The concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior,
OCB, proposed by Organ on 1988, refers to behaviors which
are exceeding formal job scopes of official duty, not having
direct relation with formal award and punishment system,
but can effectively improve organizational efficacy on the
whole. Professor Jiing-Lih Farh has made important
contributions to researching the structure of Organizational
Citizenship Behavior in Chinese society. DiPaola and others
have first drawn on the Organ’s concept of OCB to study the
Teacher Organizational Citizenship Behavior, (TOCB) in
school organizations and put forward the concept of School
Organizational Citizenship Behavior (SOCB) and conducted
a deep study on how to measure SOCB. DiPaola's research
shows that there is a positive correlation between TOCB and
the academic performance of students. Based on the foreign
research results, Chinese scholar YaoNan Zheng, Junwei
Long have probed into the OCB of primary and secondary
teachers and its impact patterns. It shows emotional
exchange, work support, reward fairness and procedural
fairness have effect on TOCB, and there is a significant
positive correlation between the various dimensions of
978-0-7695-4335-2/11 $26.00 © 2011 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/CSO.2011.217
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Qingye Fu
Business School
ShiHeZi University
WuJiaQu, XinJiang, China
e-mail:fqy1508@163.com
TOCB and the various dimensions of teachers’ teaching
efficacy, and organizational commitment and conscientious
action of TOCB are effective predicting variables to
teachers’ teaching efficacy. Psychological Empowerment of
university teachers is the recent major reform of university
management. Many studies suggest that a variety of internal
resources and management value of university teachers, as
the main body of university, have not been fully developed
and used, and academic power has not received the proper
status relative to their actual value.
However, fewer scholars domestic and abroad have
discussion on the relationship of University Organizational
Culture, Teachers’ Psychological Empowerment and
Organizational Citizenship Behavior. Therefore, this paper,
based on the examination of the impacts of the
characteristics and background of organizational culture on
Teachers’ Psychological Empowerment and OCB, explores
organizational culture’s effects on Teachers’ Psychological
Empowerment and OCB to interpret the significance and
value of constructing University Organizational Culture.
II.METHODS
A. Tool designing
The study obtains information by questionnaires, which
are composed of statistical variables, organizational culture
scale, teachers’ psychological empowerment scale and
teachers’ organizational citizenship behavior scale.
Statistical variables include teachers’ gender, professional
titles, seniority, qualifications and age. Higher education
organizational culture scale is adapted from OCAI scale
through the combination of the actual situation of research
objects. It consists of six questions related to the leading
characteristics, leadership style, staff management,
organizational cohesion, strategic focus and the success
criteria; each question has four options, each describing
different situations, which are corresponding to a dominant
organizational culture type with a total of 24 measurement
items.
In this paper, the psychological empowerment scale
adapted from Spreitzer Scale by Li Chao-ping is used to
measure university teachers’ psychological empowerment.
The adapter has made exploratory factor analysis on the
authority scale by using principal component analysis. The
number of factors extracted is determined by Scree Plot, as
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 the principle of eigenvalue greater than or equal to 1 for B. Analysis on the influence of Statistical variables on
factor extraction. The results show that the scale includes university teachers’ psychological empowerment and
four parts: the meaning of work, self-efficacy, autonomy and organizational citizenship behavior
influence of work, the rate of cumulative variance explained I) Multidimensional scaling Comparison and testing of
is 73.78%, and the four dimensions Cronbach  coefficients different gender: From psychological empowerment gender
are: 0.82, 0.72, 0.83, and 0.86. There are three questions radar maps (Table• ), • we can find differences between
each part with a total of 12 questions. genders in the dimension of work influence of psychological
The university teachers’ organizational citizenship empowerment exist more among men than among women,
behavior questionnaire is adapted from DiPaolo’s school and the other dimensions are not much different. The
organizational citizenship behavior questionnaire and Farh’s conclusions obtained are supported by analysis of variance F
questionnaire, and includes four aspects: self-level, test. Overall, except the dimension of public morals, OCB of
interpersonal level, organization level and social level. There different genders are different between men than women.
are 32 questions in Pre-test, which is to be answered by However, F test results through the analysis of variance
Likert Scales. Four factors are taken by principal component support differences between genders of various dimensions
analysis, with reference to Scree Plot. There are 22 questions of OCB are not significant (significance level of 0.05).
in the formal scale, and the cumulative variance of four
factors is 63.2%. The four factors are named: due diligence, TABLE I. STATISTICAL VARIABLES’ PSYCHOLOGICAL
altruism, morality, and humility, whose Cronbach  EMPOWERMENT AND MULTIDIMENSIONAL SCALING
COMPARISON AND TESTING OF OCB
coefficients are: 0.72, 0.79, 0.70, 0.65, and Overall
Cronbach  coefficient is 0.85.
Psychological Empowerment
B. Subject Selecting Test Statistic
variable work influence
In the paper, more than 1560 subjects are selected from meaning
autonomy self-efficacy
on work
X University in China. 4% of the selected different levels of
men and women, old and new teachers are investigated in F 0.12 0.01 2.24 6.41
gender
each of primary teaching and research units, in accordance
with the principle of stratified random sampling. The forms p 0.7334 0.9086 0.1446 0.0166
of Statistical variables, organizational culture scale and professional F 4.24 1.53 0.88 0.83
teachers’ psychological empowerment scale are filled out by title
p 0.0239 0.2327 0.4244 0.4458
the selected subjects, and teachers’ organizational
citizenship behavior scale is evaluated by the supervisors or
colleagues who have a better understanding of the selected
OCB
subjects. A total of 64 sets of questionnaires are distributed,
Test Statistic
and the recovery is 82%, of which 42 valid questionnaires due public
are obtained, and the effective rate is 65.6%. altruism humility
diligence morals

