Abstract

This study was aimed at assessing the effect of Employee Commitment on Organizational Performance using The Higher Institute of Management Studies (HIMS) Buea as a case study.  Through the purposive sampling technique, a sample of 30 employees of HIMS Buea was selected and data was collected with the use of structural questionnaires.

Descriptive statistical analysis was carried out on the demographic characteristics and least square regression was used to detect the relationship between employee commitment and organizational performance. Findings revealed that employee commitment has a positive and insignificant effect on organizational performance. It was recommended that the organization should emphasize on advertisement, branding and innovation with the use of ICT which all might contribute significantly to organizational performance.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   Background of the study

In every organization work is been accomplished through the employees who performance different task. As a result of these, it improved the performance of the organization. Employee commitment it is necessary as it promote individual employee performances.

According to Brown and Taylor (2011), And employee who is committed in the work place is of great value to the organization as they may need little or no supervision to accomplish their task assigned to them. It is asserted that there is no firm that can achieve peak performances in the current competitive business environment unless it makes optimal use of its employee (John and Elyse, 2010).

In every company there are goals and objectives and employees need to acknowledge them and perform their duties as effectively as a member of the team in order to achieve organization’s objective. As such employees need to partner with the available entrepreneur as they rely on the effort of the entrepreneur to deliver the organizational objectives. This is because employees want to be part of an organization that is successful, which remunerates well and offers well fare and May offer opportunities for development and security of tenure (John and Elyse,2010).

It was argued by Brow and Taylor, (2011) that committed employees remain within the organization there for saving the organization of the cost required to recruit, train and develop new staff. Turnover increases customer satisfaction due to discontinued services delivery (Scott, 2007).It was also argued that commitment is a human relation idea as well a generator of energy that activates the brain (Jaw and Lui, 2004).

When employees are not committed, the implementation of new idea and initiatives will not be easy. Commitment is defined as a psychological state that hold the employees to the organization (Elyse, 2010). That is it the binding force that is felt in different way including an affective attachment and sense of involvement with object, a feeling of duty to the target and acknowledge of the cost that will incurred if involvement with the target is discontinued (Conway and Monks, 2002).

According to Coyle-Shapiro (2006), staff dedication to their work place is linked with an employee obligation to their work though it is closely related to that affection at and employee’s obligation to their work though it is closely related to that affectionate an employee feels about their work.

To be effective and committed it revolves around an individual employee connection with the company in terms of how well they evaluate their interaction and involvement in company affairs. Highly committed employees have been found to be inversely related to employee turnover in an organization. For Wang (2010), this has improved organizational performances.

When an employee is committed, they are likely and willing to work with the involved organization for a long period of time and because of their level of commitment, experience and expertise their output is phenomenon meaning that they increase customer satisfaction (Conway and Monks, 2002). Among the parameters for their commitment could be things like salary, pensions, tenure, benefit and family allowance among other things involved with exiting.

It has been stated by several researchers that employees may display each of the three different commitment at different degrees. Committed workers are one of the most important assets that any organization can have as they play a significant role in influencing a company’s performances (Hurter, 2008). From the past research, it has shown that higher level of employee commitments most at times Have free benefit by the organization in terms of continuous, improvement, efficiency and cost effectiveness.

Job satisfaction is a sign of employee commitment and result of higher level of job performance among employees, increased return of shareholders as the sale increases and operational costs reduces.  when an employee is committed, it also leads to reduction in labour turn over, lower levels of intention to leave as such reduces the intention to look for alternatives and reduced absenteeism (Robinson, 2006)

Empirical studies have shown that high commitment employee practices improve performance, job productivity and service quality (Owoyemi et al, 2011, Boxall and Macky, 2007). Studies have reviewed that commitment to work practice from the employers’ perspective is different from the perspective of the current studies that views it from the employees’ perspective.

According to Boxall and Macky (2007),   when employee have high commitment work practice this increase their level of performance toward the organization resulting in increased individual performance, as well the overall organizational performance and employee dedication to work will increase and these can be associated with the human resource practices that is recruitment, selection and performance appraisal. It can as well help the employee in developing certain psychological connection (Owoyemi et al, 2011).

Allen and Meyer (1990) developed an early model that has received considerable attention.  One important point is that not all forms of employee commitments are positively associated with superior performance.

Meyer and Allen (1997) consider that, an employee who has low affective and normative commitment but who has high continuance commitment is unlikely to yield performances benefits. The main reason such an employee remain with an organization is for the negative reason that the cost associated with leaving are too great.

