Open Communication, Career Development Practices and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour in Kenya Forest Service

The study determined the moderating role of career development practices on the relationship between open communication and organizational citizenship behaviour. The study was anchored on the social exchange theory. The study employed explanatory research design ingrained with the pragmatism philosophy. The target population of the study comprised of 702 employees drawn from Kenya Forest Service North Rift Conservancy. Multi stage sampling technique was used to select a sample size of 248 respondents. The primary data for the study was collected using closed ended questionnaires and semi-structured interview schedule. Data was analyzed quantitatively using descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Regression, Correlation and ANOVA) while qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The hypothesis was tested using multiple regression model and hierarchical regression for moderation. Findings of hierarchical regression showed that career development practices moderate the relationship between open communication and OCB (β=.24, p<0.05, R∆=.01). This implies that firms with career development practices have higher probability of improving OCB with open communication. It therefore calls for formulation and promotion of open communication and its effective implementation. Moreover, in order for open communication to enhance OCB, organization needs to implement career development practices.


Introduction
Globally, organizations increase their employees' citizenship behaviour to enhance retention. In this regard, OCB remains an international phenomenon considered as one of the biggest obstacles for organizations in achieving their strategic plans and gaining competitive advantages [1]. This gives credence to the adoption of retention strategies such as open communication strategies owing to their dyadic relationship with OCB. [2] underscores that there is a positive linkage between OCB and Employee Retention practices in organizations. This justifies the use of retention strategies to make employees rise beyond their given responsibilities and authorities thus OCB. This is because organizational success can only be achieved when employees perform more than mere completion of the required job task [3]. Previous research shows that if the employee turnover increases then the organization effectiveness is decreased. There is an inverse relation between employee turnover and organizational performance. Subsequently a myriad of recommendations encourage employees to improve on OCB because it is crucial in making decisions to either quit or be retained in an organization. More importantly, the linkage between OCB and employees retention remains vital.
An understanding of the relationship between OCB and employees retention has received considerable attention over the last decades [2]. The employees who stay for a longer duration are familiar with the company policies, guidelines as well as rules and regulations and thus can contribute more effectively than individuals who come and go [4]. Therefore there is evidence to affirm that employee retention may influence the organizational citizenship behaviour. This is corroborated by [5] who indicated that there is a positive relationship between employee retention and OCB, while [6] suggested that more retention might negatively affect OCB. Nonetheless, [7] showed no effect of retention on OCB. However, the OCB as an outcome depends on the retention strategies used by an organization. These mixed findings obviate the need for further research on the relationships between OCB and employee retention. With reference to these inconsistencies in the past research on the claimed relationship, [8] cited in [9] have recommended that when the relationship between a predictor and a criterion variable is found unexpectedly weak or inconsistent a moderating variable should be introduced.
Career and development opportunities also moderated the indirect relationship between openness to experience and intention to quit through perceived sacrifice commitment [10]. Alternatively, if workers realize that the organizational development guidelines are not in line with their career aspirations i.e in making certain commitments regarding their workers, it will force them to only perform within their job description hence affecting their extra role behaviors [11]. This gives credence to the fact that the success or failure of retention strategies used is exclusively dependent upon the perception of employees regarding these strategies, which supplicates the importance of interrogating the role of contingent factors on the relationship between employee retention strategies and organizational citizenship behaviour.
However, limited studies have been conducted in the Kenyan context focusing on career development practices moderating the relationship between retention strategies and OCB. Besides, little is known on the role of career development practices on the relationships between employee retention strategies and organizational citizenship behaviour in Kenya Forest Service, North Rift Conservancy. Therefore, it was speculative how the presence or absence of career development practices affects the relationships between employee retention strategies and organizational citizenship behaviour. Based on the foregoing, this study looked at how career development practices moderates the relationships between employee retention strategies and Organizational citizenship behaviour of employees at Kenya Forest Service, North Rift Conservancy. The choice of Kenya forest was based on the fact that non-managers at Kenya Forest Service suffer low satisfaction index with the work environment at 56.5% compromising on their OCB [12]. Low satisfaction levels within work environment suggest poor retention strategies and low OCB in the service. Low remuneration, un-harmonized schemes of service, weak implementations of training policy, weak implementation of performance management system, promotion and deployment, lack of policy on gender equality and job insecurity have been linked to poor workers retention [13]. In order to achieve good service delivery the organization ought to interrogate the effect of their retention strategies on employee discretionary behavior. Thus, the main objective of this study was to explore the moderating role of career

