Managing team performance in higher education institutions through friendship prevalence, work engagement, and organizational citizenship behavior: A structural equation modeling study

Improving university teamwork performance is essential, especially due to the worldwide pandemic. This study examined a model for enhancing university performance by increasing friendship prevalence, work engagement, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) among employees. This study used a quantitative design by distributing online questionnaires to 132 employees of universities in Indonesia. Then, the data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)-Amos version 23. The study found a significant and positive effect among the variables: 1) Friendship prevalence has a significant positive effect on work engagement and OCB; 2) Work engagement also has a significant positive effect on OCB and team performance; and 3) OCB also has a significant positive effect on team performance. Moreover, the relationships between friendship prevalence and OCB, and friendship prevalence and team performance were mediated by work engagement. However, this study found that OCB could not mediate the relationship between work engagement and team performance. The study indicated that friendship prevalence is the predictor of work engagement. Thus, it is recommended for universities to build and improve good friendship among employees.