The Role of Demographic Factors in Predicting Organizational Commitment Among Security Employees

Introduction

Organizational commitment is at the forefront concept that has been extensively addressed since the 1950s in the literature of organizational behavior and it is more often associated with job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, burnout, motivation, and loyalty. Kelman (1958:53) expressed commitment concept it terms of changes in attitudes and actions produced by social influence may occur at different levels and distinguished three different process of influence as compliance, identification and internalization. (Buchanan, 1974: 533) called commitment as a partisan, affective attachment to the goals and values of an organization, to one's role in relation to goals and values, and to the organization for its own sake, apart from its purely instrumental worth and emphasized that commitment had consists of three components; (a) identification-adoption as one's own the goals and values of the organization, (b) involvement-psychological immersion or absorption in the activities of one's work role, and (c) loyalty-a feeling of affection for and attachment to the organization. According to O'Reilly and Chatman (1986: 493) “organizational commitment is conceived of as the psychological attachment felt by the person for the organization; it will reflect the degree to which the individual internalizes or adopts characteristics or perspectives of the organization.”

There are many factors that affect organizational commitment. At the end of meta-analyses Mathieu ve Zajac (1990: 175) divided factors that affect organizational commitment into five groups: personal characteristics (age, sex, education, marital status, position tenure, organizational tenure, perceived personal competence, ability, salary, protestant work ethic and job level), job characteristics (skill variety, task autonomy, challenge, job scope), group-leader relations (group cohesiveness, task interdepence, leader initiating structure, leader consideration, leader communication and perceived leadership), organizational characteristics (organizational size and organizational centralization) and rol states (role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload). But Meyer et al. (2002: 28-32) proposed four groups: demographic variables (age, gender, education, and organization tenure), individual differences (locus of control and self-efficacy), work experiences (organizational support, role ambiguity and role conflict) and alternatives/investments.

When the studies on commitment are searched; Meyer and Allen’s (1991) three-component model of organizational commitment has become the dominant model for study of organizational commitment and has been used widespread in organizational behavior research. Meyer and Allen's (1991: 67-69; 1997: 11-13) three-component model of commitment has three different components that correspond with different psychological states: (a) a desire (affective commitment), (b) a need (continuance commitment), and (c) an obligation (normative commitment) to maintain employment in an organization. (Meyer and Allen, 1997: 61).

In this study, it is aimed to examine the organizational commitment of security employees in terms of various demographic characteristics (nationality, status, gender, age, education, supervisor, marital status, tenure).

Methods

In this study a cross-sectional survey was conducted using a convenience sample of 336 security employees in a military organization consisting of seventeen countries: Turkey, U.S.A., Germany, Portugese, Slovenia, Austria, Poland, Greece, Swiss, Ireland, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Czech Republic, Sweden, İtaly, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Britain, Netherlands, Ukraine, Canada, Lithuanian, Bulgaria, Albania and Kosovo. Country-based assessment was not made because of the number of countries is in large and the number of personnel in the participating countries varies considerably from each other. Instead, a four-zone grouping was used to categorize European countries. (United Nations E-Government Survey, New York, 2016, pp.219). The countries in Europe have been categorized in the study as North-Western Europe and South-Eastern Europe. Descriptive statistics of participants are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of the Participants

In the study, based on the Three-Component Model (TCM) of commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1991;1997), the TCM Employee Commitment Survey was used to determine the organizational commitment of participants. Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to investigate the construct validity of the model and results suggested that three-component model of Meyer-Allen was valid. Nine items with a factor load of less than 0.32 were excluded from the analysis and the model was analysed with; 5 items related to Affective Commitment, 6 items related to Continuance Commitment and 4 items related to Normative Commitment.

Results

The effect of participants' demographic variables (nationality, status, supervising, gender, tenure, marital status, educational level and age) on organizational commitment was tested by t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results of the analyses are shown in Tables 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

As shown in Table 2, the difference in affective commitment (F₃₃₅=,117, p˃,05) and continuance commitment (F₃₃₅=,382, p˃,05) does not have significant effect on status. This result showed that, status does not have any effect on affective commitment and continuance commitment. In the Normative Commitment (F₃₃₅=8,322, p˂,05) dimension, the difference was found to be significant. It has been found that the normative commitment of officers and non-commisioned officer differs significantly from civilian employees.

Table 2. Anova Results by Status

As shown in Table 3, the difference in normative commitment (F₃₃₅=,789, p˃,05) and continuance commitment (F₃₃₅=1,159, p˃,05) did not have significant effect on tenure. This result showed that, tenure does not have any effect on normative commitment and continuance commitment. In the Affective Commitment (F₃₃₅=2,900, p˂,05) dimension, the difference was found to be significant. It has been found that the affective commitment of employees working in the organization between 11-15 years significantly from 25 years and over.

Table 3. Anova Results by Tenure

As shown in Table 4, the difference in normative commitment (F₃₃₅=92,578, p˃,05) and continuance commitment (F₃₃₅=10,337, p˃,05) has significant effect on nationality. It has been found that the continuance commitment of Turkey participants differs significantly from European countries participants, normative commitment of Turkey participants differs significantly from all the countries soldiers and normative commitment of North American countieries participants differs significantly from southern and eastern european countries. In the affective commitment (F₃₃₅=2,649, p˂,05) dimension the difference was not found to be significant. This result showed that, nationality does not have any effect on affective commitment.

Table 4. Anova Results by Nationality

As shown in Table 5, the difference in normative commitment [t₍₃₀₃₎=3,092; p<0,01] has significant effect on gender. It has been found that the normative commitment of males are higher than females and differs significantly.

Table 5. T Test Results by Gender

As shown in Table 6, the difference in normative commitment [t₍₂₂₂₎= 2,700; p<0,01] has significant effect on supervising. It has been found that the normative commitment of non-supervisors is higher than supervisors and differs significantly.

Table 6. T Test Results by Supervising

As shown in Table 7, the difference in normative commitment [t₍₁₃₂₎= 4,563; p<0,05] has significant effect on age. It has been found that the normative commitment of 22-34 ages is higher than 35 and over ages and differs significantly.

Table 7. T Test Results by Age

The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used to determine whether there are any statistically significant differences between educational level and marital status of participants. As a result of the analysis, the educational level and marital status of participants did not seem to have a significant effect on affective, continuance and normative commitment.

Conclusion

The results from these study indicated that the demographic factors; nationality, status, supervising, gender, tenure and age significantly differ organizational commitment except marital status and educational level. In conclusion: (1) Normative commitment of officers and non-commisioned officer differs significantly from civilian employees. (2) Continuance commitment of Turkey participants differs significantly from European countries participants, normative commitment of Turkey participants differs significantly from all the countries soldiers and normative commitment of North American countieries participants differs significantly from southern and eastern European countries. (3) Normative commitment of males is higher than females. (4) Normative commitment of non-supervisors is higher than supervisors. (5) Normative commitment of 22-34 ages is higher than 35 and over age. (6) Educational level and marital status of participants doesn’t differ significantly.

This study showed that demographic factors have effect on different dimensions of organizational commitment. Most of the obtained results of the present study are in conformity with previous studies. But this study also shows contradictions with antecedents. For example, two meta-analyses – Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, and Teplitsky (2002) and Mathieu and Zajac (1990) – find no effect of age, gender or education on either affective or continuance commitment. Organizational commitment of employees has always been important issue and should be taken into consideration for managers. However, there is no universal set of rules that can be applied in every organization and it should never be forgotten the importance of individual values in understanding commitment in the workplace.

References