ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR AND LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE AS CORRELATES OF WORKPLACE VIOLENCE AMONG WORKERS: MODERATING ROLE OF AUTONOMY

The present study investigated the moderating role of autonomy in the relationship among organizational citizenship behaviours, leader member exchange and workplace violence. Two hundred and twenty (220) non-teaching staff of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka campus participated in the study. They comprised of 176 females and 44 males. Their age ranged from 22 to 53 years with their mean age of 33.1yearsand standard deviation of 5.7. Four instruments were adopted in the study, namely 12-item workplace violence scale developed by Wang (2002), 20-item organizational citizenship behavior scale developed by Spector, Fox, Goh, Brussema & Kessler (2012), 11-item leader member exchange scale developed by Graen and Taylor (2004). Correlational design was employed for the study. Pearson product moment correlation statistics and multiple regression were also employed as the statistical tool to test the 4 hypotheses generated. The results of the hypotheses tested showed that organizational citizenship behavior positively and significantly correlated with workplace violence (r=.88, P<.001), leader member exchange positively and significantly correlated with workplace (r=.82, P<.001), autonomy significantly moderated the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and leader member exchange on workplace violence β(.-67, t= -5.15, p<.01)). Autonomy moderated the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and leader member exchange β(-2.34; t= -5.57, p<.01). It was recommended that workers should be encouraged to imbibe citizenship behaviours in their workplaces.


