Introduction
Researchers have been trying to investigate how relationships between employees with their organization influence their work behavior and mental well-being and also why employees break relationships with their organizations. These studies focused on organizational climate Meyer and Allen (1984, 1997),2, 1 Morrow (1993),3 Buchanan (1974)4 and employee relationship with the organization (Mowday, Steers, and Porter ,1979). 5
Employees are assets to any organization and employee turnover robs the organization of this asset. These researches helped in the expansion of the concept related to organizational commitment as a construct which helps the management to understand how to develop employee commitment which can help shape work behaviors (Hrebiniak & Alutto, 1972).6
Organizational theories like Systems Theory and Human Resource School (Ott,1989)7 mentioned about the organizational climate as an environment in which an employee carries out his/her organization related tasks. Employees perceive that top management create the climate (McGregor ,1957).8 A link between employees and the organizational climate was further established by Litwin and Stringer (1968).9
Further researches went on modifying and adding various dimensions to organizational climate.
In present scenario, there are many working women, who are highly educated and qualified to take up jobs in various sectors and are working, earning and contributing to their household expenses. The emergence of urban working women is a new phenomenon particularly after the industrial revolution (Mishra, 1994).10 Due to enactment of laws protecting and promoting women interests, many women are involved not only at national level but also at international platforms.
Organizational Climate
Perception of employees regarding policies and practices prevailing in an organization is termed as organizational climate. Positive and negative feelings of the employees contribute in creating a climate (Griffin & Moorhead,2014).11 Climate can be framed by making people oriented, innovation oriented, discipline oriented and goal oriented practices. Climate has an impact on the performance of an employee as it directly affects job related attitudes. A satisfied employee is a happy and motivated employee, having more of the job engagement and hence more organizational commitment.
Most of the time organizational culture and organizational climate are used interchangeably but both are different (Robbins & Judge, 2013).12 Culture is deep and stable whereas climate depends upon peoples’ behavior and feelings working in an organization. Climate can be easily assessed and changed favourably but changing culture may be time demanding.
Organizational Commitment
Commitment means a promise or dedication to do something. It helps an individual to stick to their goals during good and bad times or when barriers get in the way. An employee’s work commitment is basically mandatory responsibilities that he or she has to perform in their organization. It evokes a strong feeling of purpose and focus to achieve a predefined goal.
A prominent theory related to Organizational commitment is Three Component Model (TCM) which explains how an employee emotionally (affective commitment), morally (normative commitment) and economically (continuance commitment) identifies himself with his organization and wants to continue his membership in the organization (Meyer & Allen,1991).13 It is a psychological state depicting employee relationship to his organization. Committed employees can boost the growth and excellence of an organization but lack of commitment from employees can be a hindrance to its growth as it may decrease the quality and services offered by the organization.
According to Basic OB Model of Stage I, the perception of climate at individual level of employees gives individual psychological climate, which when combined for all employees’ helps in understanding the perception of team or group and hence the perception at organizational level. There exists a strong link between organizational climate and employee reactions such as stress levels, absenteeism, employee retention, job satisfaction, well-being readiness for creativity, participation, innovation and change (Jain, A., & Sinha, A.K. , 1987).14
Research Methodology
Sampling
The study was Exploratory in nature. In this study, female academicians (engineering and management colleges) from Indore were selected for data collection.
Sampling method used was non-probability sampling. It was a purposive sampling.
Sample size was 100 working female faculty members of private colleges in Indore.
Tool for data collection
Data was collected through questionnaire measuring organization climate and organizational commitment.
A standardized scale of organization climate developed by B.R Sharma was used for the study. The reliability and validity of the scale was found to be .93 and .98 respectively. The scale for organizational commitment developed by Upinder Dhar, Prashant Mishra and D.K. Shrivastava was used for the study. The reliability and validity of the scale was found to be .61 and .78 respectively.
The Organizational Commitment Scale by Upinder Dhar, Prashant Mishra and D. K. Srivastava, measures employees concern for the organization and employees identification with the organizations. The scale consists of 8 items out of which items number 6 and 8 are negative. Each item has 5 alternatives from 'strongly agree to strongly disagree'. The two dimensions measured were Identification with the organization and Concern for the organization.
Tool for data analysis
Data collected was tabulated and was analyzed using SPSS 20 software. Correlation was applied to study the relation between the independent variable i.e. organizational climate and dependent variable organizational commitment. Further t-test statistic was applied to study the significant difference between favorable and unfavorable organizational climate with respect to organizational commitment.
Hypotheses
H01: There is no association between Organization climate and Organization commitment.
The data related to this hypothesis was analyzed using Correlation analysis.
Table 1
Correlations
|
|
|
Oclsumtotal |
Ocmsumtotal |
|
Oclsumtotal |
Pearson Correlation |
1 |
.418** |
|
|
Sig. (2-tailed) |
|
.000 |
|
N |
100 |
100 |
|
|
Ocmsumtotal |
Pearson Correlation |
.418** |
1 |
|
Sig. (2-tailed) |
.000 |
|
|
|
N |
100 |
100 |
Table 1 Shows that value of Pearson Correlation is .418 which is significant at .01 level.This means that there is a moderately positive correlation between organization climate and organizational commitment. Thus the null hypothesis “there is no positive relation between organization climate and organization commitment” is rejected.
H02: There is no significant difference between favorable and unfavorable organization climate with respect to organization commitment.
The data related to this hypothesis was analyzed using t- test. The results are presented in Table 3.
Table 2
Group statistics
|
Ocl sum total |
|
N |
Mean |
Std. Deviation |
Std. Error Mean |
|
Ocm sum total |
>= 101 |
55 |
35.67 |
3.300 |
.445 |
|
< 101 |
45 |
33.58 |
4.664 |
.695 |
Table 3
Independent samples test
It can be observed from Table 3. that the t-value is significant at .01 levels. It means that organization climate produce significant effect on organizational commitment. Hence, the null hypotheses that “there is no association between organizational climate on organizational commitment” is rejected. Further the mean scores (Table 2) of favorable organizational climate group is 35.67 which is significantly higher than that of unfavorable organizational climate which is 33.58. Thus, it may be concluded that employees with favorable organization climate are more committed to their organizations as compared to employees with unfavorable organization climate.
Conclusion
There exists a moderate positive relation between Organizational climate and commitment. This means that Organizational commitment is dependent on organization climate. The study further shows that employees show enhanced Organizational commitment where they perceive the Organizational climate as favorable. If the climate is unfavorable there is a lack of commitment of employees towards the organization. Employee satisfaction is influenced by various dimensions of organizational climate. Employee satisfaction, motivation, involvement and commitment are central to management because it explains why employees behave the way they do in organizations and also the success of any organization depends to a great extent on employees work behavior.
As teachers are nation builder, lack of commitment towards their organization hampers the teaching-learning process. Improving organizational climate is a way in which the organization can recognize their responsibility to develop an environment that is excellent and congenial for its employees as well as for economic health of the organization. The elements in a typical organization culture includes OCTAPACE values which gives the employees a higher chance of job involvement, job satisfaction, team work and free flow of communication within the organization.
Scope of the Study
New employees with no previous work experience are influenced by organizational climate and accordingly establish or develop their commitment levels whereas previously hired experienced employees have their own levels of commitment already established which can be subsequently modified by organizational climate. So further research can be done to find out whether previous work experience colors organizational commitment and organizational climate related perceptions.
A research can also be done to find out whether organizational commitment changes over time in different ways specifically with respect to new employees either with zero years of experience or having some work experience.
