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Islamic Work Values and Organizational Commitment: A Case Study Among Employees in Broadcasting Industry

This study examines the contribution of Islamic work values towards organization commitment among employees. A total of 90 Muslim employees from a local broadcasting organization participated in this study. This descriptive study uses self-administered questionnaire to gauge the respondents’ level of Islamic work value and organizational commitment. Findings of the study demonstrated that there were no significant differences in the level of Islamic work ethic between males and females, and between the management group and the support group. The findings also showed a moderate but significant relationship between Islamic work value and dimensions within organizational commitment.


Introduction
Organizations stand to benefit engaging employees high on positive work value-a commitment to the value and importance of hard work. According to Noe, Hollenbech, Gerhart, and Wright (2000) a strong positive attitude towards work can lead to higher productivity levels on both individual and organizational.
The principle of work value derives from the study on work ethic. This leads Hit (1990) to conclude that the principles of ethic are synonymous to value and that any references to individual's ethic will revolve around his or her values. Hit (1990) further argues that it is an individual's value set that guides his or her life. This has led Wollack, Goodale, Wijting, and Smith (1971) to use principles in work ethic as a basis to develop the famous work value survey-a scale to measure a person's attitude towards work. since been secularized. In fact, research undertaken by Beit-Hallahmi (1979), Cameron (1969), Giorgi and Marsh (1990), and Ray (1982) has failed to find a consistent relation between religious orientation and work value. This lead Ray (1982) to conclude that while protestant work ethic is certainly not dead but it is just no longer protestant.
In support to this, Pascarella (1984) argues that since all major religions espoused the importance of work therefore what appeared initially as a religious construct is now secularized, thus best viewed as general work ethic and not a protestant work ethic. Yousef (2001) however argues that although work ethic as advocated by Max Weber (1958) has been considered as a universal value nonetheless its applicability must be limited to Western societies especially in countries and societies which profess Christianity from which the construct originated. In countries of Muslim populace the uses of secularize work ethic must be given serious consideration especially when Islam too has it own work ethic. As a religion Islam too gives special emphasis on the importance of work for it enhanced one's social status and help society through the giving of "zakat" or tithe.
Nevertheless, Yousef (2001) does recognize that both Islamic Work Ethic (IWE) and Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) rest upon very similar assumptions which emphasize on hard work, commitment, dedication to work, work creativity, avoidance of unethical method of wealth accumulation, cooperation and competitiveness at the work place. The major differences however, IWE does not only focus on work as an obligatory activity and a virtue but also emphasizes that success and progress on the job depends on hard work and commitment to one's job (Ali, 1988). In fact the Islam is against laziness, wasting of time, and forbids the "ummah" or followers from remaining idle or engaging in unproductive activity (Yousef, 2001). As a standard measurement of work ethic both Ali (1988) and Yousef (2001) see IWE exceeds PWE since it also emphasizes on cooperation in work and consultation is seen as a way of overcoming obstacles and avoiding mistakes. For these reasons they argue that there is a need to have a measurement of work ethic based on Islam. As such Ali (1988) and Yousef (2001), proposed the development of the Islamic Work Ethic (IWE) based on the Qur'an and Sunnah.
This study explores the level of Islamic work ethic and its relation with organizational commitment among employees in broadcasting industry. Understanding the level of work ethic that exists and its contribution to organizational commitment are important in assisting managers to better manage their employees. Study conducted by Nik Mu'tasim, Nordin, and Abdullah (2006) among employees in banking sector has concurred that there is a direct, positive and significant relationship between Islamic work ethic and organizational commitment. Accordingly understanding work ethic and its relationship with organizational commitment are essential in determining methods of intervention and strategies formulation in promoting organizational commitment.
Work values or work ethic can be made reference to what Cherrington (1980) referred to as a positive attitude towards work. Persons who enjoy their work are considered to have a better work value than those who did not enjoy their work. In the context of Islamic work values, Beekun (1997) defined it as the set of moral principles that distinguish what is right from what is wrong in the Islamic context. It is based on the Qur'an, the teachings of the Prophet who denoted that hard work caused sins to be absolved (Ali, 2005).
