10-1108_JGR-05-2018-0014

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Organizational cynicism and
employee performance
Moderating role of employee engagement
Muhammad Arslan
Faculty of Agribusiness and Commerce, Lincoln University,
Christchurch, New Zealand
Abstract
Purpose – Organizational cynicism is a growing trend in contemporary organizations. However, its impact
on employee performance remains understudied. The purpose of this study is to address this gap by
investigating the effect of three dimensions of organizational cynicism (cognitive, affective and behavioral
cynicisms) on employee performance. The study also investigates the moderating effect of employee
engagement on the relationship between three types of organizational cynicism and employee performance.
Design/methodology/approach – Primary data are collected through questionnaire from employees
(N = 200) of various health organizations in Pakistan by using a convenient sampling technique. Hierarchal
multiple regressionmodels are used by using SPSS.
Findings – The findings reveal that all three types of organizational cynicism (i.e. cognitive cynicism,
affective cynicism and behavioral cynicism) have a significant negative relationship with employee
performance, while employee engagement moderates this relationship. Moreover, the findings indicate that
the majority of respondents are not happy with their organizations. They have the feeling that their
organizations are not fulfilling their promises, in fact, are betraying them in different ways. This breach of
contract becomes the reason for organizational cynicism among employees and negatively affects their
performance at work.
Research limitations/implications – The study has a large population size and it is quite difficult to
address the whole population and collect data from a large sample because of time and limited budget.
Practical/implications – The organizational culture can mitigate the negative effect of organizational
cynicism and enhance performance by promoting employee engagement. The study helps psychologists to
understand employees’ attitudes and improve personnel selection to ensure they recruit the right people.
Openness, honesty and early communication can increase predictability and controllability of future events.
Social implications – The job insecurity and lack of adequate compensation are assertive factors towards
low productivity and negative attitude toward organization.
Originality/value – According to the researchers’ best knowledge, only few studies tried to investigate the
relationship between organizational cynicism and employee performance by using the moderating effect of
employee engagement. Therefore, it will be a good contribution in existing literature to understand
consequences of cynicisms.
Keywords Employee performance, Employee engagement, Affective cynicism,
Behavioral cynicism, Cognitive cynicism, Hierarchal multiple regression
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
In the contemporary era, human resources have a pivotal role in today’s organizations
wanting to gain a competitive edge in the international and indigenous employment market.
The workforce is considered as a strategic asset in any organization for the formulation and
implementation of strategies. In recent decades, it can be seen that the complexity of work
life, differences between social and individual expectations, environmental conditions and
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employee
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415
Received 3May 2018
Revised 23 August 2018
Accepted 8 October 2018
Journal of Global Responsibility
Vol. 9 No. 4, 2018
pp. 415-431
© EmeraldPublishingLimited
2041-2568
DOI 10.1108/JGR-05-2018-0014
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2041-2568.htm
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JGR-05-2018-0014
problematic time management issues have created anxiety and tension for employees in any
organization. For decades, the investigation of employees’ attitudes has been an interesting
area of research for organizations and researchers. The reason for this in-depth interest is
obvious, because these interests have a profound effect on organizational performance and
employees’ behavior. It is evident from the existing literature that job satisfaction and
organizational commitment have been studied extensively and researchers have
enthusiastically explained and operationalized the idea and its precursors in different
cultural and organizational settings (Abraham, 2000; Davis and Gardner, 2004; Medina and
Rufín, 2015; Nafei, 2013a; Rodrigues and Carlos M, 2010). Various scholars have studied
different dimensions of cynicism; however, the interest of researchers had revolved around
employees’ attitudes, which were in the best interest of organizations (Aslam et al., 2015;
Mantler, Godin et al., 2015; Simha et al., 2014; Yıldız and S� aylıkay, 2014).
Literature provide evidence of increased attention among researchers and organizational
managers about employees’ attitudes, which can have disastrous effects on the overall
organization (Kuo et al., 2015; Sahoo et al., 2015). Organizational cynicism is a comparatively
new addition to these attitudes. According to Dean et al. (1998), organizational cynicism is a
negative attitude of an employee towards the organization. They also defined it as an
attitude of weakness with the key characteristic being negativity. Other researchers have
defined organizational cynicism as an attitude of unfriendliness with oneself for the
organization because the organization will always try to fool its employees, display a lack of
honesty (Nair and Kamalanabhan, 2010) and takes decisions on personal experiences and
knowledge (Koumaditis and Themistocleous, 2015). Ozler et al.(2011) defined it as a negative
feeling by individuals that includes dissatisfaction, disturbance and hopelessness about an
organization and its staff. They also explained it as the outcome of an employees’ belief that
the organization lacked honesty. In other words, the expectations of the employees for
justice, morality and honesty are violated.
