Organ (1988) defined organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) as ‘individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal rewards system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization’. These behaviors incorporate many dimensions like, sportsmanship, altruism, civic virtue, conscientiousness and courtesy (Organ, 1988). It has been observed that OCB improves employees’ work motivation, performance, and ultimately their career success (Borman and Motowidlo, 1993; Russo et al., 2014; De Clercq and Belausteguigoitia, 2020a). Yet, devoting a substantial amount of energy on volunteering activity can also pose considerable obstacles for employees and conflict with their normal job duties. In other words, when employees accept additional obligations that are not strictly required of them, the resulting distractions may hinder their ability to achieve their allocated performance goals (Culbertson and Mills, 2011; Bolino et al., 2015). When faced with hardship in the office, employees struggle with their organizational functioning and develop anxieties about their future career possibilities, which may express as job stress, or a feeling of being overwhelmed or overburdened by the current environment (Hon and Chan, 2013; Perko et al., 2017; Abdelmoteleb, 2018). Despite the widespread recognition that exposure to stress-inducing work conditions can dissuade employees from engaging in OCB (Cheung and Cheung, 2013; Pooja et al., 2016; De Clercq and Belausteguigoitia, 2020b), there is a paucity of research that explicitly links the experience of mental health to voluntary work efforts, specifically stress, anxiety, and depression following the covid scenario.

Research on organizational citizenship practices has become increasingly prevalent since the introduction of the concepts behind it approximately 20 years ago (Bateman and Organ, 1983). OCBs, or organizational citizenship behaviors, are activities that people of an organization do freely but which are neither prescribed nor rewarded in any way by their employer, included are activities that not only immediately benefit either the work group or the organization as a whole, but also contribute to the upkeep and maintenance of the social structure of the company. It is considered that citizenship behaviors might improve the operation of an organization by “greasing” its social machinery (Smith et al., 1983). Aditionally, citizenship behaviors can help the development of social capital in organizations (Jain and Cooper, 2012; Jain and Sharma, 2019) through the relation between OCBs exhibited by employees and their work groups. Many researchers have found evidence connecting stress and other mental health factors with OCB (Cialdini et al., 1982; Arunachalam, 2021; Bormann and Gellatly, 2021).

Counterproductive work behavior or CWB is defined as “intentional behavior that has the potential to disrupt or is driven to disrupt an organization and its stakeholders” (Hollinger and Clark, 1982; Spector and Fox, 2005). CWB includes oppositional behavior, antagonism (physical or verbal), inappropriate acts, sabotage, theft, and withdrawal, including absenteeism, tardiness, and abandoning a job. CWB is characterized by the criterion that all actions must be intentional and cannot be random. In other words, employees intentionally choose to disrupt the organization by acting in a specific manner. Numerous studies conducted over the past decade have highlighted not just the monetary cost of poor workplace behavior, but also its social and psychological effects on the organization (Hollinger and Clark, 1982; Penney and Spector, 2005; Simbula and Guglielmi, 2013; Mahd et al., 2018; Hudson and González-Gómez, 2021; Pati and Dhal, 2021). According to prior study, psychological detachment a form of depression (Liang and Hsieh, 2007), negative emotions and intelligence (Sahoo et al., 2022), occupational stress (Salami, 2010), burnout (Chiu and Tsai, 2010), and angry personality (Spector, 2011) likely have a significant influence in the prediction of CWBs. Although these studies have attempted to analyze CWB from a mental health perspective, a more in-depth examination is required after the covid period, which has caused a significant increase in mental health problems (Vadivel et al., 2021).

In contrast to OCB, which indicates a positive relationship between the individual and the organization, CWB suggests unfavorable employee conduct at work. CWB is “voluntary behavior that breaches significant organizational standards and affects the well-being of an organization, its members, or both” (Robinson and Bennett, 1997). CWB is a common but undesirable phenomenon in organizations. It has enormous effects on the performance of organizations, including decreased productivity, increased insurance costs, lost or destroyed property, and increased employee turnover (LeBlanc and Kelloway, 2002; Vigoda, 2002). Spector and Fox (2005) discovered evidence that emotions have a moderating role in the relationship between organizational restraints (a stressor) and CWB. Numerous studies conducted over the past decade have highlighted not just the economic cost of counterproductive workplace behavior, but also its social and psychological effects on the organization (Hollinger and Clark, 1983).