According to Rizk (2008), Islamic work ethic is an orientation towards work and approaches work as a virtue in human's lives.
Organizational commitment on the other hand is a multi-dimensional construct comprising three components which are affective, continuance and normative (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Affective commitment is made reference to an employee's emotional attachment to identify with and involve in the organization.
Employees with a strong affective commitment will remain in the organization because "they want to". The second component, continuance commitment refers to employees' awareness of the costs associated with leaving the present organization. Employees strongly on this commitment will remain in the organization because "they have to". The third component, normative commitment refers to the feeling of obligations to the organization based on one's personal norms and values. Being a normative type employees strong on this commitment naturally will remain in the organization simply because they believe "they ought to".
However, much of the research on the work ethic has been carried out in the West, with the focus on the protestant work ethic (PWE). Such interest must have been attributed to the belief that work ethics not only facilitates employees' attitudes toward work but also toward the organization where they work. For instance, Kidron (1978) in his study uses three diverse samples to investigate the relationship between Protestant work ethic and commitment to organization. In this study the protestant work ethic was measured using the Mirels and Garrett Scale. The results indicated that work ethic is more related to moral commitment than calculative involvement. Oliver (1990) on the other hand examined the influence of employee work ethic on organizational commitment among a UK employee-owned firm. The results also show that work ethic has significant relationships with commitment. Meanwhile Saks, Mudrack, and Ashforth (1996) using Blood's pro-protestant ethic examined the relationship between work ethic and organizational commitment among 145 temporary employees of a large Canadian theme park. The results indicate a strong support of the relationship between protestant work ethic and organizational commitment. In Asian context, the association between work ethic and organizational commitment has also been research. Two major dimensions of work ethic, namely, intrinsic and extrinsic derived from a factor analysis of Wollack et al.'s scale was used by Putti, Aryee, and Ling (1989) to analyze this association on a sample of workers in Singapore. The analysis shows intrinsic work ethic relates closer to organizational commitment than extrinsic work ethic. In general, despite using different samples in their investigations, all these studies have produced consistent results.
The impact of individual variables on work ethic and organizational commitment has also been examined.
Using Wollack's Work Values Survey on Palestinian Arabs, Abboushi (1990) found occupation influenced employees' work values which relates to pride in work, job involvement, social status, and attitude toward earnings. Abboushi (1990) also found that employees' level of formal education has significant influence on pride in work, job involvement, and attitude toward earnings; while employees' age has significant influence on the social prestige connotations of work. Employees' work experience on the other hand, was found to influence the work ethic of upward striving.
Using a modified version of Hofstede's Values Survey Module, Frick (1995) found that employees' educational fields and levels are the most important demographic variables that relate to work ethic considerations. The study also found occupational fields and levels relate significantly with work ethic. Ali, Falcone, and Azim (1995) study in the USA and Canada on the other hand, found work ethic differs across age, organizational and education levels. Dipboye and Anderson (1959) and Wijting, Arnold, and Conrad (1978) also reported a significant association between work ethic and education. Taylor and Thompson (1976) on the other hand, discovered a significant association between age and work ethic. While personality has been found to have a significant association with work ethic (Davidson, 1983); a significant relationship is also found between work ethic, tenure and work experience (Gomez-Mejia, 1983;Whelen, 1972).