Theoretical Review
From the literature reviewed, the following the study was anchored social exchange theory. [14] introduced Social exchange theory and referred to "Social Behaviour" in his work as "Exchange" [15]. Social exchange was further defined as the exchange of activity, tangible or intangible, more or less rewarding or costly between at least two persons. That is, explaining the process of negotiated exchanges between parties. The theme of this theory is that social behaviour is moderated by the amount of additions or withdrawals of bargainable instruments [16]. Organizational citizenship behaviour is seen as one of the core outcomes of social exchanges in employment relationship because of its discretionary nature [17].
According to social exchange theory [18] posits that exchanges are based on initiated and voluntary actions by either employer or employee and the expectation that the other party will eventually reciprocate these actions. If one party does not meet their obligations the imbalance in exchange relationship will force the other party to either increase or withhold their efforts to restore equivalence [19]. Following this argument, employees are expected to regulate their engagement in organizational citizenship behaviour relative to what they receive, or intending to receive in future from their employer.
Employees will withhold discretionary behaviours if they feel unfairly treated or choose to engage in OCB to reciprocate good or fair treatment from the organization [20]. This implies that organizational citizenship behaviour develops as an effect of social exchanges between employees and their employers and therefore organizations. Therefore, the employer has to provide a warm environment for OCB growth to enhance employee commitment hence their retention is made possible. The practical application of this theory is that employees feel pleased to perform more than expected from them when the firms cares for them.

Review of Literature (Hypothesis Development)
Communication is the backbone of any company; the joint that brings together all departments of a company; the lubricant that smoothen the company's functions; the string that ties the structure together and a fastening agent that cements all organizational affairs [21]. The aforementioned statement indicates the magnitude played by communication in today's organizations. Human resources constitute the biggest challenge among other factors of production because it calls for skillful management of feelings, emotions and thoughts to enhance OCB for heightened productivity [22].
Organizational communication formulates different kinds of social structures bringing up networks and teams in order to ensure workers' satisfaction and commitment in their roles [23]. Through timely and relevant information dispersed, communication in the organization is mandated to ensuring familiarity of workers of what is expected from them in terms of achieving the set individual targets [24]. The exchange of information between the employees and the management is very essential during hiring and retention of workers in a company. This justifies that communication can be used as a means of ensuring OCB through building of interpersonal relationships, transparency and effective commitment [25]. Due to the significance of this variable in organizational success, much attention has been given to its study on organizational behavior research. Most scholars have also found a positive link between communication and employee performances, while low employee commitment attributed to poor communication in most organizations [26]. [27] noted that the positive effects of high-quality involved supervisor-subordinate relationships on subordinate behavioural and performance outcomes lead to more commitments by employees. [28]  The major role of employee retention strategies is to enable employees stick to an organization. Empirical studies have shown positive linkage between employee retention practices and OCB in the effort of organizations to retain staff in the past instances [2]. Therefore there is evidence to affirm that employee retention strategies may affect organizational citizenship behavior. This is corroborated by [5] who indicated that there is a positive relationship between employee retention strategies and OCB. This implies that the organization should critically look at its retention strategies and interrogate their compatibility with the needs of the employees if it is to maximize on their OCB. However authors have faulted the relationship between the HRM practices and its outcomes [29]. This indicates that the introduction of mediator or a moderator in the relationship between HRM practices and its outcomes is of necessity [30].
In an unpredictable and uncertain environment with expanding requirement for skilled labour, organizations view career development more as a practical opportunity to recruit and keep capable workers [31]. High performers and non hourly workers were more likely to cite advancement opportunities and organizational prestige as reasons for staying, whereas low performers and hourly employees were more likely to cite extrinsic rewards [32]. Interviews with Taiwan hotel workers revealed that more than 80% of respondents had resigned from a job to pursue career advancement while 70% had experienced recruitment propositions from other hotels [33]. In this regard when employee are aware of the upcoming plan concerning their career growth, they tend to be more loyal and commitment. Therefore, career path development seems as a vital practice for attaining better employees' discretionary behaviours. Career development consists of actions undertaken by workers (career planning) and the organization (career management) to encounter career objectives and job necessities and hence is critical for realizing career planning and management [34]. [35] studied the moderating role of work locus of control in relationship between Interpersonal Communication and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour. The study focused on the variables which are due to the direct impact on the behavior of an employee and on the orientation thereof towards organizational outcomes being concentrated on interpersonal relationships. Data was collected using an online survey method of 223 employees from various organizations coming from both public and private sectors organizations from Romania. The findings of the study revealed that WLOC can moderate the relationship between IC and OCB. The results revealed that individuals with a higher I-WLOC show higher availability and skill in communication process, with positive results to OCB. The study also found out that work locus of control associated with career development moderates the relationship between Interpersonal Communication and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour There are several retention strategies, which affects organizational citizenship behaviour in most organizations some of which are financial rewards and employee benefits, job enrichment, training and development opportunities, work environment, and work-life balance, open communication, leadership skills [36]. When there is a relation between peer support and employee retention, employee who stay in an organization are expected to have a positive impact on the organization especially on organizational citizenship behaviour. Therefore, improving organizational citizenship behaviour through proper retention strategies is vital in attracting and retaining the human resources, the key contributors in organizational success. To date little has been done on the relationship that exists between retention strategy, organizational citizenship behaviour and career development in most organizations in Kenya which calls for more studies.

