An Investigation of the Relationship between Job Enrichment and Organizational Commitment
Saurabh Chandra E-Mail: saurabh2139@yahoo.com Phone no: +91-8009074196
Proposed Research Plan
A. Research Title:
An Investigation of the relationship between Job Enrichment and Organizational
Commitment.
B. Aim of the research
The main aim of the study would be to investigate the relationship between job enrichment
and organizational commitment. Statistical population of this research includes teaching
employees of five State Universities of Uttar Pradesh. After distributing questionnaires
among respondents, usable questionnaires can be selected for analysis.
C. Significance of the research
Employee commitment is an important issues need to be considered by organizational
behavior and human resource management research scholars. Organizational commitment
is an important organizational subject because high levels of commitment lead to several
favorable organizational outcomes.
According to Davoudi (2013), any organization can benefit from consequences of job
enrichment such as decreasing in the level of absenteeism, turnover intentions, and social
loafing, and increasing in the level of employees’ job satisfaction, productivity, and
organizational commitment. He further stated that, providing pleasurable jobs for
employees which is the main aim of job enrichment, benefits organizations by providing
committed and loyal employees. Thus it would be interesting to test this theory.
This study is very much significant because, no study is undertaken specifically for faculty
members of higher educational institutions of Uttar Pradesh.
D. Hypothesis at Initial stage
According to Davoudi (2013), any organization can benefit from consequences of job
enrichment such as decreasing in the level of absenteeism, turnover intentions, and social
loafing, and increasing in the level of employees’ job satisfaction, productivity, and
organizational commitment. He further stated that, providing pleasurable jobs for
employees which is the main aim of job enrichment, benefits organizations by providing
committed and loyal employees.
Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H1: Job enrichment has a significant relationship with organizational commitment.
An Investigation of the Relationship between Job Enrichment and Organizational Commitment
Saurabh Chandra E-Mail: saurabh2139@yahoo.com Phone no: +91-8009074196
E. Review of Literature
Literature reviewed:
1. Feder, B.J. 2000, "F.I. Herzberg, 76, Professor and Management Consultant", New York Times,
Feb 1, 2000, pg. C26. Available from: ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times
(1851–2003). [28 October 2006].
2. Hackman, J.R. & Oldham, G.R. 1976, 'Motivation through the design of work: Test of a Theory”,
Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, [Online], vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 250–279.
Available from: Science Direct. [1 November 2006].
3. Mione, P. 2006, " Job Enrichment", Online paper.
4. Meyer, JP and Allen, NJ (2007). A three-component conceptualization of organizational
commitment: Some methodological considerations, Human Resource Management Review, 1,
pp. 61-98
5. Model of commitment: Meyer and Allen's (2007) three-component model of commitment.
6. Past studies that indicate: organizational commitment is negatively related to turnover
intentions (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005), absenteeism (Farrell & Stamm, 1988), and
positively related to organizational citizenship behavior (Davoudi, 2012), job satisfaction
(Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005), job performance (Meyer et al., 1989), and motivation of
employees (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990).
7. Past studies that concluded that one way of enriching employees’ jobs is to expanding activities
they perform in a particular job, (i.e. Latham & Yukl, 1975; Latham & Baldes, 1975; Raja, 1974;
Latham & Kinne, 1974; Ronan et al., 1973; Myers, 1970; Herzberg & Frederick, 1968)
employees will be motivated, and try harder to achieve the goals and consequently their
performance will be increased.
8. Five dimensions introduced by Hackman & Oldham (1976) to measure job enrichment.
The description of these five dimensions is in the following part (Davoudi, 2013):
(1) Skill variety: refers to the extent that a job allows various skills and talents that an employee
should utilize to do his job in organization, (2) Task identity: refers the extent that a job allows
completion of a whole work from beginning to the end, (3) Task significance: refers to the effect
of the job on lives or work of others. It shows the professional status of one’s job in his own
point of view or that of others, (4) Autonomy: refers to the discretion that an employee has in
his job. Autonomy provides suitable authority for employee to accomplish the job in his own
idea, (5) Feedback: refers to the extent work activities give employee clear information about
the results of his performance in certain job.
9. Three dimensions for organizational commitment (Cherati et al., 2013): (1) Affective
commitment: refers to employees sense of dependence to their organizations, (2) Continuance
commitment: refers to inclination of employees to remain in their organizations because of the
negative consequences of leaving their organizations like being unemployed by leaving their
current job, (3) Normative commitment: refers to the sense of being one of the members of a
family.
10. The 24 items scale developed by Allen & Meyer (1990) to measure affective, normative and
continuance commitment.
An Investigation of the Relationship between Job Enrichment and Organizational Commitment
Saurabh Chandra E-Mail: saurabh2139@yahoo.com Phone no: +91-8009074196
F. Research Methodology
1. Statistical Population:
Statistical population of this research includes teaching employees of five State
Universities of Uttar Pradesh.
2. Data collection:
Primary data would be collected using Questionnaire. After distributing questionnaires
among respondents usable questionnaires can be selected for analysis.
3. Instrument:
A five-point Likert type scale questionnaire can be used to collect necessary data to test the
hypothesis of the study and for measuring five dimensions of job enrichment introduced by
Hackman & Oldham (1976). Further, the 24 items scale developed by Allen & Meyer (1990) can
be used to measure affective, normative and continuance commitment.
4. Reliability :
The Cronbach's alpha can be used to test the reliability of questionnaire.
5. Validity :
In order to test the validity of questionnaires confirmatory factor analysis in LISREL
(Student edition of LISREL for Windows) can be used.
Source: http://www.ssicentral.com/lisrel/student.html
6. Testing :
For testing research hypothesis, Structural Equation Model (SEM) analysis can be
applied to the research model - 5 dimensions of job enrichment and three dimensions
of organizational commitment.
Proposed research model:
Skill Variety
Task identity
Task Significance
Autonomy
Feedback
Affective Commitment
Job
enrichment
Organizational
commitment
Continuance
Commitment
Normative Commitment