Antecedents Of Organizational Commitment Or Job Performance: A Study

Analysis

Geldenhuys, Laba and Venter (2014) define the term organisational commitment as the psychological attachment or relatedness of employees to the organisations they are working with. The area of organisational behaviour has gained immense importance because organisational commitment of employees has great impact on the organisational performances. This is because employees committed with the organisations deliver higher level of performances compared to the less committed employees. Moreover, high employee turnover has several detrimental effects on the organisational performances and this had led the organisations to gain information about the factors or antecedents which ensure higher level of employee commitment. This is because higher employee turnovers lead to loss of talented employees to other organisation. The companies losing employees not only lose human capital but also the knowledge capital which the resigning employees have. Multinational companies poach each other’s employees in order to gain access to each other’s knowledge resources indirectly (by employing employees having worked with competitor). The aim of the report would be exploring the factors or antecedents of organisational commitment.

The employee commitment plays a very important role in the performance of the organisations. Carlos Pinho, Paula Rodrigues and Dibb (2014) mention that employee commitment depends on several antecedents. The antecedents of the employee job commitment can be divided into three categories. The first categories of organisational commitment is related to demographic factors age, gender, education and employee vintage. The second antecedent is related to working environment while the third group of antecedents is dependent on availability of alternative job opportunities in the market.

The first antecedent of job commitment is demographic in nature. Age is one of the most important antecedents of organisational commitment since employees tend to lose their sense of commitment towards their employers with age. However, it can also be argued that aged and experienced employees show higher level of organisational commitment compared to the younger employees. This is because as the age of the employees increases, they shift from lower level executing jobs to job responsibilities which require these senior employees to guide and control subordinate employees. This leads these senior employees to have stronger commitment to the organisation compared to the lower level employees.

The second antecedent of organisational commitment among employees is culture. This is because multinational companies due to their global operations operate in several countries and employ their respective workforces. This leads to organisations acquire employees from different cultural backgrounds. As De Baerdemaeker and Bruggeman (2015) mention that while this employing of human resources from other countries have been highlighted as a measurement towards diversity management, diverse employee culture with employees from different cultural background may lead to employee conflicts. Thus, it is evident from this discussion that though diversity management plays a very important role in ensuring continuous innovations among the companies, it is also capable of causing conflict. The employee from the company where the company resides may view this diversity of cultural background as a challenge to their own position and may also view the company in a negative light.  Thus, it can be pointed out though diversity management is encouraged in business companies as a driver of innovation, in reality it also leads to lowering of commitment of the existing employees which is capable of effecting the business of the company badly.

Antecedents of Job Commitment

The third antecedent of employee job commitment and retention is career advancement. The employees are known to have shown higher commitment towards jobs which are known to bring about career growth in their profession. These professional development and career planning motivate the employees to continue working with the company. The companies which are able to conduct higher level of career planning for employees are able to retain employees for a longer time. This relationship between employee commitment of their jobs and career growth are evident from their multinational companies. The multinational companies around the world as a result plan the career of their employees and also prevent the other competitors from poaching on their employees. The employees are motivated to deliver higher standards when they receive employee recognitions and career growth both in terms of promotions as well as respect within the company.

The fourth antecedent which has direct effect on the commitment level of employees is level of job satisfaction. The employees which receive a higher level of job satisfaction are likely to have higher level of employee commitment to the other employees. The factor of job satisfaction is very subjective in nature. Job satisfaction is dependent on several organisational factors like the commitment of the organisations to enable the employees bring about development in the career of the employees.  Positive organisational structure boosts job satisfaction which enables the organisations retain their employees. Thus, it can be proved that job satisfaction has a deep impact on the organisational commitment. It can also be pointed factors like salary, conflict, managerial leadership and employee facilities have deep impacts on the employee commitment to the organisations (Mesu, Sanders & Riemsdijk, 2015). For example, employees receiving higher salaries are more motivated to participate in the operations of the company compared to the employees receiving smaller amount of salaries.