Introduction
Work is vital in the lives of people and it is important that the workplace is as safe as possible. Unfortunately, there is an increasing trend of violence of various forms at the workplace. The increasing phenomenon of workplace violence has devastating consequences on the individual worker and the organization, as well as witnesses and even the society at large (Asmani, 2016). Certain types of violence tend to happen more in specific sectors than others (Asamani, 2016). Some of the violent acts that workers experience in their work places include: physical attack, misleading information on the nature of job one does, use of bad languages among workers, derogatory remarks among workers and even intentionally belittling of a coworker's opinion (Wang, 2002). These are negative organizational indices that occur within workplaces, and thus, tends to reduce general organizational productivity.
Workplace violence according to World Health Organization (2003) is defined as incidents where staff are abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances related to their work, including commuting to and from work.
The resultant effect of workplace violence may not only end with the workers, most times, there are physical harms to the victims, including deaths, psychological harms and even financial losses to the organization (Asamani, 2016). It has been shown that workplace violence affects every professional group in every country and sometimes to an 'epidemic' extent (Gates 2004;Mohamad and Motasem, 2012).
In the past, most research in this area has focused attention on identifying environmental antecedents of workplace violence such as job stressors that may increase an individual vulnerability to workplace violence (American Nurses Association, 2017; Boafo & Hancock, 2017;Cheung, Lee & Yip, 2017). Others have confirmed the resonating influence of dispositional, contextual variables and personality traits such as anger trait to workplace violence (Najafi, Fallahi-Khoshknab, Ahmadi, Dalvandi, & Rahgozar, 2018). For instance, Adegoke (2014), conducted a study on effects of occupational stress on psychological wellbeing of police employees in Ibadan, Nigeria. The study found that there were significant effects of work stress, frustration and depression on psychological wellbeing of police employees in Ibadan metropolies. Although, many researchers agree on the interactions' perspective in investigating individual and environmental variables in predicting behaviors, few have studied both with workplace violence in the same study (Lewis, 2009). However, it is perceived that lack of civic and citizenship behaviors in organizations could be a causal factor to workplace violence.
Historically, the concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior was first introduced by Bateman and Organ (1983). After Bateman and Organ, the concept was refined and conceptualized by several researchers. According to Organ (1988), organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) can be defined as individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization. These are supporting or helping behaviors, not prescribed by the organization and there is no reward or punishment for this behavior.
Ideally, Borman (2004) has defined OCB as participating in activities or actions that are not formally part of the job description, but that benefits the organization as a whole. Organ (1988) considered organizational citizenship behavior as an important factor for the survival of an organization.
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) could also be viewed as those specific occasions when employees go beyond what is formally expected of them to get work done in order to promote the growth, effectiveness, and success of the organization (Igbinomwanhia & Akinmayowa, 2014;Zhang, 2011). Today's workplace is more dynamic, complex, and highly competitive than before. Organizations are constantly looking for ways to improve their competitive position. Thus, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is believed to be an important component of what gives organizations competitive advantage that permits them to successfully accomplish goals (Igbinomwanhia & Akinmayowa, 2014).
On this ground, it is important to mention that Organizations neither survive nor prosper without its employees behaving as good citizens and engaging in all sort of positive behaviors. By and large, and from the above explanations, organizational citizenship behavior could be seen as a buffer that goes a long way to reducing organizational frustration in most organizations.
Leader-member exchange (LMX) as a concept which could help in promoting industrial harmony in organizations is seen as a situation where leaders, consciously or unconsciously have significant influence on the behavior and performance of individuals, groups and organizations within which they function, as it is evident in the finding of Bauer and Erdogan (2014). LMX as a theory also, is premised on the assumption that the type of relationship leaders have with their followers (members of the organization or employees) is the key to understanding the manner in which leaders influence employees (Bauer & Erdogan, 2014).
Interestingly, LMX theory is premised on the assumption that the type of relationship leaders have with their followers (members of the organization or employees) is the key to understanding the manner in which leaders influence employees (Bauer & Erdogan, 2014). Also, LMX theory provides a background for researchers to evaluate the impact of superior-subordinate relationships on the behavior and performance of the organization (Robbins & Judge, 2015). LMX is a term that refers to the quality of relationship between leaders and subordinates and how the quality of such relationship impact on both the leader and the subordinates in an organization (Yukl, 2005). In the words of Glynn and Dejordy (2010), LMX theory stresses the relational basis, influence and tactics that leaders adopt and how they vary in relation to followers: when followers are similar to leaders, LMX predicts that leaders will give them more responsibility, attention, and rewards, but when followers are different, leaders will tend to give them less attention, managing by relying more on formal rules and structures. This is corroborated by Dhivya & Sripirabaa (2015) where they saw leader member exchange and personal characteristics positively impacting the work engagement and employees performance.
Autonomy is viewed and considered essential in ensuring that positive organizational indices like OCB and leader-member exchange thrives and thus go a long way in acting as a buffer to negative organizational outcomes like workplace violence. This assertion is supported by (VandenBos, 2015), when he saw mental, autonomy and general psychological wellbeing as the state of mind characterized by emotional wellbeing, good behavioral adjustment, relative freedom from anxiety and disabling symptoms, and a capacity to establish constructive relationships and cope with ordinary demands and stress of life.
Autonomy is the regulation of one's own behavior through an internal locus of control (Ryff, 1989;Ryff & Keyes, 1995). A fully-functioning person has a high level of internal evaluation, assessing the self on personal standards and achievements while not relying on the standards of others. They do not strive for endorsement from other individuals (Ryff, 1989), are focused on their own beliefs and are less swayed by others people's ideas. A high level of autonomy suggests independence with a low level suggesting concern over and self-perception. Internal locus of control is an important component of motivation (Weinberg & Gould, 2007) with athletes' generally requiring autonomy, personal insight and objectivity in order to sustain self confidence and belief. Autonomy is also linked to self-determined motivation in sport participation (Huang & Jeng, 2005).
Increased control over the work environment motivates workers to try and master new tasks and provide citizenship behaviors which are consistent with work design research that has demonstrated the motivational benefits of autonomy (Fried & Ferris 1987;Morgeson & Campion, 2003). This is suggestive that workers when given autonomy are likely to integrate more organizational citizenship behavior in organizations in which they find themselves. Some researchers have acknowledged the possibility that ability may be a prerequisite for certain types of behaviors (Organ & Ryan, 1995) and that limitation in capabilities will result in job incumbents, limiting how they define their roles (Morgeson & Campion, 2003)

