Strategies for Building Organizational Commitment: A Literature Review

This report presents a literature review on strategies for building organizational commitment. It examines various perspectives from different authors, including Mary Bambacas, Achmad Supreyato, Buchana, Meyer and Allen, J. Lee Whittington, and Ruta Kazlauskaite. The review explores key factors influencing employee commitment such as interpersonal communication, leadership styles, management strategies, supervision, training, employee empowerment, and working conditions. The paper highlights the importance of clear communication, fair remuneration, merit-based promotions, and addressing workplace harassment to foster a committed workforce. It also discusses the impact of factors like employee ownership and the role of organizational values and objectives. The conclusion synthesizes these findings, suggesting strategies like improved working conditions, effective supervision, professional hiring practices, and fair remuneration as crucial for enhancing organizational commitment and minimizing employee turnover. The report emphasizes the importance of addressing issues like harassment and unrealistic expectations to create a positive and productive work environment.

STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
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Introduction
Organizational commitment is a very important aspect for the success of an organization. It deals
with ensuring that all the stakeholders in an organization are committed to their duties and roles.
Commitment to the organization implies that each and every member does what they ought to do
at the appropriate time and in the recommended way. The aspect is so much important in
ensuring negligence of duties avoided. Workers who are prone to misconduct such as
absenteeism are narrowed down to and assisted to stick to their duties. This paper reviews the
literature journals done by other writers in a bid to develop strategies for building the
commitment of all stakeholders to an organization.
Literature review
Mary Bambacas in her journal of communication management argues that senior human resource
managers are expected to have exclusive interpersonal communication skills which are focused
majrly on the clarity of messages delivered to the juniors (Lydia 2014 p. 572). The frequency of
the messages too determines the weight of the matter being communicated altogether. The
managers also are expected to listen attentively (Zhang 2019) to the needs and information that is
passed from the juniors an aspect that will enhance collaboration in the running of an
organization. The leadership style employed by the managers also determines the responses from
the juniors at all times. She also connoted that unity is an aspect that cannot be ignored whatever
the case. This is because it enhances cooperation and the development of the company. Achmad
Supreyato argues that the problem facing organization commitment based on observation in the
results rating lately is lack of commitment of the managers to scrutinize the employees to do
what they are employed to do. He also states that the leizzes faire method of management has

contributed (McNeese-Smith 2011) to greater failure of the organizations. This is because
employees are left on their own to do whatever they think is right for them to do without any
subjection to the authority to give answers as to why they did what they did at whichever time.
At the same time Achmad Supreyato argues that to reduce this challenge of lack of commitment,
the managers have to practice stricter management strategies which are purely aimed at
production of results rather than people enjoying themselves at the expense of the organization.
Buchana in his journal on government organizations connotes that most of the irresponsible
employees and managers are the ones serving in governmental offices since they are minimally
supervised an aspect that inculcates a reluctant behavior in them. Supervision being an important
aspect (Buchanan 2014) for maximum results outcome, if it is not employed in any organization
it poses a threat to the performance of employees since most of them will undertake work
reluctantly. Opposed to Buchana, Meyer and Allen in their journal strategies for employee’s
commitment connote that inculcating a sense of responsibility to the employees yields out better
results as opposed to the tedious supervision (Yongzhan, Castaño And Yongxin 2018) which is
aimed at instilling fear to the employees for results outcome. They state that the mission, vision,
values and the objectives of the organization should be made known to the workers very clearly
such that any occurrence contrary to these outlines will lead to an individual being held
responsible. Buchana on the other hand argues that proper supervision of both the skilled and
non skilled employees will inculcate a sense of perfection on the work done by the individuals
other than training where employees can then undertake duties regardless of the results they are
producing. Both Buchana and Meyer and Allen literature come to an agreement in the aspect of
training where they both connote that training is a vital tool to help employees know what is
expected of them. They both uniformly agree that some employees can have all the required

grades for the job they are doing but basically lack the skills for doing the job an aspect that
hampers the performance of any organization. For commitment to the organization Buchana
claims that the employees should be given the first priority to become shareholders in an
organization (Terry 2017 p. 54). This is because most of them will turn out to be very
responsible and committed since they know that their wealth is also part of the organization
hence when the organization loses then they too lose. Meyer and Allen do not agree to this since
they claim that it is impossible to include all the employees in a company as shareholders since
some of them have got no idea to build future kingdoms of their own but can be committed to
build that of others regardless of the struggle.
J. Lee Whittington in his journal the engagement factor; building high organizational
commitment in a low commitment world connotes that attracting and maintaining a talented
workforce is imperative. He argues that in the process of recruiting employees the management
should ensure that the employees who are offered the opportunity are the very qualified ones
(Jun-Cheng Zhang 2015) so as to ensure maximum and professional input into the organization
which is proportionally equivalent to the outcome. He further suggests that the organization
should strive by all means to retain these employees. This he suggests can be done through
adequate remuneration which can be annually increases in a smaller percentage just to capture
the attention of the employees. Timely and equivalent to the task remuneration will keep the
employees from looking for alternative means of getting income an aspect that will make the
employees to direct all their strengths and focus unto the organization hence production of
impressive results. At the same time the college professor states that promotion of employees to
senior positions based on merit (Takamatsu and Yamaguchi 2018) is an added advantage in
enhancing the outcome of an organization. Technically he says that good reciprocation of the

