EMPLOYEES’ RESILIENCE, HOPE AND OPTIMISM AS PREDICTORS OF WORKPLACE CIVILITY AND ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR
Abstract:The study investigated employees’ resilience, hope and optimism as predictors of workplace
civility and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among civil servants in Ekiti State, Nigeria;
following the efforts of positive psychology to discover the importance of positivity to people
and a renewed emphasis on the importance of positivity to organizational effectiveness and
growth. A sample of 262 civil servants was selected for the study, using the multi-stage random
sampling technique to select the Ministries, Departments and Agencies as well as the research
participants. A questionnaire was used to collect data and was adopted from Brief Resilience
Scale (BRS) developed by Smith et. al, Beck’s Hopelessness Scale developed by Beck, 10-items
Life Orientation Test Revised (LOT-R) developed by Scheier and Carver, Civility Scale developed by
Meterko et.al, and the 18 items Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale developed by Organ.
Data were analyzed using the multiple regression analysis and results of analysis revealed that
employees’ resilience, hope and optimism significantly jointly predict workplace civility and
organizational citizenship behaviour. Results also revealed that whereas resilience, hope and
optimism individually significantly predict OCB, only hope and optimism individually significantly
predict workplace civility.