The fifth antecedent of commitment of employees to the organisations employing them is the feeling of insecurity. Insecurity have detrimental effect on the morality and motivation of the employees. The employees feeling insecure may resent and try to create obstruction in the decision making and execution of the business strategies. The employees with lower performance level usually fall in this category. These employees are not skilful and as a result are always suffering from insecurity and nervousness about losing their jobs. Further, it can also be organisational changes like the need to embrace technology and change the method of operations to a more digital platform based participation of managers from the geographically have known to create insecurity among employees having limited technological knowledge

It can be pointed out that just like antecedents like age and cultural factors, employee job commitment is also antecedent to five dependent variables or outcomes. The first outcome of employee job commitment is high level of motivation. Employees feeling relatedness to their employer organisations deliver higher levels of performances. The second variable outcome of the organisational commitment is high retention of employees and alignment of them with the organisational business requirements. The third outcome of this alignment of employees with business requirements is that employees get opportunities to showcase and apply their skills. The employees are also able to inculcate new skills and knowledge while performing in the market.  This boosting of knowledge and experience is the fourth outcome of the employee job commitment. The fifth outcome or variable of organisational commitment is appraisal and promotion to higher designations.

Outcome of Employee Job Commitment

This is because employees with higher level of skills and knowledge about market gained while serving the companies are in better positions to take strategic decisions which are more aligned to the organisational needs as well as organisational culture of the organisations concerned. It can also be pointed that enhanced employee commitment towards the organisations enables organisations retain and derive long term benefits from the knowledge and skills of employees. The above analysis clearly shows that employee commitments to business organisations have emerged as the very base of the performance of organisations. The business organisations should take steps to boost organisational commitment among employees and in order to curb employee turnover. The apex management body of the organisation should hold meetings with the departmental heads to gain information about employee performances and their training needs. The apex managers should then form an employee development strategy (Colquitt et al., 2011).

Conclusion:

The above discussion clearly points out that age is an important factor which effects the organisational commitment. However, the perception of age draw conflicts some authors claim that age lower organisational commitment while others calim that age boosts organisational commitment owing to prolonged involvement with the company. The managers should identify the scope in diversity management in their respective departments and should eduicate their subordinates about the importance of diversity management. This would enable workers to develop mutual respect and cooperation which ultimately boost the productivity of the organisations. A very important area which business organisations are facing is change management. The reason s responsible for change management are beyond the control of the organisations like technological; advancements. These changes in the external environment often require organisations to embrace change.

The managers must ensure that they mentor and educate their subordinate about the need to adopt their change instead of making them feel insure. This lowering enfeebling of insecurity would lead to more commitment of employees to the operations of the company. Thus employee commitment ultimately boosts the operations of the company. Thus, it can also be pointed out from the discussion that employers in order to relation their employees for a longer span of time must provide long benefits like work from home and flexible timing facilities. The management of the companies must streamline their human resource management strategies to ensure alignment of the employees to the business requirements.

References:

Carlos Pinho, J., Paula Rodrigues, A., & Dibb, S. (2014). The role of corporate culture, market orientation and organisational commitment in organisational performance: the case of non-profit organisations. Journal of Management Development, 33(4), 374-398.

De Baerdemaeker, J., & Bruggeman, W. (2015). The impact of participation in strategic planning on managers’ creation of budgetary slack: The mediating role of autonomous motivation and affective organisational commitment. Management Accounting Research, 29, 1-12.

Geldenhuys, M., Laba, K., & Venter, C. M. (2014). Meaningful work, work engagement and organisational commitment. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 40(1), 01-10.

Mesu, J., Sanders, K., & Riemsdijk, M. V. (2015). Transformational leadership and organisational commitment in manufacturing and service small to medium-sized enterprises: The moderating effects of directive and participative leadership. Personnel Review, 44(6), 970-990.

Colquitt, J., Lepine, J. A., Wesson, M. J., & Gellatly, I. R. (2011). Organizational behavior: Improving performance and commitment in the workplace. McGraw-Hill Irwin.