However, there have been mix results on the study of work ethic across gender. Frick's (1995) study using Hofstede's Values Survey Module found that work ethic does not differ significantly across gender. Rowe and Snizek (1995) in their study also found no significant differences between males and females in terms of work ethic. Ali, Falcone, and Azim (1995)  working women in a metropolitan area in Israel found that there were no differences between men and women in terms of their work ethic. Using Manhardt's Scale on a convenience sample of 29 males and 43 females from the southwestern part of Nigeria, Adeyemi-Bello (1994) also reported that both males and females in general have similar work ethics. However, when Manhardt's Scale was administered on a sample of 202 advanced undergraduate business students, Beutell and Brenner (1986) found that there were significant gender differences with females rating higher than males. Similarly, Fruehling (1980) also reported a significant association between work ethic and gender. Chusmir and Parker (1991) when using Rokeach's value survey scale to examine gender differences in ethic among managers also reported strikingly similar work ethic between women and men managers.
Researches on the relationship between gender and organizational commitment have also produced mixed results. Several studies have suggested that gender may affect employees' perceptions of organizational commitment (Porter, 2001;Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982;Mathieu & Zajac, 1990). However, most studies showed that there was no significant difference between males and females in regard of organizational commitment (Marsden, Kalleberg, & Cook, 1993). Study by Xiong and Francesco (2000) indicated that, except for position, other demographic variables, including gender, had no main affects on organizational commitment.
Research on work ethic using Islamic work ethics (IWE) scale is relatively new. The original IWE scale was developed by Ali (1988) thus only a few researches have since been recorded (see Ali, 1988Ali, , 1992Yousef, 2000Yousef, , 2001Ali & Al-Kazemi, 2007). Yousef (2000) has used IWE to study the strength of the relationship between Islamic work ethics and various dimensions of organizational commitment. Using a sample size of 474 employees from 30 organizations in the United Arab Emirates, his study indicates the existence of a moderate positive relationship between Islamic work ethics and the following dimensions of commitment: affective, continuance and normative. Comparatively, affective commitment is reported to be more related to the work ethics than either normative or continuance commitments.
In another research Yousef (2001)  Based on the literature, this study sets to explore Islamic work ethic orientation among employees in broadcasting industry and its relationship with the three dimensions of organization commitment namely; affective, continuance and normative. These objectives are achieved through the following questions: (1) Do employees in the broadcasting industry have high orientation in Islamic work ethic and organization commitment?
(2) Are there differences in Islamic work ethic orientation and organizational commitment among employees according to gender, age, job status and length of service categories?
(3) Does Islamic work ethic correlate significantly with dimensions of organizational commitment?

Research Method
This descriptive study was conducted among employees in the broadcasting industry in Malaysia. Using the name list of employees in a government-owned broadcasting media, 100 questionnaires were randomly distributed among its Muslim employees. However, only 90 responded and were suitable to be used in the final analysis. Distribution of respondents and their demographic characteristics is shown in Table 1. This study uses self-administered Islamic Work Ethic (IWE) and Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) as the data collection technique. The use of IWE instrument to gauge work ethic for this study was simply because the majority of employees in Malaysian government agencies are Muslims. Islam being the official religion of Malaysia is one of the most influential factors that shaped Malaysian civil servants work value systems. Further, according to Nasr (1984), the Islamic work ethic deserves a serious inquiry because it is the ideal which Muslims seek to realize. Both these instruments have been validated by previous authors. According to Flynn, Schroeder, and Sakakibara (1994) an empirically-validated scale can be used directly in other studies in the field for different populations and for longitudinal studies. Nevertheless, in this study reliability test is still being carried out on these two instruments.
The original Islamic work ethic (IWE) instrument used to gauge respondents work ethic was developed by Ali (1988), and consisted of 46 items. The internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's Alpha) was reported as 0.89 (Ali, 1992). For the purpose of this study the shorter version of IWE was used. This instrument consisted of 17 items. The internal consistency reported for this scale was 0.89 (Yousef, 2000). For this study the alpha of internal consistency reliability is 0.82.
Meanwhile, organizational commitment was measured using Meyer and Allen's (1991) instrument. This instrument consists of 24 items. It has three subscales, namely affective, continuance, and normative. Each subscale has eight items. The internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) for overall organizational commitment scale and for affective, continuance and normative subscales was reported as 0.89, 0.85, 0.88, and 0.79 respectively (Yousef, 2000). For this study, the alpha of overall reliability is 0.82 whereas affective, continuance and normative subscales are 0.91, 0.89, and 0.79 respectively.