Frustration-Aggression Theory (Dollard, 1939)
In 1939 Dollard, proposed the Frustration-Aggression Theory of violence. This theory derived many of its basic postulates from Freudian theory (1930). It explains the process by which frustration is linked to aggression. Whenever something interferes with an individual's attempt to reach certain goals or end, he feels frustrated and frustration in turn, leads to some forms of aggression (Dollard, 1939). Aggression includes both physical and verbal behaviors which intend to hurt someone. It is closely related to increased tension and restless movements or feelings of anger that may lead to destructiveness and hostile attacks.
Iloke, Stephen E., Oguegbe, Tochukwu M., Ezeh, Leonard N. ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR AND LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE AS CORRELATES OF WORKPLACE VIOLENCE AMONG WORKERS: MODERATING ROLE OF AUTONOMY People become frustrated, when they are unable to reach their goals, when frustrated; they tend to strike out at others, in ways that range from tongue lashing to overt violence. They consider verbs like destroy, damage, and torment, retaliate, hurt, humiliate, insult, threaten and intimidate as action of an aggressive nature.
Aggression was thus regarded as a response to frustration, directed towards the infliction of injury. The injury may be mental as well as of physical in nature and the target of aggression may be animate or inanimate. In other words, aggression is the dominate response in the hierarchy of responses to frustration and this dominant position of aggression is probably the result of learning rather than of innate factor.
Thus, the theory of Frustration-Aggression is criticized on the ground that aggression is not always directed to the source of frustration but often is directed towards some other objects i.e. displaced aggression. It is also criticized on the grounds that, (1) the relationship between frustration and aggression is not innate; that (2) a wide variety of responses may result from frustration and aggressions are not the only responses; (3) that aggression may be an adaptive response and a rational choice of behavior.
Yet other criticisms against this theory are: that (i) human behavior is not an extension of animal instinctive or innate behavior but is the product of a complex interplay of biological and environmental factors. An individual's social behavior depends upon his social and cultural milieu; (ii) Responses to frustrations are learnt just like any other social behavior and what is learnt has a lot to do with socialization practices which themselves differ from group to group and society to society.
Despite the number of criticisms flooding the frustration-aggression theory, there is still a justifiable evidence credible enough for this research to be hinged on it. The evidence is: even though, following frustration, aggression is not always observed, it may nevertheless be there as a 'tendency'. To put it another way, if one sticks with the assumption that "aggression is always a consequence of frustration", one can always find evidence for it if one looks long enough. A sufficiently diligent search is bound to uncover aggression following frustration and (one presumes) a frustration to which aggression can be traced.
In view of the contributions of the review and observed gaps, the following hypotheses guided the study: 1) Organizational Citizenship Behavior will have a significant correlation with workplace violence. 2) Leader Member Exchange will have a significant correlation with workplace violence.

3) Autonomy will moderate the relationship between Organizational Citizenship
Behavior and Workplace violence. 4) Autonomy will moderate the relationship between Leader Member Exchange and Workplace violence.

Workplace Violence Scale (WPVS)
Workplace violence was measured using a 12-item WPVS developed by Wang, (2002). The instrument measured actively hostile behaviors that workers experience during or at work. It is a five point Likert type response that ranges from 5= "Very often to 1= Never". Some of the sample items in the scale include; "How often have you been given offensive remarks at work", "how often have you been pushed or grabbed at work". Wang (2002), reported a cronbach alpha of .70 which makes the instrument reliable for use. A pilot study was conducted using 30 participants from non-teaching staff of Ebonyi State University, Abakalikiand a cronbach coefficient of .90 was obtained.

Organizational Citizenship Scale (OCBS)
Organizational citizenship scale was developed by Spector, et al, (2012). It is a 20-item scale used in measuring Organizational citizenship behavior. It is measured on a five point Likert format, ranging from 1= "Never" to 5= "Everyday", indicating the extent to which the item applies to the participant. Some of the sample items in the scale include; "Picked meal for others at work", took time to coach or advice a coworker". Spector, et al (2012), reported coefficient alpha for the 20-item version of the OCBS at .89 which makes the instrument reliable for use. A pilot study was conducted using 30 participants from non-teaching staff of Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki and a cronbach coefficient of .88 was obtained.

