Abstract
This is a research study on the relationship between organizational commitment, job satisfaction
and performance among officers of Nigerian Police Forces. One hundred and sixteen officers of
Nigerian Police Force who were randomly selected from several police stations in Anambra
State of Nigeria participated in the study. They are made up of 68 males and 48 females. 41 of
the males are junior officers below the rank of Assistant superintended of Police (ASP) while 27
are also ASPs and above. Of the 48 females, 30 are junior below ASP while the remaining 18 are
senior staff, ASP’s and above. All of them serve in the state Headquarters. The results of the
findings supported the two hypothesis of the study. Thus, hypothesis one which states that there
will be significant relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction was
supported by the result which indicated that organizational commitment is positively associated
with job satisfaction (r=.49,P<.0,
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Over the years, researchers have been interested on the influence of organizational
support on employee behavior in organizations. There has been the notion that
organizational support such as organizational commitment could have a positive
influence on workers behavior. Organizational commitment is the employee’s
psychological attachment to the organization. Broadly construed, organizational
commitment may be synonymous with occupational involvement or the commitment to a
particular set off task where successful role performance is regarded as an end in itself
and not as a means to an end (Rabinwits & Hall 1997). In the context of organizations,
commitment is normally understood as different ways of which one is a member.
Accordingly, Bratton and Goild (1999) define organizational commitment as a socialpsychological state of deep identification with a work organization and acceptance of its
goals and values. Becker (1960) asserted that the committed individual has acted in such
a way as to involve other interest of his, originally extraneous to the action he is engaged
in, directly in that action (this entails total commitment). Muchinby (2000) defined
organizational commitment as the extent to which an employee feels a sense of allegiance
to his or her employer. Wiener (1982) organizational commitment is viewed as the
totality of internalized normative pressures to ace in a way that meets organizational goal
and interest. Wiener (1982) opined that organizational commitment is conceived of as the
psychological attachment felt by the person for organization; it will reflect the degree to
which the individual internalize or adopts characteristics or perspectives of the
organization. Meyer and Allen (1997) stated that commitment reflects the
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employee’s. Relationship with the organization and that it has implications for his or her
decision to continue membership in the organization. Hence, committed employees are
more likely to remain in an organization than un-committed employees. Porter et al,
(1974): organizational commitment is defined “in terms of the strength of an individual’s
identification with and involvement in a organization. Such commitment can be
characterized by at least three (3) factors.
(a) Strong belief in and acceptance of the organization’s goals and value
(b) A willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization
(c) A definitive desire to maintain organizational membership
Salancik, (1997) asserted that in general, organizational commitment is a state of being in
which an individual becomes bound by his own action to beliefs that sustains his
activities and his own involvement. In essence, three features of behaviour are important
in bringing individual acts together. These are: the visibility to act, the extent to which
the outcome are irrevocable and the degree to which the person undertake the action
voluntarily. Meyer and Allen (1991) proposed three components of organizational
commitment. They are: the continuance component which refers to commitment based on
the costs those employees’ associates with leaving the organization. The employee here is
committed because he “has to “remain part of the organization. The normative
component refers to employee’s feelings of obligation to remain with the organization.
Here, the employee is committed because he “ought to”. In employee commits because
he or she “wants to”. Based on these current issues, Guest (1992) points out that workers
can have multiple and perhaps competing commitment to a particular set of skill, the
greater the likelihood of resistance to multi-skilling and flexible job design. Thus, the
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goal of commitment might contradict the goal of flexibility. As key scholars in the areas
of commitment. Meyer and Allen (1997), Marrow (1983), porter et al, (1974) have given
definitions of organizational commitment, it can be said that organizational commitment;
it can be said that organizational commitment is a part of larger cluster of constructs
describing the individuals or employees-organizational relationship, job loyalty, job
performance and employee’s job satisfaction as put forward by Scort, Corman and Meyer
(1998). Therefore, the need to build and maintain organizational commitment is
recognized as being crucial to the effective performance of business today. This study
focuses on the effect of organizational support (commitment) on job performance and job
satisfaction of officers of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF). According to Meyer (1997),
organizational support (commitment) reflects the employee’s relationship with the
organization and this has implication for his or her decision to continue membership in
the organization. With the establishment of good organizational relation, employers were
in a better position to iron out their differences and agree on certain condition of services
based on collective bargaining. According to Mowday Stress and Porter (1979),
organizational commitment is concerned with how a worker is willing to put a great deal
of effort beyond the normal expectation in order to help the organization to be successful.