Material and Methods
This study adopted explanatory research design in pragmatic research philosophy which enables the researcher to simultaneously answer confirmatory questions regarding the moderating effect of succession management on the relationship between retention strategies and organizational citizenship behaviour, through use of closed ended questionnaires and semi structured interview schedules. The study adopted a sampling formula proposed by [37] from the table, the sample corresponding to a population of 702 is 248 respondents that was selected for this study. The researcher used purposive sampling to pick one administrator from each county and who was interviewed with the goal of getting detailed information concerning the relationship that exist between the variables under study. Multistage sampling technique was used to narrow down to the employees. Cluster random sampling technique was used to select the six counties in North rift conservancy. The study developed questionnaires based on the research objectives and hypotheses to collect data. The researcher employed closed ended questions with Likert type statements.

Measurement, Reliability and Validity of Research Variables
To measure the research variables, the study first determined the indicators/parameters of each variable and then employed Likert scale to measure independent variables, dependent variables and the moderator. The scale comprised of an interval scale of 1-5 (where; 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = undecided, 4 = agree, and 5 = strongly agree).
Organizational Citizenship Behaviour OCB usually have five dimensions including altruism, courtesy, conscientiousness, sportsmanship and civic virtue.
The five dimensions were measured using a set of 24 items based on the conceptual work of [38] and developed by [7].
Open Communication Open communication was measured using organizational communication policy, communication with managers, communication with coworkers [39].
Career Development Career development was measured using the following items: career planning, training and development, coaching and mentoring, career counseling, talent management and succession planning [40].
Factor analysis was employed in this regard to help in identifying the actual number of factors that measured each construct as perceived by the respondents. The validity of the instrument was measured through Bartlett's Test of Sphericity [41]. The component factor analysis with varimax rotation was conducted in all variables to extract factors from each construct. According to [42] all items loading below 0.50 were deleted and those with more than 0.50 loading factor retained. The items were well loaded into their various underlying variable structure of dimensions. The factor analysis results revealed Eigen value were above the accepted value of 1 [43]. Thus, the items were appropriate to explain the variable. Moreover, from the Table 1, Bartlett's Test of Sphericity produced a significant Chi-Square (χ²) (ρ<0.05) and Kaiser -Meyer -Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was above the acceptable value of 0.50 (Field, 2005), showing that it was appropriate to subject data for factor analysis on this variable of Knowledge sharing behaviour [44]. In the current study, Cronbach's Alpha was used as a measure of internal consistency. The instruments were considered reliable when their reliability coefficients were above the recommended 0.7 thresholds [45].

Analytic Model
The study used hierarchical multiple linear regression to test for moderation effects [8]. First, control variables in the model were regressed against OCB for potential direct effects. Secondly, control variables and retention strategies aspects were regressed against OCB. Thirdly, moderating variable was introduced and regressed together with other variables. Therefore, the interaction term between predictor and moderating variables was obtained by multiplying the two variables that produced an interaction effect done at different stages for each individual interaction as specified in the hierarchical regression models below: The model specification was as follows:

Findings and Discussion
This presents the results and findings of the study according to the research objectives and hypotheses. The data was prepared for analysis by ensuring it met the minimum requirements for quantitative analysis. The questionnaires were therefore visually checked and tested for outliers, for missing values and unfilled parts as well as for normality distribution.

