A study on the effect of team support and emotional exhaustion on organizational citizenship behavior of nurses in COVID-19 pandemic: mediation by team commitments

Abstract

PurposeNurses need to display organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) for taking care of patients; uninterrupted care to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients in a stressful situation may result in emotional exhaustion and it hinders nurses' exercise of OCB. One perceives support when positive exchanges with team leaders and members (LMX) and team and members (TMX) take place for the benefit of self and the unit and lead to a feeling of commitment to the work team; the exchange facilitates the discharge of OCB. The study aims to explore the mediation effect of team commitments on the relationship between these factors with OCB of nurses in handling COVID patients.Design/methodology/approachThe cross-sectional exercise attempts to find the impact of emotional exhaustion, LMX and TMX on the OCB of the nurses and mediating effects of team commitments on OCB; correlation analysis and multiple regressions are in use for examining the relationships. The use of Sobel test and bootstrapping exercise confirm the mediation and consistency of mediation results on a larger sample.FindingsThe paper finds that LMX, TMX and team commitments significantly relate to OCB; emotional exhaustion negatively impacts OCB and team commitments fully mediate the relationship between emotional exhaustion and OCB and partially mediate the relation between LMX and TMX with OCB.Originality/valueTests demonstrate that team commitments can neutralize the effects of emotional exhaustion resulting from handling COVID-19 patients on OCB of the nurses and is an addition to organizational behavior literature. The study also presents a model that shows how positive LMX, TMX and resultant team commitments support generating OCB and offset the impact of emotional exhaustion. Theoretical and managerial implications, limitations and scope for further research discussed in the paper.