Page 1 of 5
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/
e-ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 02 Issue 7
July 2016
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 165
Organizational Commitment of Non-Managerial Employees: A Case
Study of Insurance Companies in Eastern Province, Sri Lanka
Praveena Thevisuthan
Lecturer, Department of Business and Management Studies, Faculty of Communication and
Business Studies, Trincomalee Campus, Eastern University, Sri Lanka
Abstract
Developing favourable employee
attitudes is a must for each and every
organization, as it has a huge impact on
organizational performance. Organizational
commitment is one of the work-related
attitudes of employees and still it is the highly
valuable concept in the organizations. Thus,
this study attempts to explore the different
types of organizational commitment among
non-managerial employees in insurance
companies in Eastern Province, Sri Lanka.
There were 70 employees selected for this
study. The results show that there was a high
level of continuance commitment and
normative commitment among these
employees; and only there was a moderate
level of affective commitment found. Therefore,
the insurance companies should revisit the
factors which could affect the commitment in
the workplace in order to increase the affective
commitment. The future studies may consider
the organizational commitment in different
contexts.
Keywords: Affective Commitment,
Continuance Commitment, Normative
Commitment
1. Introduction
Each organization must ensure
favourable work-related attitudes at the
organization since it affects each and every part
of the organization. Employee attitudes play a
key role in determining and strengthening the
good relationship between the employees and
customers. Especially employees’ attitudes
lead to enhance the customers’ service quality,
customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. For
this reason each service organization must
concentrate on encouraging the employees to
do their tasks excellently in the way customers
want. It could only by possible by developing
the right employee attitudes at the workplace.
Insurance companies in Sri Lanka
undertake a variety of tasks and they contribute
significantly to the country’s development.
Owing to high competition among the
insurance firms in the industry, the companies
invariably need to ensure their resources and to
optimally use those resources to achieve the
competitive advantage. Among all resources,
the human resource has been identified as
unique and a valuable resource in achieving
sustainable competitive advantage. In Sri
Lankan insurance companies there is a
considerable amount of labour turnover
Page 2 of 5
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/
e-ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 02 Issue 7
July 2016
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 166
existing among non-managerial level
employees, particularly field -work employees,
business development officers etc. owing to
target achievement pressure, unattainable
targets, delaying in collecting expected claims
and other reasons.
Therefore, there is a need to identify
one of the work-attitudes i.e. organizational
commitment of non-managerial employees in
the insurance sector, since it plays a significant
role in the field of organizational behaviour,
and it has been studied in several multiple
areas found to have associations with those
areas at the workplace (Porter, Steers,
Mowday, & Boulian, 1974 and Praveena,
2014).
2. Research Questions
In general organizational commitment
can take three forms; affective commitment,
continuance commitment, and normative
commitment (Allen and Mayer, 1990). Thus,
this study was developed based on the below
research questions below;
1. What are the levels of the three types of
organizational commitment (affective
commitment, continuance commitment,
and normative commitment) among
non-managerial employees in the
Insurance sector in Sri Lanka?
2. What could be the suggestions to
improve the organizational commitment
of non-managerial employees?
3. Research Objectives
In order to answer the above research
questions, the researcher has identified the
following research objectives;
1. To find out the levels of three types of
organizational commitment (affective
commitment, continuance commitment,
and normative commitment) among
non-managerial employees in the
Insurance sector in Sri Lanka.
2. To suggest some measures in order to
enhance the organizational commitment
of non-managerial employees.
4. Materials and Methods
4.1 Research Approach
The researcher handled positivist and
interpretivist approaches. Moreover, deductive
approach
and inductive approach were also used.
4.2 Population and Sample
The sample was taken from two private
insurance companies operating in the Eastern
Province. Among the population, there were 70
non-managerial employees selected using
stratified sampling technique for this study and
it represents 40% of the population.
4.3 Data Collection and Instrument
The researcher used primary and
secondary data for this study. The primary data
Page 3 of 5
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/
e-ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 02 Issue 7
July 2016
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 167
was collected by direct interview with the
employees using the questionnaire developed
by Allen and Meyer (1990). These items were
measured on a five-point Likert scale (1=
strongly disagree, 5= strongly agree). In
addition, secondary data was obtained through
annual reports of the companies, and related
news and magazines.
4.4 Method of Data Analysis
The study used descriptive analysis in
order to find out the levels of organizational
commitment of non-managerial employees.
And the data was analyzed through mean
values.
5. Results and Discussion
Table 1: Mean values of organizational commitment of non-managerial employees
Types of organizational commitment Mean Standard deviation
1.Affective commitment 3.10 0.756
2.Continuance commitment 3.82 0.545
3.Normative commitment 3.68 0.688
Table 1 states the organizational
commitment of non-managerial employees.
The non-managerial level employees perceived
moderate level of affective commitment which
is accounted for mean value of 3.10 with the
standard deviation of 0.756. Therefore, the
employees moderately expressed their positive
form of commitment. Affective commitment is
conceptualized as “an individual’s attitude
towards the organization, consisting of a strong
belief in, and acceptance of, an organization’s
goals, willingness to exert considerable effort
on behalf of the organization and a strong
desire to maintain membership in the
organization” (Mowday et al., 1982). In the
insurance industry, non-managerial employees
had moderate believes towards organizational
goals; expressed lower level of emotional
attachments towards the organization; had the
least idea how to spend the rest of my career
with this organization; and ignorant of the
organizational problems as his/her own issues.
As per given table, there was a higher
level of continuance commitment among non- managerial employees, since mean value is
accounted for 3.82 with standard deviation of
0.545. Continuance commitment refers to
anything of value that an individual may have
invested such as time, money and effort, which
would be lost or be deemed worthless at some
perceived cost to the individual if he/she were
to leave the organization (Allen and Meyer,
1990). Non-managerial employees from