Organizational cynicism shows the level of obstruction within an organization.
Researchers argued that these beliefs tended to create negative consequences among the
employees, like emotional exhaustion (Johnson, and O’Leary-Kelly, 2003). It is argued that
negative consequences also include counterproductive behaviors, intentions to comply with
unethical requests, reduced commitment to change, badmouthing and a lack of job
satisfaction (Armmer, 2017; Bernerth et al., 2007; Kuo et al., 2015; Mantler et al., 2015; Simha
et al., 2014; Wilkerson et al., 2008), while few studies have been conducted to investigate the
impact on employee engagement and performance. The current study fills the gap in the
existing literature by investigating the effect of cognitive cynicism, affective cynicism and
behavioral cynicism on employees’ performance and also examines the moderating effect of
employee engagement by taking sample from teaching hospitals of Pakistan.
The rest of the paper is organized into the literature and hypothesis development, and
then methodology, in the second and third sections, respectively. The results are included in
the fourth section and a conclusion and remarks section concludes the paper.
2. Literature and hypothesis development
The literature about organizational and employee performance from the perspective of
cynicism perspective is limited and has focused on the development and application of the
definition of cynicism in the organizational context. Therefore, this section of the paper first
defines cynicism in the organizational context and then presents the extant literature and
hypothesis development and then continues to present organizational cynicism and
performance in the second section and employee engagement in the last section.
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2.1 Organizational cynicism
Cynicism has become the subject of various disciplines in social sciences, for example,
management, religion, philosophy, political science, sociologyand psychology (Helm,
Moulard, and Richins, 2015; Ivancevich and Matteson, 2002; Nicholson et al., 2014; Rose,
Duschinsky, and Macnaughton, 2017). However, the contention about the founder of
cynicism has always been limited to two ancient philosophers; namely, Antisthenes and
Diogenes of Sinope. Scholars argue that Antisthenes was the founder of cynicism (Dean
et al., 1998; Holzman, 1980) and Diogenes was one of his disciples (MacCunn, 1904).
Andersson (1996) argues that Diogenes founded the cynical philosophy and not his teacher,
Antisthenes. Moreover, there are authors who argue that Diogenes was the founder of
cynicism and had no links with Antisthenes whatsoever (Sayer, 1945). According to
Abraham (2000), organizational cynicism occurs when employees lack confidence in an
organization and feel that the organization cannot be relied upon. It has also been found that
this negative attitude has adverse effects on the organization itself as well as the
performance, satisfaction and commitment of its employees. Researchers have investigated
various dimensions of organizational cynicism and in the organizational context; different
models have been developed for studying organizational cynicism (Mantler et al., 2015; Rose
et al., 2017; Yıldız and S� aylıkay, 2014).
2.2 Dimensions of organizational cynicism
Organizational cynicism has three dimensions, that is, cognitive cynicism, affective
cynicism and behavioral cynicism. These dimensions are; having lack of beliefs, negative
emotions and critical behavior about organizations. In cognitive dimension of organizational
cynicism, people’s behaviors are unpredictable and erratic, and also, people can say lie and
trick (Brandes, Dharwadkar, and Dean, 1999), while affective dimension of organizational
cynicism comprises strong emotional reactions such as anger, shame and trouble (Abraham,
2000), and people not only have negative beliefs but also negative emotions towards
organizations (Dean et al., 1998). In behavioral dimension of organizational cynicism,
employees who have cynical behaviors are inclination to distrustful conjecturing about
events in the organization and can act negatively. (Dean et al., 1998).
Organizational cynicism is closely related to other constructs that include work alienation,
job satisfaction, trust, employee performance, burnout and psychological contract violation
(Dean et al., 1998; Johnson and O’Leary-Kelly, 2003; Nicholson et al., 2014; Simha et al., 2014;
Storm and Rothmann, 2003; Yıldız and S� aylıkay, 2014). Job satisfaction, as an attitudinal
variable, is confined to a particular setting where the employee performs tasks and is revealed
only in the responses that arise immediately from these task settings. It has a number of
components, in particular, remuneration, supervision, employment conditions, job security and
prospects for promotion (Rodrigues and Carlos M, 2010). An employee may display job
dissatisfaction when there is disconnection between expectations of the employees and reality.
The employee who is facing job dissatisfaction may end up being persistently absent from
work or leaving the organization. Similarly, a cross-national comparison study in the USA and
Britain documented that police officers who were dissatisfied with their work were more likely
to show signs of cynicism than those who were satisfied (Shanafelt et al., 2015). Researchers
also argued that the occurrence of cynicism also depended upon the nature of the job (Hussami,
2008) and organizational culture (Kaya et al., 2014).