Leader Member Exchange Scale (LMXS)
Leader member exchange was measured using the 11-item LMX scale developed by Graen and Taylor (2004). The instrument assessed the quality of Supervisors-Subordinates relationship from the perspective of the subordinates. It is one of the most commonly used scales used in assessing the quality of LMX, and it measured three dimensions; trust, respect and obligation. It is a five point Likert type response that ranges from 1= "Strongly Agree" to 5= "Strongly Disagree". Some of the sample items in the scale include; "My direct supervisor would help me with my job problem", my direct supervisor has trust that I would carry my workload". Graen and Taylor (2004), reported a cronbach alpha of .95 which makes the instrument reliable for use. A pilot study was conducted using 30 participants from non-teaching staff of Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki and a cronbach coefficient of .93was obtained.

Autonomy Subscale
Ryff's Autonomy subscale was used to measure autonomy. The instrument assessed the level of autonomy among workers. It is a six (6) point Likert type response that ranges from 1= "Strongly Disagree to 5= "Strongly Agree". Some of the sample items in the scale include; "my decisions are not usually influenced by what everyone else does or is doing", "I have confidence in my opinion even if they are contrary to the general consensus". A pilot study was conducted using a selected sample of Anambra State University Staff, to check for the validity and reliability of the instrument. A pilot study was conducted using 30 participants from non-teaching staff of Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki and a cronbach coefficient of .81 was obtained. The result in the above table revealed that leader member exchange negatively and significantly correlated with workplace violence at r= -.37, p <.001, level of significance. Hence, hypothesis 1 was rejected. It was also found that leader organizational citizenship behaviour positively and significantly correlated with workplace violence at r = .82, p < .001 (see Table 1). For this reason, the hypothesis 2 was accepted. Furthermore, autonomy positively and significantly correlated with workplace violence at r = .32, level of significance. By implication, this means that leader member exchange, organizational citizenship behaviour and autonomy are significantly related to workplace violence among employees although in a different dimension. Thus, as leader member exchange, Iloke, Stephen E., Oguegbe, Tochukwu M., Ezeh, Leonard  organizational citizenship behaviour and autonomy decreases workplace violence may also increase among employees. The result of the moderated regression analysis using enter method revealed that in model 1, autonomy significantly moderated the relationship between organizational citizenship behaviour and leader member exchange on workplace violence at F (2,217) = 1137.63, p <. 01. Thus, hypothesis 3 was accepted.

Results
Similarly, in model 2, the interaction between autonomy, organizational citizenship, leader member exchange accounted for significantly more variance than just organizational citizenship and leader member exchange by themselves, R 2 change = .02 at p <. 01. This indicates that there is a potential significant moderation of autonomy on the relationship between organizational citizenship and leader member exchange on workplace violence. Specifically, the standardized beta coefficients for leader member exchange, organizational citizenship, autonomy, and the interaction between the models significantly predicted workplace violence, β = .56, -1.26 and .05, p<.05 respectively (for more details see the Appendix B). Thus, hypothesis 4 was accepted.

