Exploring the Moderating Effect of Gender on the Relationship between Organizational Commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Lecturers in Kuningan Regency are expected to demonstrate high Organizational Citizenship Behavior to enhance organizational benefits and ensure that work is conducted more effectively and efficiently. This research aims to investigate the effect of gender as a moderating variable on the relationship between organizational commitment and OCB among these lecturers. The study employed a survey method with a quantitative approach, targeting a population of 346 lecturers from three universities in Kuningan Regency. Using a proportional random sampling technique, which divides the sample based on specific strata, a sample of 186 lecturers was selected. The findings indicate that organizational commitment has a positive and significant impact on OCB, and gender significantly moderates this relationship, enhancing the effect of organizational commitment on OCB.


INTRODUCTION
Employee Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) serves as a barometer of employee involvement in a company.Employees that exhibit this conduct are eager to go above and beyond the call of duty or regular working hours in order to consistently support their coworkers and the organization they work for, without anticipating anything in return.OCB refers to extra-role behavior, or additional actions, that can provide tangible benefits to the organization (Fitriani et al., 2020;Darsana & Koerniawaty, 2021;Nursafaah et al., 2022;Masruroh., 2023;Syafrudin et al., 2024).
Just as OCB is important in a company, it is also crucial to cultivate OCB in a campus or higher education environment.This is because, in their roles, lecturers are expected to perform extra tasks beyond their primary duty of teaching.In addition to conducting classroom teaching activities, lecturers must also build work teams, provide assistance or guidance to their students even outside of designated working hours, and offer support to their colleagues in carrying out tasks within the university (Auliana & Nurasiah, 2017).The Ministry of Research and Technology's 2020 Science and Technology Index (SINTA) report, which says the following, provides evidence of this: Therefore, OCB plays a crucial role in ensuring that lecturers perform their duties wholeheartedly, thereby positively impacting their colleagues and the higher education institutions they are part of (Lukiana, 2016).An indication of low Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) has been observed among lecturers in Kuningan Regency.This was evident from the results of a pre-survey questionnaire conducted at three higher education institutions in Kuningan Regency: Kuningan University, STKIP Muhammadiyah Kuningan, and Al-Ihya Islamic University.The pre-survey revealed that OCB among lecturers in Kuningan Regency is still low, as demonstrated by the following data: From the pre-survey data on OCB among lecturers in Kuningan Regency, it is evident that OCB behavior among lecturers remains low.This is reflected in the questionnaire results, where many lecturers responded with uncertainty or disagreement regarding statements related to OCB.Specifically, the statement about helping colleagues' tasks shows the lowest OCB level, with 54.3% disagreeing and 20% unsure.Additionally, the statement about performing work sincerely without overly considering reciprocation from the company shows a low OCB level, with 40% disagreeing and 14.3% unsure.The final statement, regarding performing work outside of designated working hours, shows a slight difference in scores, with many respondents agreeing with the statement, showing a difference of 2.9%.OCB behavior can be enhanced by increasing the organizational commitment of employees.Organizational commitment is a factor that can influence the level of OCB exhibited by employees (Lukiana, 2016;Mahsyar et al., 2023;Masruroh et al., 2023;Masruroh et al., 2024;Hisbih et al., 2023).Organizational commitment has a positive and significant effect on Organizational Citizenship Behavior (Rahayu, 2017;Fitriani et al., 2021;Arraniri et al., 2024;Firdaus et al., 2024).In a similar vein, Kusumawati & Hidayat (2014) provided evidence of an important and favorable effect of organizational commitment on OCB.Sengkey et al. (2018) discovered, however, that organizational commitment has a negligible and unfavorable impact on OCB.Furthermore, Priyandini et al., research from 2020 suggested that organizational commitment had no appreciable impact on OCB.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
OCB is defined by employees' actions in performing their tasks accurately and promptly even outside of established working hours, driven by their sincere feelings and commitment to their duties without expecting compensation or reciprocation from their employer (Patras, 2023).The main indicators of OCB are as follows (Purjani & Riana, 2019): Altruism, Conscientiousness, Sportsmanship, Courtesy, and Civic Virtue.

