CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Over the last three decades, organisational commitment and job satisfaction have generated a lot of interest among researchers. The popularity of the concept has stemmed from its relationship with several important employee behaviours. For instance, the literature has shown that organisational commitment and job satisfaction may have positive impact on job performance.
Therefore, predicting employee satisfaction, commitment and turnover is important because employees have become the only source of sustainable competitive advantage to organisations (Popoola, 2007). Therefore,employee commitment and satisfaction becomes critical if an organisation expects to be successful.
Mowday, Steers and Porter (1979) conceptualized organisational commitment as a multidimensional construct consisting of affective commitment, normative commitment and continuance commitment. Even though many other forms of multidimensional commitment have been examined (Jackson & Schuler, 2009),this study will adopt Meyer and Allen’s multidimensional organisational commitment. This is because anemployee’s relationship with the organisation can reflect varying degrees of all the three dimensions (Fields, 2012) this study will extend their multidimensional construct within the Nigerian context.
Many successful organisations are strongly committed to look after their employee needs because they belief that Organisation that fosters employee satisfaction can secure greater employee commitment (Popoola, 2007). Commitment is a belief, which reflects “the strength of a person’s attachment to an organisation”. Researchers have suggested that reciprocity is a mechanism underlying commitment and that employees will offer their commitment to the organisation in reciprocation for the organisation having fulfilled its employment contract (Adebayo, 2006).
Job satisfaction consists of the mentality an individual holds regarding his job. This includes feelings about the nature of the job itself, the pay, the promotion prospects and the nature of supervision. Job satisfaction is defined as “the extent to which people like (satisfaction) or dislike (dissatisfaction) their jobs” (Conway andBriner, 2010). This definition suggests job satisfaction is a general or global affective reaction that individuals hold about their job. Dimension of job satisfaction, such as; nature of the jobs (pay, distance, problem to the work place, status, gender, benefit), support by management, workplace safety, and availability of resources Nature of the jobs such as pay, problem to the workplace, status, gender and benefit should be equally to the job that they perform (Azeem, 2010).
Generally, employee commitment is determined by a number of factors, including personal factors (e.g., age, tenure in the organisation, disposition, internal or external control attributions); organisational factors (job design and the leadership style of one’s supervisor); non-organisational factors (Buchanan, 2014). Predictors of employee commitment in existing literature also include motivation, job satisfaction, job stress, and career salience. However, studies on organisational commitment in Nigerian business environment have continuously grown and further required in the Nigerian manufacturing sector. The applicability of some of the findings in western cultures also needs to be explored in Nigeria. As such, it is pertinent to examine the determinants of organisational commitment among employees in Nigeria manufacturing sector. The study therefore investigate the relationship between organisation commitment and job satisfaction among employees of Nigerian organisations
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Lack of employee commitment gave negative effects on employee job satisfaction and productivity which to a large extent contribute immensely to failure of organisation not achieving their goals. Organisation commitment to employee can be achieve through various motivation incentives, however, they cannot easily be achieved without management decisive action.
Employers are sometimes baffled when their highly-rated employees under-perform and others resignandleave the organisation. Management fail to understand why some employees are not satisfied with their job nor committed to the organisation even though they have proactively implemented fair compensationpolicies and human resource (HR) practices to motivate and retain them. It can be costly if employees arenot committed in their jobs, and if they lack the motivation to exercise their full potentials.
The problem of the study is to examine the impact of employee job satisfaction on employee job satisfaction, job stress and employee productivity in Unilever Nigeria Plc, Ikeja, Lagos.
1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The main objective of this study is to assess the relationship between employee job satisfaction and employee commitment of Unilever Nigeria Plc, Ikeja, Lagos State.
Specific objectives this study seeks to achieve are:
i. To examine the relationship between affective commitment and job satisfaction.
ii. To determine the relationship between normative commitment and job satisfaction.
iii. To examine the relationship between continuous commitment and job satisfaction
1.4 Research Questions
This research work is geared towards finding answers to the following questions:
i. What is the relationship between affective commitment and job satisfaction?
ii. What is the relationship between normative commitment and job satisfaction?
iii. What is the relationship between continuous commitment and job satisfaction?
1.5 Research Hypotheses
The following hypotheses guided the study:
Hypothesis I
HI: There is no significant relationship between affective commitment and job satisfaction
HI: There is significant relationship between job satisfaction and affective commitment
Hypothesis II
HI: There is no significant relationship between normative commitment and job satisfaction
HI: There is a significant relationship between normative commitment and job satisfaction
Hypothesis III
Ho: There is no significant relationship between continuance commitment and job satisfaction
HI: There is a significant relationship between continuance commitment and job satisfaction
1.6 Significance of the Study.
The findings of the research would, first of all, enlighten the private and public sectors management on thelevel of job satisfaction and work commitment among employees of Unilever Nigeria Plc and by implication Nigeria workforce as a whole.
It would provide valuable information to the management in understanding the factors that affect job satisfaction. As job satisfaction has often been perceived as an important contributor toward employee commitment level, it is of utmost important that the management knows and understands these factors. This would assist the management in creating conducive wo