Selye (1950) defined stress as a physiological response to a situation. According to Linden (2005), stress is a mechanism in which stressors (demands) evoke an effort at adjustment or settlement that, if failing, results in individual suffering. If the effort at adjustment or settlement is successful, the individual does not experience stress. Stress elicits physiological, behavioral, and cognitive responses. Chronic stress, as opposed to acute subjective or physiological activation, has the potential for the most detrimental health impacts. According to studies, stressed employees demonstrate poorer productivity, absenteeism, a larger frequency of accidents, worse morale, and increased interpersonal conflict with co-workers and superiors (Jain et al., 2011). Some occupations are extremely stressful due to their requirements, such as those in manufacturing industries like the automobile industry, which involves a variety of shift duties which causes work stress a continual noisy atmosphere which increases aggression (Alimohammadi et al., 2018; Subramaniam et al., 2019), and a regimented work schedule creating additional pressure (Omair et al., 2019) etc. Both Kim et al. (2015) and Akgunduz (2015) came to the conclusion that work stress negatively influences overall job performance. According to Tongchaiprasit and Ariyabuddhiphongs (2016), workplace stress can lead to a decline in job satisfaction as well as an increase in the desire to look for new employment.

Anxiety is a generalized feeling of fear and apprehension. In contrast to fear and panic, the anxiety response pattern is a complex combination of unpleasant feelings and cognitions that is more future-focused and diffuse than fear. In addition to cognitive/subjective components, anxiety also includes physiological and behavioral components (Barlow, 2011). Employees generally fear about one’s jobs future aka job insecurity. In a longitudinal study, Spector and O’Connell (1994) discovered that frustration and anxiety are positive indicators of conflict. Spector and Jex (1998) discovered a correlation between conflict and a variety of unpleasant feelings, including depression, anxiety, and irritation. Anxiety is a negative emotion characterized by apprehension or concern. Anxiety is more closely associated with avoidant cognitive processes than with approach cognitive processes. Researchers discovered that anxiety is connected with Counterproductive Work Behavior in general (Fox and Spector, 1999; Fox et al., 2001). Chung et al. (2022) found evidence of anxiety mediating work behavior especially OCB and Wang et al. (2021) found evidence for leader workplace anxiety to be associated with employee OCB.

Stress is almost often the cause of depression and anxiety and depression are the primary causes of mental illness, affecting millions of people on a global scale. Baranik and Eby (2016) demonstrated a connection between OCBs and employee depression, and research indicates that employees utilize OCBs to alter their emotional responses. According to prior studies, psychological detachment (depression) plays a crucial role in the prediction of CWBs following burnout (Liang and Hsieh, 2007). Sadness and despair, a form of depression, is believed to be associated with feeling of separation from the precipitating event (Beck et al., 1993; Assari and Lankarani, 2016; Lamis et al., 2018). Thus, occupational depression can lead to disengagement from the workplace, appearing as withdrawal behaviors or production deviation (Bauer and Spector, 2015).

The United States (US) economy’s emergence and importance was related to the auto industry as expressed by Henry Ford, the founder of the first auto firm, held ‘Freedom of mobility is the driving force behind human growth’ (Ford on why smart mobility is essential for smart cities | Automotive World, 2018). The importance of auto industry can not only be seen in the US, but also in India, which is the fifth-largest maker of automobiles, thus making the auto sector a significant economic force. The industry has an effect on the health, be it physical or mental, on its employees and specifically post the covid pandemic, it was noticed that there was a rise in extending a helping hand for the mental health programs among them (Purcell et al., 2021). The corporates were observed collaborating with non-profit partners to disperse funds, notably linked to providing mental health services, and supporting the transition of minority groups to a telehealth platform in order to meet healthcare demands during the pandemic. Thus, it can be seen that there was a significant rise in mental health factors in auto industries.

We try to investigate the unexplored conditions in which mental health may be likely to impede individuals from engaging in voluntary work behaviors post the covid pandemic. In order to accomplish this, we admit openly that mental health can impair discretionary work activities. Particularly, the loss of energy resources in the form of conservation of energy brought by covid is likely to diminish employees’ confidence in their ability to integrate normal job duties with volunteer work efforts, and it may also reduce their motivation to participate in such extra-role activities (Pooja et al., 2016; De Clercq and Belausteguigoitia, 2020b).

The automobile is one such Industry where work setting is tedious and requires increased physical presence than other industries. It is a highly competitive industry which continuously works to meet the demand supply chain cycle. Employees working there have to put in constant efforts to meet demand, undergo tremendous pressure to cope with the cycle. The tasks in the auto sector are among the most time- and stress-intensive. These circumstances have a negative impact on mental health. The sector’s mental health score in 2019 placed it in the bottom 10% of 19 industries (Manganello, 2019). According to Dr. Laura Hamill, an industrial and organizational psychologist, manufacturing industry employees face a unique combination of pressures that can contribute to high levels of stress, anxiety, and other mental health issues (Manganello, 2019). Also, as per Lang (2019) one out of every three engineers have felt that their mental health is deteriorating and that 22 per cent of the engineers have thought about self-harm or suicide. Addressing mental health issues at work not only helps in creating a better mental health platform but also increases the productivity of the organization.