2.3 Organizational cynicism and performance
From a theoretical perspective, organizational cynicism has a negative influence on job
performance. However, researchers argue that cynical employees can be a positive force for
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change by challenging ineffective policies and routines and, consequently, influencing work
effectiveness in a positive way (Brandes and Das, 2006), while some studies found that
society developed negative attitudes towards those firms and their management (Bernerth
et al., 2007; Delken, 2004; Wilkerson, 2002). Similarly, when a company fails to produce a
profit, the employees and public tends to put the blame on the executives of that company.
Consequently, poor decision of company can cause cynicism towards both the management
and the company (Yıldız and S� aylıkay, 2014). Researchers also argued that if a company
pays its executives very high salary levels in poor trading conditions, the level of cynicism
towards management and the organization seems to be stronger than when it is performing
well (Aslam et al., 2015). Correspondingly, when a public institution is seen to be failing to
deliver services that it ought to, employees generally feel ashamed of being associated with
the institution and cultivate cynicism towards the institution and its management. In the
literature, several studies have been conducted to investigate the relationship between
organizational cynicism, job burnout and job-related outcomes (Nafei, 2014; Nicholson et al.,
2014; Simha et al., 2014; Yıldız and S� aylıkay, 2014). Some researchers did not find any
association between level of job satisfaction and organizational commitment to enhance
performance (Rodrigues and Carlos M, 2010). However, Abraham (2000) found a positive
association between organizational cynicism and job dissatisfaction and alienation and with
a negative association with organizational commitment and organizational behavior. Pelit
and Pelit (2014) found strong and positive correlation between mobbing and organizational
cynicism among hotel employees in Turkey. In addition, Aslam et al. (2015) conducted a
study to investigate the impact of organizational cynicism and privatization and found
interactive effect of behavioral resistance in the relation among dispositional resistance,
employee’s intent to quit and organizational contextual factors. The empirical literature also
reveals that factors, such as high salary packages for executives, retrenchment of employees
and failure of the organization to achieve set objectives, generate dissatisfaction and,
subsequently, disillusionment towards the organization itself and this creates a high level of
cynicism (Aslam et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2009; Kuo et al., 2015). The following hypothesis
of the study includes the relationship between an employee’s performance and three types of
organizational cynicism, as follows:
H1. Cognitive Cynicism has negative relationship with employee performance.
H2. Affective Cynicism has negative relationship with employee performance.
H3. Behavioral Cynicism has negative relationship with employee performance.
2.4 Employee engagement and organizational cynicism
In academia, employee engagement has received much consideration over the past decade.
An emergent body of knowledge supports the relationship between employee engagement
and organizational outcomes (Menguc et al., 2017; Salanova et al., 2005; Schaufeli and
Bakker, 2004; Schaufeli et al., 2006; Suliman and Al Harethi, 2013; Truss et al., 2013) and also
provides support for positive relationship between internal service climate and
psychological empowerment (Suliman and Al Harethi, 2013). Researchers also considered
engagement as an important work-related factor both in academic and clinical fields.
Catlette and Hadden (2001) argued that employee engagement referred to a psychological
and positive work-related state of mind that led employees to enthusiastically involve
themselves physically, cognitively and emotionally in their work roles. The researchers also
documented that engaged employees worked hard and that consequently that led them to
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achieve beyond the requirements and expectations of their work role (Anitha, 2014; Graban,
2016; Lockwood, 2007)and managers want to improve their employees’ engagement to
enhance their overall performance (Anitha, 2014; Wright and Cropanzano, 2000). Studies
also showed that engagement can improve the well-beingof employees and reduce staff
turnover (Memon et al., 2014; Shuck, Twyford, Reio, and Shuck, 2014). Aamir and Sohail
(2006) conducted a study to examine the impact of different aspects of job satisfaction and
organizational justice. They also examined the effect of organizational commitment on
turnover intensions and job performance by gathering data from 125 full-time university
teachers in Pakistan. The results revealed a significant relationship between the facets of job
satisfaction and organizational justice with organizational commitment. In addition, they
found no relationship between different personal characteristics like marital status,
education level, age and tenure of service with organizational commitment. Nafei (2013b)
found difference in employee attitudes towards organizational cynicism and organizational
change. Yıldız and S� aylıkay (2014) argued positive connection between work alienation,
anomy and cynicism among employees of Turkish banks. The employee’s perception that
the organization failed to deliver on its promises directly results in emotional exhaustion
such that the perceived breach not only results in negative behavior but also in emotional
and physical burnout. Therefore, the second hypothesis is developed as:
H4. Employee engagement has moderating effect on the relationship between all three
types of organizational cynicism (i.e. Cognitive, affective and behavioral cynicism)
and employee performance.
