THE INFLUENCE OF EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Today it becomes necessary for every organization to have full level of its employee commitment in order to have outstanding performance on long term basis. Currently employees act like entrepreneurs when they work in a team and every member of the team tries his level best to prove himself the best amongst all others. Those things increase their commitment level in the organization that ultimately increases the performance of the organization.

In the past organizations provide job security to its employees to improve their commitment level in the organization and to improve their productivity. Higher level of employee commitment in the organization for individual projects or to the business is assumed as a major reason for better organizational performance that leads to organizational success.

One aspect of employee organization linkages that has received broad attention from both managers and behavioural scientists is the concept of employee commitment. The concept’s popularity is increasing due to the assumed impact organizational commitment has on employees and organizational performance. Employees in modern organizations are increasingly expected to show effort, motivation and initiative. The success of an organization depends not only on how the organization makes the most human competences, but also how it encourages commitment to an organization

Organizational commitment has an important place in the study of organizational behavior. EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT between organizational commitment and attitudes and behaviors in the workplace

Nowadays et al. (1994) define commitment as “the relative strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in a particular organization”. They mention three characteristics of commitment Bateman and Strasser state that organizational commitment has been operationally defined as “multidimensional in nature, involving an employee’s loyalty to the organization, willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organization, degree of goal and value congruency with the organization, and desire to maintain membership” (p.95). Nowday, Steers, and Porter (1979) identified commitment-related attitudes and commitment-related behaviors. Porter et al. (1974) Schultz, discuss three major components of  organizational commitment as being “a strong belief in and acceptance of the organization’s goals, a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and a definite desire to maintain organizational membership Porter et al., 1974, 1976; Koch and Steers, 1978; Angle and Perry, 1981). Furthermore, Batemen and Strasser (1984) state that the reasons for studying organizational commitment are related to “(a) employee behaviors and performance effectiveness, (b) attitudinal, affective, and cognitive constructs such as job satisfaction, (c) characteristics of the employee’s job and role, such as responsibility and (d) personal characteristics of the employee such as age, job tenure” (p. 95-96).

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Employees with high levels of commitment and job involvement go on work in time and are usually more motivated to put extra efforts, on the other hand, employees having minor level of commitment and job involvement are least motivated and have more excuses such as illness or transportation problems etc. as compared to highly committed employees (Blau, 1986; Blau, & Boal, 1987).employee commitment may be cost saving since committed employees are highly motivated that mean that they don’t need much financial rewards for their work, though it doesn’t necessarily means that such top performing employees should not receive financial rewards and recognitions at all, but the expenses of the organization may decrease at this point (Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1979; Zanini, 2007).

Organizational researchers from all around the world consider the job involvement as an important factor which influence both employees’ as well as organizational outcomes (Lawler, 1986). Employees with high levels of job involvement make the job a central part of their personal character and focus most of their attention on their jobs (Hackett, Lapierre, & Hausdorf, 2001). They are likely to exhibit less unexcused lateness and unexcused absences than employees with lower levels of job involvement

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The major objective of this study is to investigate the influence of employee commitment on organizational performance; a case study of Nigeria bottling company NBC

Other objectives are written below:

I. To examine therelationship between employees commitment and organisational performance

ii. To investigate the relationship between work motivation and organizational performance

iii. To find out the relationship between job satisfaction and organisational performance

iv. To examine the positive relationship between employees high job Involvement and organisational performance

v. To examine the positive relationship between leadership styles and organisational performance