Islamic work ethic, employee engagement and organizational citizenship behaviour: a study among civil servants in Malaysia

Civil servants has vital role to play in execution of various national economic transformation plans in realising vision 2020 and at the same time fulfils the increasing demand and expectation of the Malaysian public. Civil servants who possess organizational citizenship behaviour that voluntarily transcend beyond their task performance expectation is highly sought to enhance government delivery efficiency to the public. Islamic Work Ethic (IWE) though not officially made as code of conduct for government agencies in Malaysia has been widely embraced by majority of civil servants in this country and has significant effect on various workplace behaviours. This study examines the relationship between Islamic Work Ethic (IWE) and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) with possible mediation effect of employee engagement (EE) using a survey method. A total of 153 state civil servants from the Unfederated Malay States (UFMS) namely Johor, Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu have participated in this study. The findings of this study revealed that EE mediates the relationship between IWE and OCB among the civil servants in Malaysia especially among the Muslim employees who embraced Islam as their faith. The findings of this study have made significant contribution to the body of knowledge in understanding OCB and EE among civil servants in Malaysia who predominantly guided by IWE. This study also has few practical implications to government agencies and policy makers in devising appropriate human resource strategies to ensure efficient public service delivery