Therefore, in any organization, whether public or private, a worker’s commitment to his
or her job may depend on how satisfied and motivation he or she is with his or her job.
The motivation or satisfaction may come inform of good salary, leave grant like
maternity and sick leave, hospital allowance, promotion and other entails that any
employee who is effectively committed with his or her job strongly identifies with the
goals of the organization.
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The rising research and academic interest on the commitment of workers (employees)
could extensively be attributed to the importance of this concept to operational
effectiveness and satisfaction of objectives of organization. Literatures abound which has
associated organizational commitment with increase in job performance, personal
stability, lower employee turnover and absenteeism rate; and in some cases, increased job
satisfaction (Porter, Steers, Mowday and Boulin, 1974; Morris and Koch, 1979; Smith,
2001; Adler and Carson, 2003). In further elaboration on the increasing interest in studies
relating to organizational commitment, Mowday, Steer, and Porter (1979) also, in his
study, Steers, (1977) examined three groups of antecedents which act as variables to
determine the level of commitment an employee will have towards their work place. Not
so long ago, Clyton, Petzal, Lynch and Margaret, (2007) examined the relationship of
demographic variables of age, gender, length of service to organizational commitment.
In the Nigerian milieu, Okolo (1972) studied the level of commitment and
motivation to work in organization managed by fellow Nigerians in comparison to those
managed by foreigners.
Job satisfaction is a combination of identifiable roles played by a worker as a
contribution to the accomplishment of organizational roles. Job satisfaction can be
defined as the degree to which personal wants both materials and psychological are
realized by the individual performing the task assigned to him or her (Meyer and Allen,
1997).
According to Berham and Perraut (2002) defined job satisfaction as the
pleasurable emotional state resulting from the perception of one’s job as fulfilling or
allowing the fulfillment of one’s virtues provided these virtues are compatible with one’s
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needs, these are important determinants of job satisfaction. It is the extent by which a
person is happy with his or her job.
Assan (1982) defined work performance as the measure of how efficient and
effective a work is being done, how well an employee determines and helps organization
to achieve appropriate goals and objectives. Nayyar (1994) asserted that job performance
refers to the degree to which an individual executes his or her roles with reference to
certain specified standard set by the organization. Jex and Thomas (2003) defined job
performance as the behaviour of employees at work that are consistent with and
contribute to organizational goals. They stated that the performance of a person on a job
was a function of two main variables. These are: the ability of the individual to perform
and the insensitive and reinforcement schedule provided to enhance performance.
Brafield and Crouchet (1955) defined job performance as the ability to carry out a given
work effectively at a given work effectively at a given period of time. Attention view of
stress-Generally, stress refers to an emotional experience associated with nervousness
tension and strain. The literature on stress futures a variety of approaches to its
conceptualization, its antecedents and its effects. Stressors can be understood as “stimuli
that evoke the stress”. Workers subject to similar stressors may differ in the extent to
which they feel nervousness or tension as a result of personal experiences or happenings
In their work setting. These kinds of feelings can be described as strain or as felt job
stress. Felt job stress refers to a sense of time, pressure, anxiety and worry that is
associated with job tasks. The attention theory of stress suggests that there should be a
positive association between felt job stress and job performance. Extensive experimental
research shows that although depletes an individual’s resources, it paradoxically has the
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effect of concentrating remaining resources on the task at hand (Brsfield and Crouchet
1995).
1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Job satisfaction comes as a result of self acceptance and liking what one does; not
just doing what one likes to do.