This study implements statistical data analysis and a questionnaire as the means of data
collection. The variables of the study are developed on the foundation of cynical attitudes
and employee performance. Achor (2012) conducted a sweeping meta-analysis of 225
academic studies and documented that when employees worked with a positive attitude, the
creativity, engagement and performance of the employees improved. The researcher also
documented that happy employees performed at higher levels and their results will be more
persuasive towards achieving promotion. In contrast, if an employee was working with a
negative mindset, then his/her performance, creativity and engagement diminished.
Employee engagement is significantly interwoven with important business outcomes.
Highly committed employees tended to perform better when compared to less committed
employees. A fiasco in trust may cause increased cynicism concomitant with the apparent
disengagement of an individual from an organization. Researchers also suggest that
cynicism may create positive outcomes both for employees and their employing
organizations (Kosmala and Richards, 2009). Consequently, it is argued that if employees
trust their managers and receive support from their supervisors, then they will respond to
work in a positive manner through increased commitment and motivation that can lead to
higher performance (Baptiste, 2007). Furthermore, those dis-engaged employees continue
to perform at work not because they enjoy their work but because they have to “get on with
it”. Although the literature suggested that employee cynicism can be reduced and controlled
by employee engagement here are few studies that have established an empirical link
(Abraham, 2000; Bakker et al., 2014; Iqbal et al., 2017). As cynicism is a negative attitude that
comprises affective, cognitive and behavioral components (Bakker et al., 2014; Shuck et al.,
2014), it might be possible that it might concur with engagement. Developing a scale to
measure employee performance is a dilemma in public health organizations that are involve
in providing various professional services to the public. In this study, it is found that the
sampled organizations do not have any defined criteria to measure employee performance. It
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is also understandable the difficulty of setting criteria for measuring performance of the
health services provided at different levels of organizations. In addition, the validity of the
criteria can be questionable if these criteria are not discussed with employees before
administration.
3. Measurements
An organizational cynicism scale is adapted from Brandes et al. (1999) for this study.
Brandes et al. (1999) developed this scale using the theoretical definition proposed by Dean
et al. (1998). The scale consists of 13 items on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from strongly
disagree to strongly agree with three subscales called cognitive (five items), affective (four
items) and behavioral cynicism (four items). The reason of choosing this scale is reliability
and validity calculated by Brandes et al. (1999) to measure organizational cynicism[1].
Another reason is widely acceptance and use of this scale by other researchers (Mete, 2013;
Polatcan and Titrek, 2014). The cognitive dimension of organizational cynicism measures
that employees have about sincerity and integrity of their employing organization reflected
the belief items. The affective dimension of organizational cynicism consists of negative
emotions such as anger, disgust and distress. Behavioral items reflect disparaging and
critical behaviors concomitant with organizational cynicism. The reliability (Cronbach’s
alpha) of total items is 0.898.
3.1 Employee engagement
In this study, employee engagement has been taken as a moderating variable between
organizational cynicism and employee performance. A questionnaire is used for the
measurement of employee engagement. The scale of Schaufeli et al. (2006) is used to measure
employee engagement on a five-point Likert scale[2]. The scale is divided into three sub
scales called vigor, dedication and absorption. The study adapts two items from the vigor
scale, two from the dedication scale and three items from the absorption scale within a five-
point Likert scale ranges from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The reliability
(Cronbach’s Alpha) of these seven items is 0.705.
3.2 Employee performance
The adapted scale is used to measure employee performance. The individual task
performance scale developed by Linda et al. (2014) is used to measure employee
performance. The scale consists of five items on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from
strongly disagree to strongly agree. The reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) of employee
performance is 0.646. The study also uses age and employment tenure as control variables
that is consistent with prior studies (Avanzi et al., 2015; Chiaburu et al., 2013).
4. Methodology
4.1 Samples and procedure
The purpose of the study is to measure organizational cynicism among employees working
at teaching hospitals in Pakistan, in particular, to investigate the relationship between three
dimensions of organizational cynicism and employee’s performance at teaching hospitals in
Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The unit of analysis is individual employees working at
surveyed hospitals.
The population of the study is employees of different teaching hospitals who work in
Islamabad and Rawalpindi hospitals. The non-probability or non-random sampling
technique is used to gather the data from respondents, in which data are collected from
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population members who are conveniently available to participate in the study (Dörnyei,
2007), also called opportunistic sampling (Barton, 2001). Although, convenient sampling is
perceived as a limitation in this study, it can still provide rich data and very effective in
situations where it is difficult to get a list of all the employees working in an organization.