III. EMPIRICAL ANALYSES F 2.75 0.95 0.01 0.21

gender
A. Statistical analysis on the internal consistency of p 0.1071 0.3368 0.9221 0.6510
organizational culture questionnaire and organizational
F 1.89 2.62 4.84 4.05
culture characteristics professional title
The cronbach's alpha coefficient is used to measure the p 0.1683 0.0892 0.0150 0.0276
questionnaire's internal consistency. The coefficients of four
cultural types, Clan-type, Hierarchy-type, II) Multidimensional scaling comparison and testing of
innovation-oriented, and market-oriented, are 0.86, 0.85, different professional titles: From psychological
0.71, and 0.78, all above 0.7, indicating the scale has a empowerment professional titles radar maps (Table• )•, we
higher credibility in the consistency, and this survey is valid. can find the comprehensive value of the psychological
The results of the analysis of organizational culture empowerment of teachers with intermediate professional
criterion characteristics indicated that strong titles is largest, followed by junior and senior. F-test results
market-orientation and hierarchy –orientation are show that "autonomy" dimension of psychological
characteristic of the university culture, and strategic empowerment is significantly different. In general, in the
measures, leadership styles, and operating modes have OCB integrated values of different titles: the primary is
important impacts on the formation of organizational culture, largest, the senior is second, and the intermediate is smallest.
and the current dominant type of organizational culture is F-test results show that the differences of OCB with various
market- oriented. titles in "due diligence", and "altruism" dimension are not
significant, but in the "public morals", and "humility"
dimension are significant (Significance level is 0.05).

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 C. Relationship between University Organizational
Culture, Teachers’ Psychological Empowerment and
OCB
I) Relationship between Psychological Empowerment
and OCB: From Table• ,• we can find university teachers
psychological empowerment is negatively correlated to most
of organizational citizenship behavior, especially
significantly related to the due diligence and public Devil
dimensions of OCB, but other dimensions are not significant.
(Significance level is 0.05).This shows the psychological
empowerment of subjects has a negative impact on OCB,
and the influence on due diligence conduct and ethics acts is
obvious.
We can further discuss and explore the prediction roles
of the subjects’ psychological empowerment to OCB by
making use of the method of stepwise multiple regression
analysis. From Table• ,• we can find the dimension of work
meaning in psychological empowerment can predict the due
diligence behavior of organizational citizenship behavior,
and due diligence behavior is inhibited by the meaning of
work. Meanwhile, the self-efficacy of psychological
-orientation, and positively correlated with the dimensions of
market-orientation and hierarchy -orientation in
organizational culture. In addition to market-oriented
dimension, the correlation is significant. Teachers’
autonomy dimension of psychological empowerment is
significantly correlated with organizational culture in all
dimensions (Significance level is 0.05). We further apply
multiple regression analysis methods to discussing
prediction function the subjects’ organizational culture on
psychological empowerment.
As can be seen from the Table• ,• harmony-orientation of
organizational culture can effectively predict the autonomy
dimension of teachers’ psychological empowerment, and
organizational interpersonal harmony seems to threaten the
autonomy of teachers. Meanwhile, the hierarchy orientation
of organizational culture can effectively predict integrated
value of various dimensions of teachers’ psychological
empowerment, and the variance explained is 54.05%.
TABLE IV. CORRELATION ANALYSIS ON UNIVERSITY
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND TEACHERS’ PSYCHOLOGICAL
EMPOWERMENT

