Self-esteem, organizational citizenship behavior and commitment among university students

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between self-esteem (SE), university commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) within a higher education setup. Design/methodology/approach: A convenience sample of 354 students in a three-year higher national diploma awarding technical university in Ghana participated in the study via the completion of self-administered questionnaires. Descriptive statistics and partial least square-based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) were used to analyze data. Findings: Path results using a PLS-SEM analysis showed a positive and significant association between SE and OCBs and university commitment among the students. Furthermore, OCBs were found to partially mediate the relationship between SE and university commitment. Practical implications: The findings of the study provide important implication for management of higher education institutions. Management of higher education institutions must orient academic and non-academic staff to adopt communication strategies that help to improve students’ self-worth and assertiveness. All students should be encouraged to participate in extra-curricular activities in order to build students’ beliefs about themselves and self-confidence. Originality/value: This paper is one of the first to have tested a model including SE, university commitment and OCBs in a technical university setup from a developing country perspective. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.