Graham et al. (2006) and Paskiewicz (2001) also used convenient sampling in their healthcare
studies. Besides the above reasons, another justification for choosing convenient sampling
technique is its cost effectiveness and the short span of time. Therefore, this also empowers
the researcher to achieve the sample size in a comparatively quick and inexpensive way as
compared to probability sampling or other techniques. The questionnaire has distributed to
280 individual employees and 230 usable questionnaires have collected in a four months
process.Moreover, 30 questionnaires were incomplete; therefore, 200 completed
questionnaires were used for extracting the results[3]. The response rate was 82.14 per cent.
4.2 Data and analysis
To pursue the objectives of the study, primary data are collected from the respondents
through the adapted questionnaire and SPSS 20 is used to conduct the data analysis. Each
questionnaire is entered into excel and later coded into SPSS. A reliability test is conducted
to test the validity of the questions. In addition, while descriptive statistics and correlation
analysis are performed to investigate the associations between the variables, a regression
analysis is also conducted to investigate the relationship between the dependent and
explanatory variables. Finally, a moderation analysis is performed to investigate the
moderating effect of employee engagement.
5. Results and discussion
The thrust of the study is to examine the nexus between dimensions of organizational
cynicism and employee performance on the one hand and engagement on the other hand.
The descriptive results are presented first followed by the correlation, regression and
moderation analyses. A discussion of the results concludes this section.
The biographical information of respondents is presented in Table I. Table I presents the
results of the biographical information of the respondents. The frequency percentage of
male respondents is 32.5, compared to females with 67.5. From the tabular perspective
regarding gender division, it is evident that the majority of respondents were females.
Most of respondents (34 per cent) have at-least bachelor’s qualification followed by
master’s degree holders (30.5 per cent), while only few respondents (25 per cent) have PhD/
MS/MPhil/EQUI qualifications. Only few respondents have under bachelor’s qualification. It
can be documented that hospitals prefer to recruit the bachelor-qualified candidates. Critical
analysis of the results reveals that 70.5 per cent of the respondents were contract employees
and this dropped sharply to permanent and temporary employees, at 14.5 and 14 per cent,
respectively. The table shows higher numbers of respondents as entry-level employees in
the organizations, at 46.5 per cent; and this is followed by the supervisory level at nearly 34
per cent, while team leader has a low percentage compared to the entry and supervisory
level respondents.
5.1 Descriptive statistics
In Table II, the results reveals that the mean value for cognitive cynicism is 3.0920, with a
minimum value of 1.40 and a maximum value of 5.0, while standard deviation is 1.01721.
While the mean value for affective cynicism is 2.8225, with a minimum value of 1.25 and a
maximum value of 4.5 while standard deviation is 0.82005. Whereas the mean value of
behavioral cynicism is 3.1388, with a minimum value of 1.25 and a maximum value of 5.0,
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standard deviation is 0.71448. The employee engagement has mean of 3.3671, with a
minimum value of 1.29 and a maximum value of 5.00 with a standard deviation of 0.64757.
The last entry in the table, 3.6020, represents the mean value of employee performance with
its corresponing minimum and maximum values. The standard deviation of employee
Table I.
Biographical
information of
respondents
Frequency (%)
Gender
Male 65 32.5
Female 135 67.5
Age
20-29 years 80 40.0
30-39 years 93 46.5
40-49 years 27 13.5
Qualification
PhD/MS/MPhil/EQUI 50 25.0
Masters 61 30.5
Bachelors 68 34.0
Under bachelors 21 10.5
Employment Tenure
Less than one Year 4 2.0
1-5 years 81 40.5
6-10 years 102 51.0
11-15 years 4 2.0
16 and above years 9 4.5
Sector
Public 22 11.0
Private 153 76.5
Semi-government 25 12.5
Employment status
Permanent 29 14.5
Contractual 141 70.5
Temporary 30 15.0
Position in organization
Entry level 93 46.5
Supervisor 68 34.0
Team leader 39 19.5
Table II.
Descriptive statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean SD
CC 200 1.40 5.00 3.0920 1.01721
AC 200 1.25 4.50 2.8225 0.82005
BC 200 1.25 5.00 3.1388 0.71448
EE 200 1.29 5.00 3.3671 0.64757
EP 200 2.20 4.80 3.6020 0.58559
Notes: CC = Cognitive Cynicism; AC = Affective Cynicism; BC = Behavioral Cynicism; EE = Employee
engagement; EP = Employee performace
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performance is 0.58559. The association between variables is also examined by employing a
pearson correlation.
