People are an essential source on the competitiveness of organizations. Numerous authors have recognized the importance of organizational commitment and job satisfaction as key attitudes related with work and influencing aspects like rotation, absenteeism or productivity. However, a clearly delimited posture on the relationship between both constructs does not exist. It is because of this that the present work theoretically analyses several models regarding this matter. Subsequently a proposed model is estimated and validated using the methodology of Structural Equations Modeling (SEM). This model confirms the influence of job satisfaction over organizational commitment and its moderating effect on the influence on the latter of various perceptual factors of the employee related to his/her work.
TopIntroduction And Objectives Of The Investigation
People are an essential source on the competitiveness of organizations; employees meet the requirements of the Theory of Resources and Capabilities to build competitive advantage (Barney, 1991). Thus, a good HR management can make a difference because it will need to transform knowledge and creativity of people (intangible and difficult to imitate resources) into tangible results for the organization. But for this, the involvement and commitment of employees are imperative (De la Rosa and Carmona, 2010) so the analysis of these topics is mandatory under the framework of the new economy.
Organizational commitment has been a construct of considerable interest in existing literature on the study of behaviour among employees. There is a great volume of work with respect to the topic, which is currently centred more and more on the relationship between the same and job satisfaction (Currivan, 1999; Gaertner, 1999; Linz, 2003). Authors such as Harrison et al. (2006), extending the work of Judge et al. (2001) consider that job satisfaction as much as organizational commitment acts as an indicator of an underlying global attitude towards work.
Numerous works connect a high level of commitment on behalf of the employee with lower rates of turnover and absenteeism, and improvements in productivity (Angel and Perry, 1981; Darden et al., 1989; Dunham et al., 1994). Likewise, there has also been an extensive study made from an economic viewpoint of the influence exercised by job satisfaction over these organizational indicators (Barraza and Ortega, 2009).
However, no unanimous agreement exists between the authors with respect to the link that unites these two intimately related constructs with the intangible value of human resources in the organization. The order of coincidence between satisfaction and commitment is a source of discrepancy in the investigations carried out. For this reason, this work hopes to clarify this point in certain measure through the application of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) methodology to a proposed model that supports the relevant theoretical review.
In this way, initially, a theoretical exploration of organizational commitment and job satisfaction constructs is carried out. Furthermore, the review continues with the main models that analyse the mediating role played by job satisfaction between different variables about the perception of employees about their job and their loyalty to the organization. Subsequently, an analysis is made of the model proposed in this work and the methodology applied to the empirical investigation. Finally, the results reached are presented and their repercussions discussed for management of human resources.