Relation Between Employee Commitment and Job Performance

INTRODUCTION

The organizational commitment is defined as the relative strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in a particular organization (Mowday et al, 1979). Employees who have strong organizational commitments are characterized as having strong belief in the values and goals of the organization, willing to step up efforts in the interests of the organization and have a strong desire to remain in the organization.

Organizations constantly seek ways to increase employee productivity and enhance job performance. Facilitating employee feelings of vitality, defined as the subjective feeling of being alive and alert (Ryan and Frederick, 1997), may be critical to achieving these ends, because employees who are vital feel alive and mentally and physically vigorous (Ryan and Bernstein, 2004). Therefore, it is the intention of this study to empirically investigate the relationship between employees commitment and their job performance in an organization.

There are seven sections in this chapter one. First section is generally the introduction of this study. The second section describe about the background of the study while the third section is the problem statement. The fourth section is to know the purpose of this study is being done. While in the fourth section, it contains the scope of the study. There is also limitation of the study in the fifth section and continued with significance of the study in the sixth section. The last section is the conclusion in this chapter.

Background of the Study National Defence University of Malaysia (NDUM) begins with the establishment of the Malaysian Armed Forces Academy (ATMA) on June 1, 1995 as the organization responsible for carrying out the program of study at Bachelor level and military training to the Officer Cadet Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM). ATMA role later expanded to make it a NDUM gazetted on 10 November 2006.

Although NDUM start the first batch students in session 2007/2008, in fact it has had a good experience program at Bachelor level for 11 years rom 1995 to 2006 through a joint program between the Defence Ministry and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia in which a total of over 1017 graduates have been issued in three areas include Engineering, Science and Management. Beside professional qualification, all graduates were commissioned as officers and their ATMs are serving in various units in the Army, Royal Malaysian Navy and Royal Malaysian Air Force. NDUM was established by the Government of Malaysia on June 21, 2006 for the manufacture of military and civilian graduates for the needs of national defense.

NDUM corporate order was issued on 6 November 2006 to start the academic session 2007/2008. For the new student intake 2007/2008 session 550 students reporting to Defense Foundation Programme students comprising 121 public and 350 military students. Meanwhile, for a total of 130 undergraduate programs and 297 undergraduate students of Foundation Public Defender will follow undergraduate programs in Engineering, Science and Technology and Management and Defence Studies.

To start a study session on 2007/2008 NDUM has established 3 faculties in addition Rights Defence Centre of the Faculty of Engineering Defence, Defence Science and Technology Faculty and the Faculty of Management and Defence Studies. Academic programs offered at the faculty is comparable to local and overseas universities. This program will appeal to students because it provides a curriculum that covers the science and technology in the form of hands-on defense. The knowledge gained can be applied to national defense assets such as naval vessels, aircraft and military equipment in the Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM). In addition, it can be applied in the industrial sector based on science and technology. (“Latar Belakang UPNM,” 2013)

For the purpose of study, three objectives have been set up to guide the research:

1. To examine the relationship between positive work relationship and job satisfaction.
2. To examine the relationship between reward practice and recognition with job satisfaction.
3. To examine the relationship between fairness in performance appraisal with job satisfaction.

This study is conducted in National Defence University of Malaysia (NDUM), Kem Sg Besi. This study is focused on the lecturers and staffs that are servicing in NDUM. Questionnaire is used by the researcher to get the findings and data. However, this will limit the findings for other organizations. Researcher also must evaluate whether the respondents are being honest with the questionnaire answers because it will affect the result of the findings if respondents are not being honest.

This study is to determine the job performance of an employee in an organization. Besides that is to investigate the factors that influence employee job performance during their work. The factors influencing employee job performance are positive work relationship, reward practice and recognition and fairness in performance appraisal. These are the independent variable and job performance is the dependent variable.

LITERATURE REVIEW

There are six sections in this chapter two. The first section is introduction to include what we have in this chapter. Second section is to conceptual definition of positive work relationship, reward practice, fairness of performance appraisal and job performance. The conceptual definition will give more understanding for the study. Third section is previous research. Previous research is to acknowledge research that has been done before for job performance by other researchers and to gain knowledge on how research is done. Related theories by other researcher that is used in this study is include in the fourth chapter. Fifth section is the onceptual framework of this study that is link the independent variable and dependent variable that will be study in this research. Lastly is conclusion in this chapter.

Conceptual Definition:

