The Influence of Psychological Ownership (PO) and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) on Employee Engagement: The Mediating Role of Perceived Organisational Support (POS)

Purpose: This study seeks to demonstrate the relationship between the components that form employee engagement using the IT services industry, which faces specific issues due to its constantly changing environment and reliance on skilled talent. Design/Methodology: A structural equation modelling (SEM) with an importance performance map analysis (IPMA) was used to examine answers to surveys from 221 IT executives. Findings: The study reveals that there is a strong positive effect of psychological ownership (? = 0.457) on employee engagement than OCB (? = 0.404) through POS. The IPMA supports the results that OCB’s importance and performance are high in contributing to the engagement of employees in IT companies. It was also found that POS has moderate performance but low importance, which explains that the overall effect of POS on employee engagement is relatively low as compared to OCB. Research Implication/Limitations: The study is cross-sectional and does not allow for the conclusion of causality. And the majority of the legitimate responses in our sample came from very young people. This may have an impact on the findings, since younger employees may have great enthusiasm as compared to older people. Originality/value: The findings imply that the potential of psychological ownership and OCB in inspiring, and the prolongation of employee engagement in the service industry can be triggered and reiterated through POS. This study provides groundbreaking confirmation that developing psychological ownership and OCB are necessary to generate employee engagement in knowledge-based industries.