In answering the question in IWE instrument respondents have to indicate their agreement or disagreement with each item on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The scores were averaged to yield a summary score reflecting the Islamic work ethic. A cut-off score of 70 was used to divide the respondents into low and high in Islamic work ethic orientation. The same procedure applies to organizational commitment. A cut-off score of 90 was used to divide the respondents into low or high in organizational commitment orientation. Since each subscale in the organizational commitment consists of eight items therefore the cut-off score to determine whether respondents are low or high on affective, continuance, and normative commitment is 30. In getting the respondents to participate they were assured of confidentiality and that participation was voluntary.
In enhancing respondents' respond to the questionnaire, every question in its original English version is accompanied with a Bahasa Malaysia translation. This was simply because most respondents speak only in Bahasa Malaysia. The Bahasa Malaysia translation was developed through careful translation and back-translation techniques as suggested by Brislin (1970) and McGorry (2000). The17-item IWE scale was first translated into Bahasa Malaysia and then back-translated into English by a bilingual expert. This process minimizes the discrepancies between the English and the Bahasa Malaysia measurements. This is consistent with Berry's (1980) suggestions that the goal of translation is to obtain instruments that elicit responses which convey similar meanings to members of various groups (i.e., "conceptual equivalence"). Phillips (1959) cautioned that a literal translation of an instrument is not sufficient for conveying the equivalent of an instrument in cross-cultural research but noted that a complete semantic equivalence in cross-cultural studies is a statistical fiction.
For analysis, this study uses descriptive statistics of frequencies and percentage. For research question 1, the overall means score is used as a basis to determine work ethic and organizational commitment orientation among respondents. For research question 2, independent sample comparison of means is used to see the differences while to test for significant differences t-test analysis and ANOVA test are used. For research question 3, correlation technique is used to gauge Islamic work ethic contribution towards organizational commitment.

Results and Discussions
Overall the result of this study shows that respondents (N = 90) recorded a relatively high means score of 73.80 (SD = 6.48) on the Islamic work ethic scale. Therefore, it is concluded that respondents have high orientation in Islamic work ethic. This can be interpreted that respondents strongly support and adhere to IWE.
The positive orientation of respondents toward IWE is considered good for Malaysia as the country strives to achieve a high income nation status and vision 2020. As IWE is an orientation towards work and approaches work as a virtue in human's lives (Rizk, 2008) therefore, employees holding strongly to Islamic work ethic can help department heads to overcome work-related problems arising from attitude and behaviors of their staffs.
Further, as work ethic has been positively linked to job satisfaction (Yousef, 2001;Koh & Boo, 2001;Viswesvaran & Deshpande, 1996;Vitell & Davis, 1990) and organizational commitment (Nik Mu'tasim et al., 2006) therefore assumption can be made that respondents are satisfied with their job and committed to their organization.
The finding of this study is also of importance as argued by Yandle (1992), that any decline in work ethic can lead to a lower levels of job performance; a higher level of absenteeism and turnover (Klebnikov, 1993;Shimko, 1992); and can also lead to an increase in counterproductive behavior ranging from unauthorized breaks to employee theft (Sheehy, 1990). Further as IWE has been defined as the set of moral principles that distinguish what is right from what is wrong in the Islamic context (Beekun, 1997); and that Yousef (2001) recognizes IWE as a principle way of avoiding unethical method of wealth accumulation therefore, employees holding high on IWE can help the Malaysian government in its fight against corruption and malpractices in all sectors-public and private.
