Program accreditation for enterprise change: how organizational support and commitment impact citizenship behaviour in Oman

Purpose: This study aims to investigate a mediated-effects model of organizational support and citizenship behaviour. The model proposes organizational support as an antecedent of citizenship behaviour and commitment to change (CTC) as a mediator in the organizational support–citizenship behaviour relationship. Design/methodology/approach: Cross-sectional survey data were collected from university faculty (n = 221) and analyzed using structural equation modelling. Findings: The findings showed that organizational support significantly contributes to increased citizenship behaviour and commitment of university faculty to program accreditation as an enterprise change process. The authors conclude that university-level organizational support shapes faculty’s CTC both directly and indirectly. The findings have significant practical implications for higher education institutions (HEIs) where new practices that aim at improving institutional effectiveness are embraced. Research limitations/implications: The study is cross-sectional (i.e. one-time data collection), which restricts the ability to make generable inferences about cause-and-effect relationships. Although the authors tested a model, longitudinal research is needed to unpack the processes of organizational support, commitment and citizenship behaviour. During enterprise change management, organizations work tirelessly to build and maintain citizenship behaviour. Therefore, considering citizenship behaviour in relation to other processes over time is important. However, relying on one source of data may represent another limitation, which increases concerns about common method bias in the current investigation. Practical implications: The study findings offer a number of implications to HEIs in contexts where accreditation is perceived as an enterprise change process. Universities, similar to any other organizations, rely consistently on methods and mechanism through which employees’ professional performance, engagement and involvement can be enhanced. Accreditation has always been examined by exploring externally focused variables such as global reputation, organizational prestige and international prominence. The present study, however, draws attention to how perceived organizational support (POS) may be an equally important lever that needs to be considered before accreditation is introduced in HEIs. University chancellors, deans and other university leaders can directly influence organizational support by creating a system that weighs the extra work needed, the human resources and the incentives, and developing a plausible action plan. Social implications: It is unlikely that all faculty members will maintain quality relationship with the university leadership and immediate leaders such as department chairpersons or the college dean. This unlikelihood increases during crisis and change time. The study findings showed that POS contributes significantly to organizational citizenship behaviour. Therefore, it could be argued that the resistance to change that tends to be associated with accreditation can be mitigated by showing employees that support is accessible and attainable from up-line and immediate leaders. The findings suggest that commitment serves as an integral mediating mechanism between organizational support and citizenship behaviour. Indeed, commitment can be fully examined in practice from the perspective of its three-pronged structure (i.e. affective, continuance and normative). The findings provide credence to the notion that accreditation as an enterprise change process cannot be achieved without employee commitment and organizational support. Originality/value: As a result of adopting globalized techniques, HEIs in Arab nations have undergone significant changes. In the Arab context, the adoption of academic program accreditation in HEIs has been seen as an enterprise change process with both supporters and detractors. In other words, implementing new systems or procedures results in changes that might upend personnel at any given organization. Therefore, it is contended that how well an organization responds to resistance to change will likely depend on the interaction of organizational, contextual and individual-related characteristics.