5.2 Correlation analysis
Table III presents the result of the correalation analysis between CC, AC, BC, EE and EP by
controlling the effect of age and employment tenure.
The results of correlation analysis reveals that significant negative relationship of employee
engagement and employee performance with all three dimensions of organisational cynicism.
Employee engagement has significant negative relationships with cogintinve cynicims
(r = �0.23), affective cynicim (r = �0.40) and behavioral cynicism (r = �0.33) at 0.001
level of significance. The analysis reveals that all three dimensions of organizational
cynicism decreases with increase in employee engagement. Similarly, employee
performance also has significant negative relationships with cogintinve cynicims (r = �0.56),
affective cynicim (r =�0.55) and behavioral cynicism (r =�0.39) at 0.001 level of significance
while positive correlation with employee engagement (r = �0.65). It can be documented that
employee performance decreases in presence of these three dimensions of cynicim. However,
employee performance can be increased by increasing employee engagement and vice versa.
There is no evidence of auto-correlation among varibles of the study as r< 0.80. According to
Gujrati (2003), if the value of the partial correlation is less than 0.80, then there is no
autocorrelation among the varibles of the study.
5.3 Regression analysis
The objective of present study is to investigate the relationship between three dimensions of
organizational cynicism and employee performance. The study also determines the
moderating effect of employee engagement on this relationship. The following section
presents the results of the regression analysis between cognitive, affective, behavioral
cynicism and employee performance (EP) while taking age and employment tenure as
control variables. The results of the moderation analysis are also presented in this section.
In total, two regression analyses were conducted, first by only incorporating control
variables presented in Model 1, while second by incorporating independent variables of
study that is presented in Model 2. In the present study, three dimensions of organizational
cynicism (i.e. cognitive, affective and behavioral) are taken as independent variable, while
employee performance (EP) is taken as the dependent variable, while the effect of age and
employment tenure are controlled. Table IV shows the values of R and R2. In Model 1, the
value of R represents a simple correlation and is 53.0 by taking control variables, indicating a
high degree of correlation. This value increased to 73.0 in Model 2 when incorporated the
three dimensions of organizational cynicism. The value of R2 explains the total variation of
Table III.
Correlations analysis
Control variables CC AC BC EE EP
Age and Employment Tenure
CC Correlation 1.00
AC Correlation 0.78* 1.00
BC Correlation 0.56* 0.58* 1.00
EE Correlation �0.23* �0.40* �0.33* 1.00
EP Correlation �0.56* �0.55* �0.39* 0.65* 1.00
Note: *Correlation is significant at the 0.001 level (two-tailed)
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the dependent variable because of the independent variable(s). In this case, it is 28 in presence
of control variables in Model 1, while R2 increased to 53 when incorporated the three
independent variables in Model 2, which is high. It can be argued that a 53 per cent change in
employee performance (EP) is because of cognitive, affective, behavioral dimensions of
organizational cynicism in presence of control variables, while the remaining change (47
per cent) is because of other factors. Moreover, finding any additional extraneous variables in
the modelis represented by an adjusted R2, which is 52 per cent for study inModel 2. If value of
the F statistic is more than 15, then the model is best fitted. The value of p and stats also shows
a significant relationship between variables and provide evidence that employee performance
has negative association with cognitive, affective and behavioral dimensions of organizational
cynicism. Consequently,H1,H2 andH3 are accepted. These findings are consistent with prior
studies (Chiaburu et al., 2013). To expand the results discussion, the next section will include
the moderating effect of employee engagement on the relationship between three dimensions of
organizational cynicism and employee performance.
5.4 Moderation analysis
This section presents the results of moderation analysis and determines the moderting effect
of employee engagement. The results are presented in Table V by conducting hierarichal
multiple regression analysis. Model 3 presents the effect of employee engagement as
independent variable, while Model 4 presents the moderation effect of EE with all three
dimensions of organizational cynicism.
In Table V, results reveal that R2 changes from 71.4 to 73.8 in Models 3 and 4,
respectively. It means employee engagement has moderating effective on relationship
between CC, AC, BC and EP. Our hypothesis H4 that employee engagement has a
moderating effect on the relationship between three dimensions of organizational cynicism
and employee performance can is accepted.
5.5 Discussion
The study considers organizational cynicismmore comprehensively not only by focusing on
employee performance but also by determining the moderating effect of employee
Table IV.