management to the employees input into the organization is very important in enhancing the
growth of the organization.
Ruta Kazlauskaite in her journal improving employee commitment in the hospitality industry
connotes that improvement of working conditions for employees is a major milestone in
enhancing employee commitment. Her journal goes further to expose many of the factors that are
underlying and causing employee lack of commitment (Caldwell, Chatman and O’Reilly 2012 p.
253 ). She states that harassment is one of the major factors that reduce commitment to work by
the employees and at the same time causes employee turnover. For instance she reports that in
the hospitality sector turnover is at 57.2% due to harassment that employees go through. She
further states some of the harassment methods used by the bosses to oppress (Reed, Goolsby and
Johnston 2016) the employees. At the top of the list is penalty by pay deduction in any case
when customers complain of the services. At times she argues that the entire pay can be wiped
out and at times the organization demands the employee to pay or render free services to
compensate any loses made. Second on the list is the working hour in which the day for an
employee begins at 5am in the morning and ends at exactly midnight or some minutes past.
When the number of hours worked is compared with the pay, there is total irrational between the
two. These aspects therefore make it impossible for most of the employees to survive in such a
sector (Mouluod, Boughera and Samir 2016 p. 508). Second to the hospitality sector in employee
turnover is the sales and marketing sector where the turnover is at 54.3%. The reasons
highlighted for this extent of turnover in this sector is the very many unrealistic promises made
to the employees when they are starting the job. During the trainings (Ocen, Francis and
Angundaru 2017) no impossibilities or challenges are highlighted to them. It is until they go to
the field to practice what they are taught that they find out that the promises were futile. Many of

the employees are paid on commission and there will never be payments until transactions are
made with customers.
Conclusion
Poor organizational commitment is contributed by a large variety of factors which are either
affecting an employee directly or indirectly. To overcome this various strategies should be
identified. Improvement of working conditions, maximum supervision, hiring and maintaining
professionals, proper remuneration equivalent to the tasks being performed by employees and
use of good management styles are among the top strategies which when employed will help to
overcome inadequate or lack of organizational commitment.

References
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Work Organizations’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 19(4), pp. 533–546. doi:
10.2307/2391809.
Caldwell, D. F., Chatman, J. A. and O’Reilly, C. A. (2012) ‘Building organizational
commitment: A multifirm study’, Journal of Occupational Psychology, 63(3), pp. 245–261. doi:
10.1111/j.2044-8325.1990.tb00525.x.
Jun-Cheng Zhang (2015) ‘Organizational Commitment, Work Engagement, Person-Supervisor
Fit, and Turnover Intention: A Total Effect Moderation Model’, Social Behavior & Personality:
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Lydia Julian (2014) ‘The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Organizational
Commitment: Exploring Multiple Mediation Mechanisms’, Journal of Business Ethics, 125(4),
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McNeese-Smith, D. K. (2011) ‘A Nursing Shortage: Building Organizational Commitment
Among Nurses’, Journal of Healthcare Management, 46(3), p. 173. doi: 10.1097/00115514-
200105000-00008.
Mouluod, K., Boughera, B. and Samir, B. F. (2016) ‘Job Satisfaction for Physical Education
Teachers and Its Relationship to Job Performance and Organizational Commitment’, Ovidius
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Ocen, E., Francis, K. and Angundaru, G. (2017) ‘The role of training in building employee
commitment: the mediating effect of job satisfaction’, European Journal of Training &
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Reed, K., Goolsby, J. R. and Johnston, M. K. (2016) ‘Extracting Meaning and Relevance from
Work: The Potential Connection Between the Listening Environment and Employee’s
Organizational Identification and Commitment’, International Journal of Business
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Terry, L. D. (2017) ‘The Conference as an Administrative Strategy for Building Organizational
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Yongzhan Li, Gloria Castaño And Yongxin Li (2018) ‘Perceived Supervisor Support as a
Mediator between Chinese University Teachers’ Organizational Justice and Affective
Commitment’, Social Behavior & Personality: an international journal, 46(8), pp. 1385–1396.

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Zhang, L. (2019) ‘Do academics’ emotions in teaching affect their organizational commitment?’,
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