empowerment can predict the humility behavior of

work self- influence
organizational citizenship behavior, and self-efficacy has the meaning
autonomy
efficacy on work
whole
inhibition on the humble behavior.
Clan -0.3438 -0.7856** -0.1623 -0.2645 -0.6520**
TABLE II. CORRELATION ANALYSIS ON UNIVERSITY TEACHERS’
PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL
CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIORS Adhocracy 0.0423 -0.6708** -0.0003 -0.5391* -0.4738*

due public Market -0.0293 0.5323* -0.4236 0.3810 0.1801

altruism humility
diligence morals
Hierarchy 0.3297 0.6456** 0.5583* 0.2143 0.7352**
work meaning -0.2283 * 0.0739 -0.4155** -0.1302
“**” indicates the level of Significance is 0.01, and “*” indicates the level
autonomy -0.3020** -0.1016 -0.2813* -0.2034 of Significance is 0.05.

self-efficacy -0.0178 -0.0587 -0.3297** -0.0517 TABLE V. STEPWISE MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS ON
UNIVERSITY ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE PREDICTING
influence on TEACHERS’ PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT
-0.0699 -0.0610 -0.1587 -0.0727
work
Dependent variable variable R2 
“**” indicates the level of Significance is 0.01, and “*”
indicates the level of Significance is 0.05.
autonomy Clan 0.6172 -3.2180**
TABLE III. STEPWISE MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS ON
UNIVERSITY TEACHERS’ PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT Psychological Empowerment Hierarchy 0.5405 1.4853**
PREDICTING OCB
“**” indicates the level of Significance is 0.01, and “*” indicates the
Dependent variable variable R 2
 level of Significance is 0.05.

due diligence work meaning 0.4743 -6.9573 ** III) Relationship between University Organizational
Culture and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: As can
humility self-efficacy 0.3309 -4.1723* be seen from Table• •, the Harmony-orientation of
organizational culture is significantly positively correlated
“**” indicates the level of Significance is 0.01, and “*” indicates
the level of Significance is 0.05.
with the dimensions of due diligence and humble in OCB,
the adhocracy-orientation of organizational culture is
significantly positively correlated with the dimensions of
II) Relationship between University Organizational altruistic and humble in OCB, the market-orientation of
Culture and Teachers’ Psychological Empowerment: From organizational culture is significantly negatively correlated
Table• ,• we can see university teachers overall with the dimension of altruistic in OCB, and the
psychological empowerment is negatively correlated with hierarchy-orientation of organizational culture is
the dimensions of harmony-orientation and adhocracy