Regression analysis
Model 1 Model 2
Variables B Standard error Beta t B Standard error Beta t
Constant 4.44 0.13 33.36 5.00 0.15 32.44
Age �0.44* 0.06 �0.51 �7.28 �0.34* 0.05 �0.40 �6.58
Employment Tenure �0.03*** 0.05 �0.04 �0.52 0.15* 0.05 0.20 3.21
CC �0.20* 0.06 �0.34 �3.47
AC �0.17** 0.07 �0.24 �2.62
BC �0.04** 0.05 �0.05 �0.72
R 0.53 0.73
R2 0.28 0.53
Adjusted R2 0.27 0.52
Standard error of the
estimate
0.50 0.41
F 38.37 43.62
Sum of square total 68.24 68.24
Df (2, 197) (5, 194)
Notes: Dependent Variable: EP; *Correlation is significant at the 0.001 level (two-tailed); **Correlation is
significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed); ***Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed)
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engagement. The theoretical treatment of organizational cynicism is very helpful in
discussing and analyzing employee attitudes. The findings of this study reveal that there is
a significant negative relationship between all three dimensions organizational cynicism
and employee performance, while employee engagement moderates this relationship. The
study also supports the evidence presented in the literature regarding a negative
relationship between organizational cynicism and employee performance (Brandes and Das,
2006). Because of disappointment and frustration with an organization, cynical employees,
consequently, perceive the absence of a connection between reward and performance or
lower instrumentality (Bernerth et al., 2007; Wilkerson, 2002; Wilkerson et al., 2008).
Consequently, as in previous studies, this perceived instrumentality led to a reduction in
effort and performance (Ozler et al., 2011; Simha et al., 2014; Yıldız and S� aylıkay, 2014) and
organization’s structure also play pivotal role in reducing this behavior and motivating the
employees (Koumaditis and Themistocleous, 2015). It was found that if employees’
perceived that the organization is not fulfilling their expectations, then it has a negative
effect on their performance (Kim et al., 2009; Mantler et al., 2015). It was also evident from
previous studies that employee engagement matters within an organization, on the one
hand, and that disengaged employees, on the other hand, increased costs for an organization
because of high absenteeism, lower productivity and high turnover of staff (Saari and Judge,
2004; Truss et al., 2013).
The findings of study are very helpful in mitigating the negative effect of organizational
cynicism among organizations, especially specifically in health care sector in which there is a
shortage of qualified personnel (Hayes et al., 2006) in many countries (Mantler et al., 2015),
including Pakistan (Abdullah et al., 2014). The findings are also very useful for developing
economies because of similar socio-economic factors and contextual setting. This result revealed
that employee engagement has a moderating effect on the relationship between organizational
cynicism and employee performance. In similar vein, Cartwright and Holmes (2006) documented
Table V.
Moderation analysis
of CC, AC, BC, EP
and EE
Model 3 Model 4
Variables B
Standard
error Beta t B
Standard
error Beta t
Constant 2.8 0.23 12.171 3.826 0.61 6.275
Age �0.087** 0.046 �0.102 �1.884 �0.043** 0.052 �0.05 �0.822
Employment tenure 0.002** 0.04 0.002 0.045 0.008*** 0.039 0.011 0.212
CC �0.287* 0.045 �0.498 �6.403 �1.282* 0.366 �2.227 �3.508
AC 0.02* 0.054 0.028 0.372 1.062* 0.349 1.487 3.042
BC 0.042** 0.042 0.051 1.016 �0.305** 0.222 �0.372 �1.376
EE 0.489* 0.044 0.541 11.188 0.109*** 0.184 0.121 0.595
CC� EE 0.269* 0.097 1.528 2.761
AC� EE �0.267* 0.09 �1.222 �2.956
BC� EE 0.108*** 0.06 0.48 1.783
R 0.845 0.859
R2 0.714 0.738
Adjusted R2 0.706 0.726
Standard error of
the estimate
0.31775 0.30654
F 80.476 59.579
Df �6,193 (9, 190)
Notes: Dependent variable: EP; *Correlation is significant at the 0.001 level (two-tailed); **Correlation is
significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed); ***Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed)
Cynicism and
employee
performance
425
that employers can reduce cynicism among their employees by increasing employee
engagement. It has also been documented that a high level of employee engagement can reduce
the devastating effect of organizational cynicism on employee performance.
6. Recommendations and conclusion
This study investigates the triangle relationship between organizational cynicism (i.e. CC,
AC and BC), hospital employees’ performance and engagement. It is concluded that
organizational cynicism is a problem that prevail in most of contemporary organizations
both in developed and developing countries and has the power to spillover to other parties.
The findings of the study reveal a significant negative relationship between organizational
cynicism and employee performance, while employee engagement has a moderating effect
on this relationship.