1. Positive Work Relationship According to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Positive is marked by or indicating acceptance, approval, or affirmation (received a positive response) while for work is sustained physical or mental effort to overcome obstacles and achieve an objective or result. Relationship is the relation connecting or binding participants in a relationship as stated in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Positive affect in the workplace has drawn considerable scholarly interest, as it has been linked to important outcome variables such as creative problem solving, risk-taking, helping, and pro-social behavior (Brief & Weiss, 2002; George & Brief, 1992; Isen and Baron, 1991; Staw, Sutton, & Pelled, 1994). As Quinn and Dutton (2005) noted that positive affect is often experienced collectively, with conversation partners increasingly becoming affectively synchronized as a conversation unfolds by mutually and reciprocally influencing each others’ speech acts and each others’ positive affective reactions.
2. Reward Practice and Recognition Managers and Human Resource Departments are constantly surveying the current situations how to reward and recognize the achievements and development of their employees in an organization to get their best performance. Reward is something offered or given in return for a service performed (Merriam-Webster Online Thesaurus). There is an increasing demand on corporations to develop reward programs that are motivating employees to work harder and faster. Recognition is the action of recognizing: the state of being recognized according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Recognition is the tangible or intangible expression of acknowledgement for an individual’s contribution, achievement, or observed behavior. It is usually an unexpected, after-the-fact occurrence. It can include verbal thanks, an electronic or written acknowledgment, and a token of appreciation. (Saunderson, 2011) These programs usually educate and encourage associates to become more productive, efficient, and valuable individuals in the company in terms of the “bottomline. ” (Mujtaba, 2010)
3. Fairness of Performance Appraisal Organizations used performance appraisal systems to enhance employee motivation and reward employee performance. However, the effectiveness of the appraisal system depends on how employees reacts towards the system and process of performance appraisal. According to Merriam-Webster Online Thesaurus, Fairness is the qualities in a person or thing that as a whole give pleasure to the senses (a city of incomparable fairness, Venice has enchanted travelers for centuries). Fairness was initially defined as distributive fairness, “the degree to which rewards and punishments are related to performance inputs” (Price and Mueller, 1986). The performance appraisal system was developed exclusively for this public service organization. This system was designed to communicate clear performance expectations and to link financial incentives to specific objective performance criteria (Latham & Yukl,1975).
4. Job Performance Job performance is a multi-dimensional construct which indicates how well employees perform their tasks, the initiative they take and the resourcefulness they show in solving problems (Rothmann & Coetzer, 2003). Furthermore, it indicates the extent to which they complete tasks, the way they utilise their available resources and the time and energy they spend on their tasks (Boshoff & Arnolds, 1995; Schepers, 1994)

This chapter has discussed the definitions of positive work relationship, reward practice and recognition, fairness of performance appraisal and job performance as it related to the employee working commitment. This chapter has also covered the previous research and related theories that has been used in this study for better understanding of the researcher.

The conceptual framework is shown for better view of the relationship between independent variable and dependent variable. The following chapter will discuss about the methodology that will be used in the process of collecting data, locations and the populations covered for the study.

METHODOLOGY

There are seven sections in chapter three. The first section is introduction to chapter three which methodology. The second section for this chapter is research design that has been selected by us for this study. Data collection method will be discussed in the third section while the fourth section will discuss on research sampling that include location, population, and sampling. In the fifth section, research instrument will be discussed. The sixth section will discuss the data analysis method for this particular study. The last section is the conclusion of this chapter.

The research design used by researchers is a survey where it involves the cross-sectional data collection using the quantitative approach. This study used a cross-sectional research design where it allows researcher to integrate research literature and actual study as a main procedure to gather data. This particular study will use quantitative methods. Quantitative method is the study by using data in the form of numbers.

Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Program will be used for this method to obtain needed information. Thus, the questionnaires will be distributed to the respondents and responses will be received by the researcher. The aim for this study is to investigate the relations between the independent variables and the dependent variable. This study use a questionnaire because it involves a large number of respondents, thus interviews method is not suitable for the study.

Method Primary data are data gathered an assembled specifically for the project. Several techniques are used like survey, observation and questionnaire. The researcher chose to use the questionnaire method as a tool of data collection. Generally there are two types of primary sources to compile this data, through primary data and secondary data.

Primary data is information that is obtained from a sample of respondents. In particular, the purpose of data collection using primary data is to get the real information in a more in-depth and accurate information in connection with the research. The main source in this study is the use of questionnaires. Primary data method that will be used in this study is through the distribution of questionnaires to be given to the respondent. Secondary data is data collection through reference resources ranging from books, journals, the results of previous studies and papers.

In a simplified word, secondary data is any written sources ever published. These resources are very important for the researcher to find the relation between independent variables and dependent variables. Information from secondary data will be collected to support the study especially materials and data that are connected with the study.

In this research, questionnaire is used as main instrument in collecting data from the respondent. The questions are all closed-ended questions which consist of 4 sections. Besides that, all items will be measured with five point Likert Scale and the scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree), 2 (disagree), 3 (neutral), 4 (agree) and 5 (strongly agree) rating scale that requires respondents to rate each of the questionnaire items as to the level of agreement. 1 2 3 4 5Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree| Those 4 sections of the survey questionnaires are:

• Section A : Demographic characteristic
• Section B : External recruitment source
• Section C : Employee expectation
• Section D : Employee outcome Research Location, Population and Sample

The location for this particular research is in National Defense University of Malaysia (NDUM). The target population in this research is all the employees in this organization and the minimum sample of this study is 150 employees. It assisted researcher in the series collection data. The findings of this study will help researcher to determine whether findings is consistent with previous and also will show the result is reliable to the study or not.

Quota samplings were used to determine the size of sample based on the duration of study. Next, a systematic and convenient sampling technique will be used to distribute survey questionnaires to employees through the contact persons (e. g. , faculty department) in the organization due to the time and cost constraints. This will make the process to collect data from the questionnaire will be done in time and easier for the researcher to analyse the data with the time given.

As a summary, this chapter provides an overview on how the methodology was used to study the research issue, how the data was collected and how it has been measured. As mentioned earlier the study was conducted in National Defence University of Malaysia (NDUM) while the research instruments used were the questionnaire and analysis with SPSS version 16. 0. Pearson correlation was used to examine the relationship between two variables while Stepwise regression was used to test the mediating role in this study. Chapter 4 will discuss the results from the data analysis that will be done.

REFERENCES

1. Latar Belakang UPNM. (2013). Retrieved from http://www. upnm. edu. my/index. php? req=7
2. Mujtaba, B. G. (2010). An Equitable Total Rewards Approach to Pay for Performance Management, 11(4), 111–122.
3. Rothmann, S. , & Coetzer, E. P. (2003). THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND JOB PERFORMANCE, 29(1), 68–74.
4. Saunderson, R. (2011). Do they really produce big results?? Executive Excellence Publishing. Retrieved from www. leaderexcel. com *raosoft. com/samplesize. html