Discussion
The present study investigated organizational citizenship behavior and leader-member exchange as correlates of workplace violence among non-teaching staff of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka: the moderating roles of autonomy. Four hypotheses were tested using Pearson product moment correlation statistics for hypotheses one and two, while multiple regression analysis was used for hypotheses three and four respectively and the results were discussed below.
In hypothesis one, there was a positive and significant correlation between organizational citizenship behaviour and workplace violence. This implies that as citizenship behavior of workers increases, violence in workplace will reduce. Findings agree with Pailles' (2011) study that job stress and intention to leave will be positively related and that organizational citizenship behavior will correlate job stress. According to the study, when job stress increases, the intention to leave of the workers also increases. Data suggests that an employee who experiences job satisfaction can manage stressful work-induced by his or her professional environment.
The second hypothesis which stated that leader member exchange will have a significant correlation with workplace violence was accepted. There was a positive correlation between leader member exchange and workplace violence. This means that as leaders and members of the organization exchanges ideas about the smooth workings of the organization, violence in workplace will be reduced. This is in line with Dhivya & Sripirabaa (2015) who in their empirical researches found out that leader member exchange is a major predictor of work engagement. The practical implication is that it is important for principals to improve on work engagement and relationships in efforts to improve employee performance.
The third hypothesis which sought to find out if autonomy will moderate the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and workplace violence was also confirmed, in other words, autonomy moderated the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and workplace violence. This implies that when there is higher level of autonomy among workers, citizenship behaviours increases, thereby reducing the occurrence of workplace violence. This finding is in line with Adegoke (2014) empirical research which recommended that government police and other organizations should endeavour to find means of managing psychological attributes such as emotional labour, psychological well-being, stress and social networks of their employee. More so, in Aide & Ronke (2017) study, workplace violence has a significant influence on psychological well-being. Udeze, Abamara, Okoye & Chine (2018) in line with this study, recommended that state of emergency should be declared on violence especially among home caregivers by the government and other agencies if psychological well-being should be achieved. Tammy & Lauzier (2014) in their study found that social support can protect workers from a particular damaging consequence of workplace bullying. Such supports appear to function as a buffer for targets of workplace bullying by providing them with resources to cope with these types of difficult workplace situations.
The fourth hypothesis which sought to find out if autonomy will moderate the relationship between leader member exchange and workplace violence was accepted. This result is indicating that autonomy moderated the relationship between leader member exchange and workplace violence; the presence of autonomy led to a higher level of leader member exchange and reduced violence in the workplace. The result indicated a potential significant moderation of autonomy on the relationship between leader member exchange and workplace violence. The finding is in line with the study of Alshamrani (2017), who conducted a study on the relationship between leader member exchange, job satisfaction and affective commitment, gender similarity in segregated work environment. The result of the study showed and suggested that teacher training should pay more attention to minimizing the stereotyping of females in relation to gendered relationship. Iloke, Stephen E., Oguegbe, Tochukwu M., Ezeh, Leonard (2013) found and recommended that managers should ensure that work is designed in a way that it improves employees' feelings of satisfaction and commitment to the work which will impact on how well they perform on their jobs and that an assessment of the type of management style employed can assist in determining the basis for a successful and affective performance in terms of specific programs and projects.
Organizational citizenship behavior was able to correlate positively and significantly with workplace violence among workers. This is because when workers offer helping hands to their colleagues in the workplace, there will be conduct of workers in the work environment. When they do not work in harmony, there will be truancy, lateness to work and then workplace violence would set in. Thus it is suggested that organizations encourage citizenship behaviors in their organizations.

Conclusion
The study explored the moderating role of autonomy on the relationship among organizational citizenship behavior, leader member exchange and workplace violence among workers. Organizational citizenship behavior positively and significantly affected workplace violence among workers. Leader member exchange positively and significantly affected workplace violence among workers. Autonomy moderated the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and workplace violence, so also it moderated the relationship between leader member exchange and workplace violence. These findings goes to show that modern day working conditions require organizations to give importance in encouraging citizenship behaviors and then provide workers with opportunities to discover their potentials, contribute to certain decision making processes. This will give them sense of belonging and encourage them to give in their bests. Moreover, they need to develop positive workplace strategies which are extending beyond the organizational environment and possibly affect workers non-work life, because workers are able to perform if they feel comfortable with physical and mental health.

Recommendations
Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations were given: 1) It is recommended that non-teaching staff of the university should be encouraged to render assistance to coworkers in need, help complete their tasks and provide other citizenship behaviors which could generally promote the effective functioning of the organization. 2) Also, it is recommended that management adopts leader-member kind of leadership style, where workers of subordinate jurisdiction are allowed participation in the decision making process of the organization. This will give the workers huge sense of belonging and thus reduce workplace violence.
Similarly, organizations are duty bound to ensure that workplace violence is handled and prevented at any stage of its occurrence.

Implications
The study has theoretical implications in the sense that it will add to the existing knowledge of the variables understanding and proper conceptualization of the variables. It also has numerous practical implications for universities and other organizations. For instance, if workers are allowed exchange of ideas from their superiors, there will be a decrease in workplace violence. The current study provided an insight into the leadership style that best suits organizations. This invariably will enable the management to seek ways of improving on leader member relationships. Additionally, the results of this finding can help the management of organizations to seek ways of ameliorating and curbing workplace violence. If the organizational practices encourages organizational citizenship behaviors and supervisor or leaders of the organization allows employees participation in decision making, it will curb workplace violence and this will improve workers dedication and citizenship behavior. Lastly, the findings will help management of organizations to know the best leadership style to adopt in enhancing and promoting good workplaces.