Commitment is considered to be psychological immersion of an individual with his institute through sense of belonging, ownership of organizational goals and being ready to accept challenges (Dolan, Tzafrir, and Baruch, 2005). Creating commitment among employees is important because without this it will become difficult for an organizational commitment mean the involvement of an employee to perform his work with his zeal and excitement Dorenbosch and veldhoven (2006) the performance of an organization is directly related to commitment level of employee (Ivancevich 2010). Committed employees will be able to perform their jobs more than management expectations (Bragg, 2002). High level commitment is indispensable for increasing output and obtaining sustainable competitive advantages (Whitener, 2001).

In today’s competitive world every organization is faced with new challenges regarding sustained productivity and creating committed workforce. Hence it is important to understand the concept of commitment and its feasible outcome (Dixit and Bhati, 2012).

It is no longer good enough to have employees who come to work faithfully every day and do their jobs independently.  Employees now have to think like entrepreneurs while working in teams and have to prove their worth. People are the most important drivers of a company competitive advantage (Maugo, 2013).

The concept of performance has gained increasing attention in recent decades being pervasive in almost all spheres of the human activity. Performance is a subjective perception of reality, which explains the multitude of critical reflections on the concept and its measuring instruments.

Globally there seem to be performance crisis in public service as there is need to produce more for less, this economic problem that strike through poor, developing and developed countries has raised the appetite for efficiency, hence the need for evaluation mechanisms to help assess the performance of government institution or programme that are quiet inadequate

1.2 Problem Statement

The is no general solution as to what can increase an employee’s commitment to the organization as every organization different from another (Hurter, 2008)

According to Wang (2010) High commitment leads to production and employee involvement in the management of job effectiveness and doing their job effectively. While these studies have been useful for demonstrating the potential value created through human resource practice, they revealed very little regarding the process through which this value is created (Boxall and Macky, 2009). As we take a look at our day society with its challenges, it is obvious that not all employees are committed at the same level to their work and; an every manager needs to be aware of individual and situational factors that build employees commitment for the optimal organizational performance (Hossein et al, 2012).

Every employee engage in organizational activity is of great importance and also is part of the driving force behind organizational performance as committed employees are satisfied and willing to go extra mile to ensure timely and efficient delivery of the organizational objectives (Gonring, 2008).

Research evidence on organizational commitment gathered more than two decades ago, needs to be qualified to reflect the changing nature of employer and employee’s relationship (Robbinson, 2006)

According to Robinson, (2006) a current trending employment practice like the written contracts signed by employees when they are being employed affects the level of employees’ dedication to that particular organisation. It is said by Robinson (2006) that practices like retrenchment, downsizing and acquisitions are elements needed in a company for it to remain competitive thus employee view the company at a different angle.

When firms look for ways to foster commitment ideals, the chances of an employee looking for employment in another organization is lowered. Some reasons why employees are committed include; job related factors, employment opportunities, structure of the organization, leadership and management style, individual characteristic, employee motivation, performance appraisal system and positive co-existences (Scott, 2007).

Even though scholars have focused on the various factors influencing employee commitment, it important to note that they have not conducted studies on a mixture of the following factors including moral, training and development, empowerment and participation on employee commitment. It is a great challenge for managers in industry and company to determine exactly how they will attain optimum commitment from their employees which would be necessary in optimizing the organization’s performance. Managers have tried to achieve commitment from their employees by using methods that were successful in other places in the world and have failed, the reason being that the research the knowledge gap will be filled.

With little or no study on this area in Cameroon, how can employees’ commitment improve organization performance or how can commitment be a determination for organizational performance in HIMS Buea

Every organisation seeks to improve and increase its performance level by providing learning opportunities to its workers (Weiss et al, 1998). Organizations must perform at individual level to improve performance of whole organization. According to Dess and Robinson (1984), organizational performance can be enhanced by improving employee participation and management must have certain tools to improve employee participation in the sector. In the view of Lee et al, (2004), level of progress and participation is different in every country. Many organisations delegate authorities and power to their employees and due to that authority organization performance also increases. An organization which gives authority to their employees to take decision also enhances their own skills. Organisation which perform well also involve employee in decision making and other organizational decisions.  Adams and Rummel.  (1977) argued that in recent years, the issue of worker’s participation in management has been subject to increasing amount of attention

1.3 Research Question

In this work we formulated the following main research question;

What is the effect of employee commitment on organizational performance in HIMS Buea?

The following specific research question are formulated

1. What are the factors that enhance employee commitment in HIMS, Buea?
2. What recommendation can be made to organizations on how to improve employee commitment for organizational performance?

1.4 Objectives of the Study

The main objective of this study is to assess the effect of employee commitment on organizational performance.

This study seeks to achieve the following specific objective:

1. To determine the factors that can enhance employee commitment in HIMS Buea
2. To recommend better ways of improving on employee commitment in order to improve on organizational performance

1.5 Hypothesis

The following hypothesis of the studies are formulated

Ho: Employee commitment has no significant effects on organization performance

H1: Employee commitment has a significant effect on organizational performance.