The findings of the study indicate that the majority of respondents are not happy with
their organizations. They also feel that the organization is not fulfilling its promises and is
betraying them in several ways. This breach of contract becomes the reason for
organizational cynicism among employees and badly affects their performance. Most of
respondents give importance to their career development and the findings reveal that
organizations are not focusing on career development of their employees. This is the twenty-
first century and no one can expect to have an employee wait for 10 to 15 years to be
promoted to the next grade. This affects the performance of employees and, as a result,
organizational cynicism increased. In Pakistan, the inequality of rewards is affecting the
performance of employees. The study also reveals that most employees focus and believe on
short cuts to opulence rather than performance and competences. If organizations have
political culture, then they feel more dedicated. In such organizations, the rules, policies and
meritocracy are definitely compromised. It can also promote immoral practices to make the
line manager happy in the form of gifts, bribery, etc., that is common in Pakistan. Moreover,
there is massive corruption in organizations, mostly in public organizations (Transparency
International, 2016). The efficiency of such organizations cannot be improved and most
employees in the lower ranks of organizations are frustratedbecause of organizational
injustices, politics in organizations and inequality in rewards. As organizations have failed
to take care of their employees in terms of financial and psychological aspects, their
deviance from this can be viewed as retribution by the employees, commonly explained
through the frustration-aggression theory. According to the researchers’ best knowledge,
only few studies tried to investigate the relationship between organizational cynicism and
employee performance by using the moderating effect of employee engagement. The
findings from this study have practical implications for supervisors and managers when
considering the level of cynicism in their organizations. It is found that organizational
cynicism has a major impact on the behavior and attitude of employees, supervisors and
representatives on the one hand and, ultimately, the organization, on the other hand. These
effects have specific susceptibilities due to the vicinity of the employees. It is recommended
that employee cynicism can be reduced by providing a supportive environment (Price and
Reichert, 2017), employee engagement and fairness. Nevertheless, the findings of this study
still help supervisors to inhibit this harmful effect by reducing the level of psychological
contract violation and organizational politics. The study also helps psychologists to
understand employees’ attitudes and improve personnel selection to ensure they recruit the
right people. The organizational culture can mitigate the negative effect of organizational
cynicism and enhance performance by promoting employee engagement. Moreover, specific
organizational interventions like leadership training are more likely to be helpful in reducing
it. Openness, honesty and early communication can increase predictability and
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426
controllability of future events. Recently, young doctors, paramedical staff and nurses have
conducted a number of strikes that affected the well-being of patients and many people died
because of these strikes. In many occasions, Government of Pakistan has made promises to
doctors, paramedical staffs and nurses but still failed to fulfill those. Consequently, the level
of cynicism has increased among hospital employees. The job insecurity and lack of
adequate compensation are also assertive factors towards low productivity and negative
attitude toward organization.
6.1 Limitations and future research recommendations
The study has some limitations and areas for future research. The study has a large
population size and so it is quite difficult to address the whole population and collect data
from a representative sample in short time and budget. Future researchers can extend this
study to different sectors and also to the whole population. There is also scope to conduct a
comparative study between public and private hospitals. Future researchers can consider
variables like job satisfaction, burnout, organizational change and counterproductive work
behavior and extend the existing literature. The present study uses hierarchal multiple
regression and moderation analysis only because of quantitative in nature. Future
researchers can also use different methods like structural equation modeling and factor
analysis to analyze different aspects and can also consider exploring the socio-economic
factors. There is also scope for using mixed methodology (i.e. qualitative and quantitative)
to explore cynical attitude in detail
Notes
1. Brandes et al. (1999) calculated that items in cognitive dimensions had factor loads between 0.63
and 0.81; in affective dimensions, they were between 0.75 and 0.80; in behavioral dimension, they
were between 0.54 and 0.80.
2. The scale has been widely used by researchers in earlier studies both in developed and
developing markets to measure employee engagement. Moreover, reliability test was conducted
to increase validity.
3. Because of time and cost constraints, analyses are conducted on useable collected questionnaires
in specified period.
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Corresponding author
Muhammad Arslan can be contacted at: Muhammad.arslan@lincolnuni.ac.nz
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	Organizational cynicism and employee performance
	1. Introduction
	2. Literature and hypothesis development
	2.1 Organizational cynicism
	2.2 Dimensions of organizational cynicism
	2.3 Organizational cynicism and performance
	2.4 Employee engagement and organizational cynicism
	3. Measurements
	3.1 Employee engagement
	3.2 Employee performance
	4. Methodology
	4.1 Samples and procedure
	4.2 Data and analysis
	5. Results and discussion
	5.1 Descriptive statistics
	5.2 Correlation analysis
	5.3 Regression analysis
	5.4 Moderation analysis
	5.5 Discussion
	6. Recommendations and conclusion
	6.1 Limitations and future research recommendations
	References