Univariate Analysis
After factor analysis all items that did not meet loading criteria were dropped and data was transformed from categorical to interval scale by getting the average score for all items in each variable. Table 1 shows the results on data transformation. From the findings, career development practices (4.02) and organizational citizenship behavior (mean = 4.02). The implication is that the leadership at Kenya Forest Service is key to the career development of its employees. The standard deviations for all the variables were less than 1 indicating less variation in the responses. Finally, all independent variables and the dependent variable were normally distributed as shown in Table 2 below. Pearson's correlation coefficients were used to test linearity assumption. Table 2 shows that there was a significant positive correlation between open communication and organizational citizenship behaviour (r=.801 ** , p<0.01). The results also revealed a significant and positive relationship between career development practices and organizational citizenship behaviour (r=.802 ** p<0.01), also giving a very strong positive relationship. A correlation of above 0.90 is a strong indication that the variables may be measuring the same thing (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013).

Hypothesis Testing
These hypotheses (H 1 and H 2 ) were tested using hierarchical regression. Prior to conducting hierarchical regression analyses, all study variables were standardized as z-scores to test for interaction terms [46]. Z-standardization of the variables allows easy interpretation of the interaction effects [47].
The first hypothesis of the study stated that there is n0.... that open communication has a positive and significant effect on organizational citizenship behaviour. These study findings are supported by [27] who noted that the positive effects of high-quality involved supervisor-subordinate relationships on subordinate behavioural and performance outcomes lead to more commitments by employees. [28] concurred with these findings when he revealed positive association between managements direct communication to employees and the various forms of OCB.  Previous scholars reiterated that the most optimal way to know the nature of the interaction effect of the moderator is to plot them in a graph [48]. Mod Graphs help to simplify the interpretation of the complex nature of interactions in the model. Thus, the results in Table 4.25 can be plotted on Mod

Conclusion
From the findings, open communication has a positive and significant influence on organizational citizenship behavior. The implication is that open communication is not only necessary to build up proper channels between the management and employees but is also considered as a key dimension to foster employees' organizational citizenship behavior. The relationship between open communication and organizational citizenship behavior is further enhanced when moderated with career development practices. This suggests that efforts by the organization towards ensuring that employees attain career growth leads to an improvement in open communication which in turn fosters organizational citizenship behavior.
The current study provides absolute support to the suggestion that employee retention strategies should be recognized as a significant precursor for the OCB. It can be noted that with career development practices as a moderator retention strategies such as leadership and work life balance become the greatest contributor to OCB. This asserts that the effect of all the employee retention strategies have different strength of relationship with OCB as moderated by career development practices. However, this does not devalue the role of the other retention strategies under study. This implies that the organization should synergistically bundle the employee retention strategies in order to secure maximal OCB besides taking cognizance of career development practices.

Theoretical Implication
The theoretical implication of this study is that it supports and extends the job embeddedness, social cognitive and Social Exchange theory as they have casted more light on social retention strategies and career development practices as a means through which an organization can enhance high OCB. This finding supports the essence of bundling of open communication through mutually consistent policies incarnate of career development strategies and other human resource practices for purposes of galvanizing OCB. The study has addressed the deficiencies in literature by extending studies on open communication, career development and OCB in the Kenyan context as a developing country and specifically in the public sector. Besides, the study has addressed different outcomes of open communication and career development practices which is OCB, other than employee satisfaction and performance as highlighted in a majority of studies.

Managerial and Leadership Implication
The implications of this research findings is that the management of KFS North Rift Conservancy have been enlightened on the need of strengthening the implementation of open communication in consort with career development practices as a means of enhancing OCB. In fine, the findings have contributed to human resource management in terms of providing valuable input to and awareness of the open communication to consider with regard to enhancing OCB. This has been illustrated empirically that the management should strive to synergize their open communication with career development practices in order to achieve maximal OCB.

Limitation
This study faced a number of limitations which have generated implications for future study in the field. The first limitation was that the respondents busy schedules resulting in delayed responses: There was extreme slowness in filling the circulated questionnaires. The explanation from the assigned internal data collection coordinators was that the employees were very busy and therefore, needed more time. In response, the study resorted to researcher-administration of the questionnaire. The researcher administered the questionnaire to the respondents directly at their work stations; where questions were ready to each respondent and responses filled accordingly. The study was limited to the moderating role of career development practices on the relationship between retention strategies and organizational citizenship behavior. Further research may contribute to literature by considering moderating role of career development or other moderators between other retention strategies' and other possible outcomes.
Arising from some of the implications and limitations of the study, recommendations for further research are made. While this study successfully examined the conceptualized framework of open communication, career development practices and OCB. It has also presented a rich prospect for other areas to be researched in future. In terms of industry, the study was only confined to the public sector. It would however be useful to carry out similar study across heterogeneous industries. Future research should therefore expand to other industries and contexts because human resource practices and organizational culture vary according to sector and country