IMPACT ON EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT

Employee commitment is the “relative strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in a particular organisation”387_{. Meyer and Allen identify three fundamental} dimensions of commitment; affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment388_{. A more detailed discussion of organisational commitment was undertaken in} chapter three. Affective commitment reflects a ‘desire’ by an employee to remain in employment with a particular organisation. It refers to the psychological attachment of a worker to his or her place of work. The individual enjoys their membership of the organisation. This emotional attraction to an organisation may be significantly influenced by events and/or policies within such an organisation which have some emotional undertone389_{. For instance,} policies on redundancies are capable of severing deep emotional connections which employees have for their employers in the short run and even the long run. Meyer et al support this view and discovered that there is a close relationship between affective commitment and other components of the employer-employee relationship such as low absenteeism and improved job performance390_.

Continuance commitment reflects a ‘need’ to remain in the employment of an organisation391_{. This type of commitment is achieved after an employee considers the benefits} he or she enjoys as a member of the organisation as well as the cost of leaving such an

387_{Mowday, R T, R M Steers and L W Porter. "The measurement of organizational commitment." Journal of} Vocational Behavior 14 (1979).p. 226.

388 _{Meyer, J P and N J Allen. "A three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment." Human}

Resource Management Review 1 (1991).

389 _{Meyer, J P, et al. "Affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization: a meta-analysis of} antecedents, correlates, and consequences." Journal of Vocational Behaviour 61 (2002). See also Zhao, , H, et al. "The impact of psychological contract breach on work related outcomes: A meta-analysis." Personnel Psychology 60 (2007).

390 _{Meyer et al, 2002.} 391 _{Meyer & Allen, 1991.}

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organisation. Continuance commitment is significantly influenced by factors that are mostly economic in nature. These factors include the cost of acquiring non-transferable skills, the possibility of losing certain attractive benefits (for instance, official cars and houses), or the cost of uprooting and relocating family members, consequently disrupting personal relationships392. The employee in this case weighs the benefits of remaining with an organisation against its cost. Using indices such as job security, future career prospect, promotion policies of an organisation and transactional costs, he or she makes a decision. A reconciliation of the cost of leaving the organisation and the possibility of securing a better employment leads the employee to commit to his current employer or otherwise leave the organisation. The fewer the alternatives are, the greater the level of continuance commitment. Normative commitment is obligatory and moral in nature. It is born out of a sense of moral consciousness of an employee to maintain membership with a particular organisation393. Though normative commitment is considered as a different dimension of commitment, it is closely related to affective commitment because of its emotional and moral elements394_. Normative commitment is influenced by factors such as familial and cultural socialisation395. Where influential family members have served as a part of an organisation, there is a tendency for an employee to have a sense of loyalty to that organisation. In the same vein, culture plays a role in employees’ perception of loyalty and a sense of obligation.

Additionally, normative commitment could be developed where an organisation rewards an employee in advance (e.g. paying for training or school fees). Recognising the level

392_{Coetzee, M. The fairness of affirmative action: An organisation justice perspective. PhD Thesis: University}

of Pretoria, 2005.

393 _{Coyle-Shapiro, J A and P C Morrow. "Organizational and client commitment among contracted employees."}

Journal of Vocational Behaviour 68 (2006). 394 _{Meyer & Allen, 1991; Wang et al, 2010.} 395 _{Meyer & Allen, 1991.}

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of investment made on the employee, he or she feels obligated to reciprocate the investment and commit to the organisation until the ‘debt’ is repaid396_.

When organisational obligations and expectations are met, a feeling of security and satisfaction is fuelled in the employee, leading them to reciprocate the actions of the organisation. Conversely, when formal contractual commitments are breached and expectations are not met, the psychological contract is broken and this could lead to the loss of employee commitment397.

What emerged from interaction with research participants is that there was a strong sense of continuance commitment and a lower sense of affective and normative commitment. There appears to be a sense within bank employees that the relationship between employer and employee was contingent on the financial exchange and nothing else. The implication of employees having a strong continuance commitment and weak levels of affective and normative commitment for an organisation is that employees are more likely to seek alternative employment where employers offer them a better psychological contract and where the relationship between the employer and employer is not tilted so heavily in favour of the employer. This is a major factor in the turnover rates present in the Nigerian banking sector.

396 _{Coetzee, 2005.}

397 _{Guzzo, R A, K A Noonan and E Elron. "Expatriate managers and the psychological contract." Journal of}

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