Respondents' IWE orientation according to gender differences shows that female respondents score a little higher (M = 74.27, SD = 6.43) than the male respondents (M = 72.43, SD = 6.59). However, the differences is not significant (t(88) = -1.173, p = 0.24). This result support findings of Chusmir and Parker (1991), Adeyemi-Bello (1994), and Rowe and Snizek (1995) that both males and females employees in general have similar work ethic and that there was no significant differences between males and females in terms of work ethic. Table 2 shows respondents' IWE orientation based on age, job status and length of service. In terms of age group differences, the results show that the total mean score for respondents within the age group of 20 and 25 is M = 73.89 (SD = 6.53), age group of 26 and 35 is M = 74.28 (SD = 6.44), age group of 36 and 45 is M = 74.50 (SD = 4.93), and those of age group 46 and above is M = 73.80 (SD = 7.03). Results of the ANOVA test on the sample size (N = 90) show that there is no significant differences between the age groups on the Islamic work value scale (F (3, 86) = 0.21, p = 0.88). The findings of this study however do not support the findings of Taylor and Thompson (1976) and Ali, Falcone, and Azim (1995) that found there was a significant association between age and work ethic. In contexts of job status the results of this study show a relatively high mean score of Islamic work ethic for all employees in the category. However, the junior support group have a slightly higher mean score of M = 76.0 (SD = 14.57) and followed by the senior management group with a mean score of M = 75.67 (SD = 14.01). The mean score for senior support group is M = 73.51 (SD = 13.37), and junior management group is M = 73.46 (SD = 11.42). Results of the ANOVA test on the sample size (N = 90) however, show that there is no significant differences between the job status groups on the Islamic work value scale (F (3, 86) = 0.412, p = 0.75). Thus, this study concludes that there is no significant differences in the level of Islamic work value among respondents according to job status. Therefore, whether respondents are in the category of management group or support group the results show that they are in strong support and adhere to Islamic work value.
The results of this study also show that all employees irrespective of their length of service have a relatively show that respondents have strong support and adhere to Islamic work value. The findings of this study however do not support the findings of Gomez-Mejia (1983) and Whelen (1972) that there is a significant relationship between work ethic and tenure.
In the context of organizational commitment, respondents (N = 90) overall mean score is 79.40 (SD = 13.18) thus can be consider as moderate. Within the dimension in organizational commitment, the mean for Affective Therefore, it can be concluded that there are no significant differences in respondents orientation within the dimension of affective, continuance and normative of organizational commitment. Overall, respondents' orientation towards organizational commitment is considered moderate and not significant.  O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted. 49,p. 13) Since IWE takes its root from the Quran therefore, an individual Muslim employee regardless of gender, marital status, age, job status and length of service who hold strong in Islamic faith will also have a high orientation in Islamic work values. In the context of relationship between Islamic work value and organizational commitment the findings of this study are in support of findings done by Yousef (2000), Wahibur Rokhman (2010) and Nik Mu'tasim et al. (2006).

Limitation
The results of this study should be viewed with caution. Since this study involves a small sample size, therefore it has a limited ability to be generalized to the population. To this extent this study cannot truly reflect that these respondents represent the whole population of Malaysian employees in the broadcasting industry.
However, the results of this study are reflective of the Islamic work value and organizational commitment of the respondents as they advance into their career. This work ethic should also be reflective of the community in which they live, i.e., an Islamic community. Also, since the data being reported came from questionnaire surveys therefore, several other limitations are associated with it such as general issues of questionnaire understandability and readability, scaling issues, and measurement errors. Furthermore, there is no assurance that the respondents' responses are a true reflection of their ethical judgments for some of the respondents could have provided socially desired answers.

Conclusion
The exploration of IWE and organizational commitment among employees of a broadcasting organization is intended only to show a general idea of an employee's attitude towards work and their organization, rather than provide information about how he or she views his or her job and organization or the reasons behind it. This study indicates that respondents have a high orientation in Islamic work ethics but moderate in organizational commitment. Future research should examine the Islamic work ethics among Malaysian employees in other industries and using a larger and representative sample size. Future studies should also apply IWE to non-Muslim and other ethnic in Malaysia in order to find whether Islamic work ethic scale can be secularized.