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 significantly negatively correlated with the dimension of organizational culture can predict altruistic behavior of OCB,
humble in OCB. and inhibit the altruistic behavior.
The relevance between dimensions of organizational
culture and other dimensions of teachers’ organizational TABLE VIII. STEPWISE MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS ON
UNIVERSITY ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND TEACHERS’
citizenship behavior is not significant (significance level is PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT PREDICTING OCB
0.05). We further apply multiple regression analysis
methods to discussing the prediction function of the Dependent variable variable R2 
subjects’ organizational culture on OCB. As can be seen
from Table• ,• harmony-orientation and Adhocracy due diligence
Psychological
0.5122 -10.25545 **
-orientation of organizational culture can predict the due Empowerment
diligence dimension of OCB, and organizational
altruism Market 0.4015 -14.64397 *
interpersonal harmony promotes the due diligence behavior,
but Adhocracy -orientation is on the inhibition of due public morals - - -
diligence behavior. Meanwhile, the market-orientation and
hierarchy -orientation of organizational culture can Psychological
humility 0.6527 -10.12656**
respectively predict the altruistic dimension and humility Empowerment
dimension of OCB, and can also respectively inhibit
“**” indicates the level of Significance is 0.01, and “*” indicates the
altruistic behavior and humility behavior. level of Significance is 0.05.
TABLE VI. CORRELATION ANALYSIS ON UNIVERSITY
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND OCB IV. RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS
due public
In view of the above analysis, the results can be
altruism humility interpreted as: academic administration, the "official
diligence morals
standard" and the blind commercialization lead teaching and
Clan 0.59954 * 0.33430 0.13618 0.58644* researching staff to being the tools of passively
implementing Executive Order, and in the environment of
Adhocracy 0.09822 0.48199 * -0.19190 0.49945 * hierarchy-oriented and market-oriented culture, the
connotation of subjects’ psychological empowerment may
Market -0.25721 -0.63366** -0.11074 -0.21362 be the feeling of pursuing bureaucratic power rather than
academic freedom. Therefore, with the promotion of titles
Hierarchy -0.38488 -0.00540 0.09180 -0.65626** and the increase of teaching experience, teachers’ feeling the
pursuit of bureaucratic power may appear in the form of
“**” indicates the level of Significance is 0.01, and “*” indicates the
level of Significance is 0.05. inverted "U", resulting in the distortion of the distribution of
psychological empowerment level. At the same time, it is
TABLE VII. STEPWISE MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS ON
easy to understand that feeling the pursuit of bureaucratic
UNIVERSITY ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE PREDICTING OCB power is significantly negatively correlated to organizational
citizenship behavior, whereby one can understand the result
Dependent variable variable R2  that the psychological empowerment of teachers with
intermediate titles is the largest, and organizational
due diligence Clan 0.3595 36.74217** citizenship behavior is the worst. OCB of teachers with
junior titles is the most prominent, which may be caused by
due diligence Adhocracy 0.6448 -38.81272* new teachers’ role confusion and impression management
motives. It is believed that university organizational culture
altruism Market 0.4015 -14.64397** and psychological empowerment can be used to explain
organizational citizenship behavior. Organizational culture
public morals - - -
has not only a direct impact on teachers’ organizational
citizenship behaviors, but also has indirect effects on
humility Hierarchy 0.4307 -16.61882**
teachers’ organizational citizenship behaviors through
psychological empowerment. At the same time, university
“**” indicates the level of Significance is 0.01, and “*” indicates
the level of Significance is 0.05.
teachers’ psychological empowerment is influenced by such
factors unrelated to organizational culture, such as system
and individual characteristics.
IV) Multiple regression analysis on University Based on the above discussion, we can draw the
Organizational Culture, Teachers’ Psychological following conclusions. Firstly, because knowledge creation
Empowerment and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: and dissemination are the main activities of universities, so
From table• ,• psychological empowerment can predict due the bureaucracy mechanism and the market mechanism can
diligence behavior and humility behavior of OCB, and only play a limited role. By contrast, organizational culture
inhibits both. Meanwhile, the market-orientation of can be better to coordinate organization activities of
universities, which is essential to enhance organization's

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 cohesion force and improve teachers’ organizational senses of responsibility and ownership intellectuals should
citizenship behaviors. Secondly, the bodies of universities, have. Therefore, academic administration, the "official
as fields carrying out teaching and academic research, are standard", the erosion of the blind commercialization, and
supposed to be teachers and scholars engaged in teaching other disadvantages, will seriously affect universities’
and academic research. The current management system is reform and development. It is the premise for improving
putting the cart before the horse. Officials and administrative teachers’ motivation and performance to recognize the
agencies have various management and decision-making, dominant position of teachers, and respect the teachers’
but teaching and researching staff have become the tools of academic authority. It is of great significance for the
passively implementing executive orders, and passively universities’ reform and development to establish the
work under the environment with less pressure, less motion organizational culture reflecting essential nature and logic of
and less vitality, and do an errand perfunctorily, without the universities.
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