In India research and studies on mental health outcome in automotive sector is limited, thus through our research we have humbly tried to understand the link between mental health and organizational behavior. India is the 5th largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world hence draws a special attention to the subject. The study location Chennai contributes 35 per cent of India’s automobile segment manufacturing.

COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989a) states that individuals who have sufficient resources to cope with the stress and challenges in their environment are less likely to experience stress. According to the theory people seek, preserve, foster, and protect their resources. It follows the idea that people cognitively overweight resource loss and underweight resource gain. The hypothesis states that micro aggressors like subtle distorted cognitions are real (Sue, 2010) and affect the individual. The theory claims that people are motivated to conserve and acquire resources. Resources might be thoughts, objects, or situations a person values. These materials’ worth depends on each person’s life experiences and circumstances. The theory posits that individuals who already own a greater number of resources have a greater capacity to acquire additional resources and a lower likelihood of experiencing a loss of resources that they already possess. This is attributable to the fact that those who already possess a number of resources have a stronger propensity to acquire more, particularly a predisposition to acquire more resources, the reason for this can be found in resource caravans put forward by Hobfoll et al. (2018). There are 4 principles and 3 corollaries to COR theory,

Principle

Corollary

Conscientiousness, which is one of the OCB traits, is typically considered as a resource; Russell et al. (2017) discovered that persons with high levels of conscientiousness were more likely to utilize other resources in ways that were not always desirable. Conscientious persons experienced a faster decline in their emotional well-being than their counterparts who were less conscientious. In other words, conscientiousness is commonly considered a resource that enables individuals to manage other resources more effectively (Halbesleben et al., 2009; Ten Brummelhuis and Bakker, 2012), but it can also cause individuals to lose focus on broader performance goals.

Stress gives rise to anxiety and depression in the long run, stress is the basic precursor to any mental health conditions in an individual. We have considered stress and anxiety under one roof as the major explanation of the behavioral outcomes of the both is similar in nature.

Negatively impacted members of a project team could take a defensive stance and focus on maintaining the resources they still have (Hobfoll, 1989a), so they avoid behaviors that could further deplete those resources. Individuals on the team who are frustrated as a result may opt to neglect their duties if they have a greater degree of autonomy (Chiu and Tsai, 2010). Because OCB is awarded on a case-by-case basis, dissatisfied members of a team have the ability to decline or withhold OCB in order to protect their own resources (Perrewé and Zellars, 1999; Priesemuth and Taylor, 2016). Furthermore, given that feelings of resentment and anger are linked to job dissatisfaction (Eissa and Lester, 2018), a member of a team that is unhappy in their position may be less likely to exhibit OCB while they are going through a negative emotion. This is due to the fact that feelings of resentment and anger are correlated with dissatisfaction in one’s employment. In light of these things to take into account, we will now provide our preliminary hypothesis.

The negative impacts of job stress are frequently explained by using a stress-emotional paradigm, which is used in existing research (Spector and Fox, 2005). Chen and Spector came to the conclusion that a person’s level of frustration directly correlates to the intensity of their hostile and aggressive behavior, and that anger is a common contributor to CWB Chen and Spector (1992). CWB is being negatively impacted by negative emotions, disruptive interpersonal behavior, vandalism, and attacks. In addition, studies have shown that those who experience a larger range of unpleasant emotions are more vulnerable to the effects that stresses have on them. Individuals who experience significant levels of negative emotions are more prone to incorrectly interpret stress as being intrusive in their responses to stressful events, which can lead to the development of CWB (Penney and Spector, 2005). Now we will provide the second hypothesis we possess.

Emotional regulation can be understood from the standpoint of conscience, in accordance with the theory of mood regulation developed by Tice and Bratslavsky (2000). People may put forth a concerted effort to intentionally enter, exit, and maintain either a pleasant or negative mood, and the majority of this effort is concentrated on overcoming unfavorable feelings like depression. Engaging in altruistic behavior is a healthy and adaptable way to work through these unfavorable feelings. Also assisting other people can be a good distraction since it forces people to concentrate not on their own negative feelings but on those of other people (Baranik and Eby, 2016). Thus, engaging in OCB’s can help an individual to overcome their negative moods and raise their happiness level. As per the addendum of the COR theory (Hobfoll et al., 2018) resource gain is spiraling in nature, and these gain spirals occur in saliency, under high loss conditions. As a result, the individual is highly motivated to rebuild or gain his lost resources, and he or she will work toward this goal even when faced with highly negative conditions. This builds up to our third hypothesis.