Gender
Gender refers to the differences in sex and societal perceptions of men and women based on their roles in the social world, where women are often seen as gentle and emotional due to their focus on feelings, while men are perceived as strong, steadfast, and rational (Dalimoenthe, 2021;Maulana et al., 2022;Setiawan & Prawirasuyasa 2018;Adiastuty et al., 2020;Adiastuty et al., 2021).According to Oakley & Greer (2005), gender indicators are divided into two categories: male and female.
Organizational Commitment refers to the loyalty of employees towards the company through achieving targets, aligning with company values, demonstrating their ability or willingness to continue as a component of the company, and maintaining the desire to remain part of the organization (Idrus, 2022).Taroreh (2018)   The hypotheses in this study are as follows: H1: There is a positive effect of Organizational Commitment on Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB).H2: Gender moderates the effect of Organizational Commitment on Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB).

RESEARCH METHOD
This study falls under the category of correlational research since it uses a survey method.
The goal of this study is to use correlation coefficients to examine how much changes in one element are correlated with changes in another (Adnan & Latief, 2020).The population for this study consists of lecturers in Kuningan Regency, including 191 lecturers from Kuningan University, 61 lecturers from STKIP Muhammadiyah Kuningan, and 94 lecturers from Al-Ihya Islamic University Kuningan.Thus, the total population for this study is 346 individuals.Sample calculation can be performed using the Slovin formula as proposed by Firdaus (2021).It is determined that the sample size for this study is 186 lecturers, with a margin of error of 5% with Probability Sampling, specifically Proportional Random Sampling (Arikunto, 2010).Data collection tools used in this study include questionnaires.Additionally, this research employs a Likert scale.The Likert scale (H.Kurniawan, 2021) is used to measure the level of agreement or disagreement of respondents concerning the given statements, reflecting their attitudes towards a specific object.

DISCUSSION
According to the statistics from the hypothesis testing shown in Table 2, organizational commitment positively influences organizational citizenship behavior (OCB).This implies that OCB improves along with an increase in organizational commitment.A significant path coefficient of 0.807 with a p-value less than 0.000.As a result, it can be concluded that Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) is positively and significantly impacted by organizational commitment, which supports Hypothesis 1.Based on figure 3, the conclusions from the Multi-Group Moderation Analysis between men and women can be summarized in the table below: The calculated t-value is 2.54, which is significant at the 5% level as it exceeds the t-table value of 1.65, and with a p-value < 0.000, it is considered significant.Therefore, Hypothesis 2 is accepted, indicating that gender significantly moderates the effect of organizational commitment on Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB).

DISCUSSION
The impact of organizational commitment on Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) among lecturers in Kuningan Regency is both positive and significant.This implies that as organizational commitment increases, OCB also rises.This finding aligns with the research by Rahayu (2017), which demonstrated that organizational commitment has a positive and significant effect on OCB.Similarly, Hidayat and Kusumawati (2014) reported that organizational commitment significantly enhances OCB.Lukiana (2016) further supports this by stating that organizational commitment is an internal factor influencing OCB.The discussion provides a fundamental explanation of the relationships and generalizations indicated by the results, addressing the research question.If any results are uncertain, they should be presented objectively.
Gender moderates the effect of organizational commitment on Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) according to the study conducted by Aftab et al. ( 2020) (Firdaus et al., 2024).In this study, female lecturers had higher scores compared to male lecturers.This is because women have a higher sense of responsibility towards their work, and female lecturers consistently perform their assigned tasks to the fullest.This finding aligns with the research by Messner (2017), which states that women have higher organizational commitment compared to men.

CONCLUSIONS
Based on the result, it can be concluded that Organizational commitment has a positive and significant effect on Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB), and Gender can moderate the effect of organizational commitment on Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB).

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.SINTA report from the Ministry of Research and Technology concluded that the indicators of organizational commitment are affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment(Ramdani et al., 2024).

Figure
Figure 2. Conceptual Framework

Table 1 .
Findings from the Kuningan Regency Pre-Survey Questionnaire on OCB Behavior Among Lecturers SA: Strongly Agree A: Agree U: Unsure D: Disagree SD: Strongly Disagree Source: Data Processing Results of the Questionnaire, 2023

Table 3 .
Multi Group Moderation