According to the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, job satisfaction can be
defined as a feeling of pleasure gained from doing one’s job. This does not just create a
stress free environment but has an after-effect of improving job performance. Any
individual would likely do well in that sphere of life that is enjoyable. On the other hand,
job satisfaction and job performance may be possible lowered if there is less conducive
environment in which workers can works. This is practically stated in the Vroom’s
expectancy/valence theory of motivation. Also, poor administration has been a factor that
hinders employee’s job performance and job satisfaction. When organizational units
foldup, the the workers engage in hard thinking as to know why and how these industries
and organizational units collapse. It is a well known that employees work effectively only
when they are well motivated or reinforced. Job satisfaction leads to results and results
leads to reward which means for the organization to achieve job satisfaction from the
employees, they must implement the following:
a. Spending much time in thinking for both employees and the employers
b. Making sure that employees who create profits win a fair share of them
c. Listening to employee’s worries, frustrations and fears.
d. Demonstrating a clear genuine commitment to change
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e. Committing the problem sand fears to the employees in order for them to help
share the load and help find possible solutions for them.
f. And, by inculcating within them (administration) the spirit of fair treatment
towards employee’s in the organization.
In Nigeria for instance, the attitude to work has been described by many as being lazy;
lack of initiative and competent skills, being inefficient, to mention but a few. The cost of
these emotional attitudes to any organization is heavy. It can be summarized as follows:
minimal output; low quality; excessive waste and high labor turn-over rate amongst
others. Thus, employee job satisfaction is viewed as an important factor in productivity.
So, every organization has to find a way of boosting the moral of the employees,
especially at this time when the cost of living in this country is raising at such an everescalating rate that salary can no longer adequately cover such basic necessities like food,
shelter, clothing, medication, transportation etc. with job opportunities at a high rate. As
stated earlier in the Vroom’s expectancy/valence theory of motivation that job
satisfaction and job performance cannot be possible in there is less conducive
environment. This is as a result of poor administration which is a possible factor the
affects job performance and satisfaction respectively. Therefore, in the search for such
how’s and why’s the mind goes back to how committed the workers are to the
organization which leads to employee’s job performance. This will be pertinent need for
a study to assess this assumption. The goal of this study is to explore the relationship of
organizational commitment to job satisfaction and performance. That is, to examine what
makes organizational commitment salient to practitioners and to know the extent to
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which organizational commitment can influence an employee’s job satisfaction and job
performance.
1.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The understanding of the feeling and attitudes of workers are central to the issue
of improve management of human resource in the Nigeria Police Force. A considerable
study has been carried out on the problems posed by poor job commitment and job
dissatisfaction. Certain conditions can make workers perform effectively or ineffectively
on their jobs.
Generally, evidence of efficiency is seen in the attitude of employees towards
their jobs. A number of factors seem to be responsible for job dissatisfaction among
employees. These factors are: lack of interest in the work environment, lack of promotion
opportunities and unattractive fringe benefits. These can actually make an employee to be
less committed to his or her job. Therefore, an appraisal of the global economic growth
and development will always make an individual to say that for any organization to
survive is a question of how committed the employees are. There is no doubt that in
Nigeria, the federal government as well as the state government has been spending a lot
of money in order to improve and they being satisfied as well with their job than others.
This, in general assumed that a worker who has job satisfaction will logically and
psychologically exhibit job commitment. And this enhances good job performance.
This study therefore intends to investigate and explore the relationship between
organizational support (commitment) and job performance on one hand and the
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relationship between organizational support (commitment) and job satisfaction on the
other since little studies has been done in this area among the Officers of Nigerian Police
Force.
1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The aim of the study was to explore the relationship of organizational
commitment to job satisfaction among officers of the Nigerian Police Force. In addition,
it explores the relationship of organizational commitment to job performance moan
officers of the Nigerian Police Force respectively.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The findings of the study be useful to employers of labour especially in the
organizational sector. Hence, it will unveil the effect of organizational commitment on
job performance and job satisfaction. It will also be used to the management as well as
the supervisor of labour as it will expose what organizational commitment has to do with
job performance and job satisfaction. Further, the findings of this work will be useful to
the officers of the Nigerian Police Force as it will make them realize the benefits of
organizational commitment to their satisfaction with their job. This will directly or
indirectly reduce the prevalence of disloyalty and lack of identification found amongst
the officers of the Nigerian Police Force. In addition, it will serve as a valuable
contribution to the present body of knowledge in the role of organizational support or
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commitment as it influences workers behaviour in Nigerian. Specifically, this study shall
add to the existing body of research information on the influence of organizational
commitment on employee job satisfaction and job performance. In conclusion, the study
will suggest avenues for further research.