According to the findings of Liang and Hsieh (2007) psychological separation in the form of depression plays an important part in the prediction of CWBs that occur after burnout. As per Jones (1981) people who are mentally and emotionally drained are considerably more inclined to take breaks without permission and to cause harm to other people. Research reveals that emotionally exhausted professionals may adopt depression as a coping technique to avoid greater resource depletion. This is despite the fact that depression is typically associated with burnout (Cordes and Dougherty, 1993; Tomaka et al., 1993). The COR theory asserts that when individuals’ access to resources is severely limited, they are more likely to engage in defensive behaviors in an effort to forestall further resource depletion. With this argument we form our next hypothesis.

Leveraging on COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989b, 2001; Hobfoll et al., 2018) as a paradigm, we seek to explore the relationship between mental health, OCB and CWB, we propose that mental health might be a significant factor in impacting organizational behavior.

The study was carried out at an automobile components manufacturer organization in Chennai, India. The participants consisted of 51 white collar and 43 Blue collar permanent employees between the ages of 21 and 60 years. The sample size for the research was 94 as the auto sector unit consisted of population of around 600 employees and a random sampling technique without replacement was done to select the subjects, only permanent employees of the organization were selected for the survey, also the said population fulfills the criteria to perform significant statistical calculations and to assert enough confidence intervals of the population. Informed consent was obtained from the participants through written format. Seventy percent of the respondents were between the ages of 21 and 30, while 14 % were between 31 and 40 and the rest between 41 and 60 years. Details were obtained from both white collar (54 per cent) and blue collar (46 per cent) personnel. As primarily a manufacturing organization, only 9 % of the population was female thus contributing more than 90 percent of the study population to be male. Eighty percent of the population was married, while the remaining 20 % were unmarried or single. The income of the participants ranged from 20 to 30 thousand (25 per cent), 30–50 thousand (43 per cent), 50–80 thousand (14 per cent), 80 thousand to 1 lac (7 per cent), and 1 lac and above (11 per cent). The company provided all the safety measures and guidelines for the employees to work smoothly. Proper social distancing, masking, wearing of gloves, goggles in shopfloor, caps, uniforms were maintained.

The study was conducted right after the third covid partial lockdown period was lifted in Tamil Nadu (COVID-19 pandemic in Tamil Nadu, 2022) from March to April 2022. The employees in the study belonged to automobile industry and thus had to commute to office on a daily basis with severe safety protocols. Participants were chosen at random, and there were no stand-ins allowed. Workers from both white- and blue-collar backgrounds were included in the sample. The survey was carried out using the old-fashioned method of paper and pen. After a period of 30 min, the researcher went back to the location where he or she had initially delivered the questionnaires in order to collect the completed questionnaires from the white-collar employees who were working at their respective work stations. The shift operators completed the questionnaire during a break of 30 min that they received from their pressing and forging operations. The following scales were used in the survey: Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21) developed by Lovibond and Lovibond (1995), Organizational Citizenship Behavior-Checklist (OCB-C 20) (Fox and Spector, 2009) and Counterproductive Work Behavior–checklist (CWB-C 10) (Spector and Fox, 2010) both developed by Paul Spector and Suzy Fox. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 26) was employed in order to carry out the calculations for the statistical analysis of the data. Spearman’s Rho was used for calculating the correlation as it is a more appropriate measurement when an ordinal scale is used.

Mental health, comprised of stress, anxiety, and depression, is an essential component of one’s personal and professional life, and its effects on organizational behavior, notably citizenship and counterproductive behavior, are significant. This study of the relationship between mental health and organizational behavior as a predictor of OCB and CWB has significant organizational consequences. The COR theory adds to its significance by providing multiple explanations for the causal effect. Novel in its practice, the study aims to explain a phenomenon via the lens of the evolving COR theory, which has excellent explanatory power for important outcomes that do not fit the standard framework.

The study was exclusively carried out in an Automobile sector organization which contributes to 7 per cent of India’s GDP. The sample population was quiet young (averaging in 20s) and majorly male (more than 90 per cent) which might be a reason for having a different result from suggested hypothesis. Also, the study did not take into consideration the socio-demographic details for analysis as we wanted to first analyze the link of the COR theory with the variables majorly. The study also did not consider the role of the employees within the organization for comparison, which can be taken up for future studies, as many abusive supervision (Hussain and Sia, 2017) studies have revealed a lot of workplace deviance. The context of this research is extremely important to understanding how these results should be interpreted. The socially detrimental variables need to be incorporated in the study’s continuation because working in a manufacturing unit is inherently stressful due to the physical demands, lengthy travel hours, and the existing covid environment. The study was done right immediately after the third lockdown period thus the voluntary participation of the employees was comparatively less considering the safety protocols. The fact that the OCB self-report measure is entirely dependent on self-reporting is another key flaw in the instrument. Due to the fact that the scope of this study is restricted to the automotive industry, we are unable to generalize the findings to apply to any other industries. When conducting future research with variables that are comparable, it will be necessary to draw comparison samples from populations that are demographically and geographically varied.