The Mediating Role of Quality of Work Life in the Relationship Between Religious Attitude and Social esponsibility: A Case Study of Employees of Payame Noor University

The concept of social responsibility of the university focuses more on the role and performance of the actors within the university institution, especially the professors and staff whose behavior and performance affect the opinion of its audience. In other words, due to the continuous cultural, economic, social and technological changes in today’s world, the educational, research and scientific needs of society have also changed, and this requires individuals and academic organizations to change and update their social responsibilities to fulfill more ethical and humanitarian work. The quality of work life of the organization’s employees, considering the increasing complexity of societies and labor markets and paying more attention to the nature of human resources, is of special importance in creating a suitable platform for strengthening the social responsibility of university staff. According to some experts, part of the stagnation of productivity and the reduction of product quality in some countries is caused by the shortcomings of the quality of work life and the changes that have occurred in the interests and priorities of employees. This study tries to examine to what extent the quality of work life of the employees in the academic units and centers of Payame Noor University in North Khorasan plays a mediating role in the relationship between the religious attitudes and social responsibility of the employees of this university.

This research is cross-sectional and applied (descriptive and correlational) with a quantitative approach and survey method. The statistical population of this research consists of all 152 professors and employees of the centers and units of Payame Noor University in North Khorasan who worked in the academic year 2018-2019, including official, contract and corporate employees. The sample size for this study has been determined based on the formula and table provided by Kerjesi and Morgan (1970), ensuring a professional and statistically sound approach to the research. Therefore, it includes 108 people from the academic and administrative staff of the university. Since the names of North Khorasan employees were available in the province’s administrative affairs department, systematic random sampling was used for sampling. The data collection tool was a questionnaire that included four sections: demographic or contextual items, items related to measuring social responsibility, religious attitude and quality of work life. The questionnaire had a total of 29 items to measure social responsibility (legal dimension 6 items, economic dimension 6 items, ethical dimension 8 items and altruistic dimension 9 items), 18 items to measure religious attitude (belief dimension 6 items, experiential dimension 6 items and consequential dimension 6 items) and 10 items to measure the quality of work life (the dimension of growth and development of human capabilities 4 items, the dimension of legalism 3 items and the dimension of the quality of the work environment 3 items). After preparing the names of 108 colleagues based on the ratio of the statistical population to the sample size (1.4), the necessary arrangements were made by automation and telephone correspondence, and the consent of the participants was obtained. The questionnaire forms were sent electronically and through WhatsApp.

The results indicate that there are significant relationships between some dimensions of religious attitudes and social responsibility. The correlation coefficients and the significance coefficients show the strength and direction of these relationships. There is a significant and positive relationship between the belief dimension of religious attitudes and social responsibility. The correlation coefficient is 0.186, which means that as the level of belief dimension increases, the level of social responsibility also increases. There is a significant and positive relationship between the experiential dimension of religious attitudes and social responsibility. The correlation coefficient is 0.246, which means that as the level of experiential dimension increases, the level of social responsibility also increases. There is a significant and positive relationship between the opportunity to grow and develop human capabilities and social responsibility. The correlation coefficient is 0.477, which means that as the level of growth opportunity increases, the level of social responsibility also increases.

The research results showed that the religious attitude of Payame Noor universities in North Khorasan had a significant direct effect on their social responsibility. These findings are consistent with the research results of Ghasemi, Badsar and Fathi (2015), Vakilifard and Hosseinpour (2014), Haghighatian, Hashemianfar and Moradi (2011), Su (2019) and Bramer, Williams and Zinkin (2007). According to the research findings, the higher the belief and experiential dimensions of the religious attitude of the staff, the higher their social responsibility, but there was no significant relationship between the consequential dimension of the religious attitude and social responsibility. The consequential dimension was actually a consequence of religiosity (Hasani & Mohammadi, 2018) and perhaps for this reason it did not have a meaningful relationship with social responsibility. Among the components of religious attitudes, the experiential aspect and then the belief aspect could strengthen the generalist and altruistic attitudes of the staff and thus explain the variance of their responsibility. It should be noted that in order to strengthen people’s religiosity, in addition to teaching religious teachings, advertising and holding religious ceremonies and rituals, the proper behavior and performance of managers and people who try to promote religiosity in the organization are very important. The research results also indicated the significant effect of the quality of work life on the social responsibility of the staff of Payame Noor Universities in North Khorasan. All three investigated components of the quality of work life, namely the quality of the work environment, legality and opportunities for growth and development of human capabilities, had a positive effect on the responsibility of staff. These findings are in line with the research results of Omidi and Alavi (2017), Mahdian, Taheri Goodarzi and Khorramimoghadam (2014). Actions such as recognizing the issues and problems of staff, providing a context for career advancement and observing fairness and law in the promotion of people, avoiding discrimination, training and empowering staff and giving enough autonomy to capable people, improving organizational communication and timely encouragement can improve quality. staff’s lives and of course increase their social responsibility. According to the research results, the variable of religious attitude did not have a significant effect on the quality of life. This result is consistent with the findings of Toloui and Sabour Esmaili (2013) and Karami and Hoseinpoor (2013). In this regard, it can be argued that the quality of work life of staff is more related to the quality of the work environment, a set of tasks or organizational functions, and the culture that governs the organization than it is influenced by their religious attitude. At the same time, it was also stated that the religious attitude of staff was able to show a significant effect on their social responsibility as an independent variable. The responsibility of staff at North Payame Noor Khorasan University was significantly affected by the quality of life and especially the quality of the work environment, rather than being affected by religious attitudes.