Occupational Stress as a Correlate of Organisational Citizenship Behaviour and Emotional Intelligence among some Graduate Employees in Nigeria

Abstract

It is a documented fact that occupational stress is widespread worldwide. Moreover, there are clear signs of many variables, related to occupational stress. The study therefore, was conducted to demonstrate whether the presence of occupational stress in the world of work relates in any form (positive or negative) to a better level of organisational performance and employee psychological wellbeing. The study adopted the positivist explanatory cross-sectional (survey) research design to systematically sample opinions of 1,532 male and female graduate employees across the various sectors of the Nigerian economy, using a structured and validated questionnaire, and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The results showed that there was a weak positive relationship between occupational stress and organisational citizenship behaviour (r = 0.070, p<0.01); there was a significant positive relationship between occupational stress and emotional intelligence (r = 0.086, p<0.01); and there was a significant positive relationship between emotional intelligence and organisational citizenship behaviour (r = 0.473, p<0.01). It recommends that human resource managers should develop emotional intelligence in employees in order to increase the level of organisational performance, and reduce the negative impact of occupational stress.