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WORK VALUES AND EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT IN UAE:
MEDIATING ROLE OF JOB INVOLVEMENT
MARYAM TARESH SAIF SUHAIL AL MARRI
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIA
2019
WORK VALUES AND EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT IN UAE: MEDIATING ROLE OF JOB INVOLVEMENT
By
MARYAM TARESH SAIF SUHAIL AL MARRI (900364)
Thesis Submitted to
School of Business Management (SBM), College of Business, Universiti Utara Malaysia,
in Fulfilment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
PERMISSION TO USE
In presenting this thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree from Universiti Utara Malaysia, I agree that the Universiti Library may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for the copying of this thesis in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purpose may be granted by my supervisor(s) or, in their absence, by the Dean, School of Business Management (SBM), College of Business. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this thesis or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to Universiti Utara Malaysia for any scholarly use which may be made of any material from my thesis.
Requests for permission to copy or to make other use of materials in this thesis, in whole or in part, should be addressed to:
Dean, School of Business Management (SBM), College of Business Universiti Utara Malaysia
06010 UUM Sintok
ABSTRACT
United Arab Emirates (UAE) is considered as one of the most rapidly developing countries in the Middle East, struggling to be positioned as a service oriented economy. Similar to other parts of the world, the UAE has changed in scope, management and organization. As a result of this pressure, the UAE showed an increased interest in ensuring appropriate work values and job involvement are in place to enhance employee commitment. In this regard, the employee commitment is seen as one of the driving forces behind organizational performance. This study explored the effects of career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation health and transport as predictors of Ministry of Interior (MOI)’s employee commitment to enhance their effectiveness and efficiency. It was also proposed and analyzed the mediating effect of job involvement through which MOI’s employees being involved in their jobs. The research used a quantitative method through survey instrument and 360 usable questionnaires were collected from the employees in the MOI, UAE. Partial Least Squares (PLS3) was employed to analyze the data. Results showed support for the theoretical model that was studied. The results implied that eight out of eleven direct relationships: career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport, job involvement are related to employee commitment. The mediating effect was also empirically justified, but mediational relationship between security and economic, and employee commitment has confirmed to be statistically negative and not supported. The study has validated theoretical framework and trigger the future research. The results of this research offer a link to its useful applications, the study is also useful and has importance for policy makers, academicians and human resource practitioners to further improving and nurturing employees’ commitment.
Keywords: employee commitment, work values, job involvement, career-growth, social interaction.
ABSTRAK
Emiriah Arab Bersatu (UAE) dianggap sebagai antara negara yang paling pesat membangun dalam kalangan negara Timur Tengah, yang juga dikenali sebagai negara berteraskan ekonomi perkhidmatan. UAE telah berubah dari segi skop, pengurusan dan organisasi sama seperti negara-negara yang lain. Kesan daripada tekanan yang dihadapi, UAE telah menunjukkan minat dalam mempastikan nilai dan penglibatan kerja berada pada tahap yang sepatutnya bagi menambahbaik komitmen pekerja. Dalam hal ini, komitmen pekerja dilihat sebagai salah satu penggerak kepada prestasi organisasi. Kajian ini menyelidik kesan-kesan peningkatan kerjaya, interaksi sosial, keselamatan dan ekonomi, kestabilan dan kebebasan, rekreasi kesihatan dan pengangkutan sebagai peramal komitmen pekerja Kementerian dalam Negeri (MOI) UAE bagi menambahbaik keberkesanan dan kecekapannya. Kesan pemboleh ubah pengantara, penglibatan kerja juga dicadang dan dianalisis dalam kajian ini. Penyelidikan ini menggunakan kaedah kuantitatif melalui borang kaji selidik dan sebanyak 360 borang selidik yang boleh digunakan telah dikumpul daripada kakitangan dalam MOI, UAE. Ujian Partial Least Squares (PLS3) telah digunakan bagi menganalisis data. Hasil kajian menunjukkan sokongan terhadap model teori yang diguna pakai. Keputusan menunjukkan lapan daripada sebelas hubungan-terus iaitu peningkatan kerjaya, interaksi sosial, keselamatan dan ekonomi, kestabilan dan kebebasan, rekreasi kesihatan dan pengangkutan, penglibatan dalam kerja berkait dengan komitmen pekerja. Kesan pengantaraan juga diterangkan secara empirikal, namun, keselamatan dengan ekonomi, dan komitmen pekerja telah didapati negatif dan tidak disokong. Kajian ini telah mengesahkan kerangka teori. Hasil penyelidikan memperlihatkan satu hubungan terhadap pelaksanaannya yang berguna dan kajian ini juga berguna dan ada kepentingannya terhadap penggubal undang-undang, pensyarah dan ahli-ahli akademik serta pengamal sumber manusia untuk menambahbaik dan memupuk komitmen pekerja.
Kata kunci: komitmen pekerja, nilai kerja, penglibatan kerja, kemajuan kerjaya, interaksi sosial.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful, the Lord of the worlds.
First and foremost, I am grateful to the Almighty Allah for giving me the opportunity to complete my PhD thesis. May peace and blessing of Allah be upon His Beloved Prophet Muhammad (SAW), his family and his companions.
For completing this thesis, I owe a debt of gratitude and thanks to many persons and institutions that have supported me throughout this difficult yet challenging journey.
While being thankful to all of them, I must register my gratitude to some in particular. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Abdul Halim Abdul Majid for guiding and supporting me throughout the production of this thesis. I would like also to thank my second supervisor Prof. Dr. Haim Hilman bin Abdullah for giving me his valuable ideas and comments.
To all academic and administrative staff in SBM, my sincere gratitude goes to you.
A special thank goes to people in the Ministry of Interior in the United Arab Emirates.
Furthermore, I would like to express my never ending appreciation and gratitude to my husband who has been very patient during my absence to be alone with my children, and for continuously giving me the undivided support and eternal prayers to get my PhD in Malaysia. I would like to extend my gratitude to my beloved sons and daughters, who have been accompanied me all the way in my long struggle and they pushed me to pursue my dreams. To all of you, I say: I love you, pray for you, and May Allah bless you.
For their long endurance, spiritual supports and true love, I would like to thank and dedicate this PhD thesis to my husband (Naji Al-Khater), my sons (Ahmed and Hamad), and daughters (Mona and Marwa).
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
CERTIFICATION OF THESIS WORK ... ii
PERMISSION TO USE ... iv
ABSTRACT ... v
ABSTRAK ... vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... viii
LIST OF TABLES ... xiv
LIST OF FIGURES ... xvi
LIST OF APPENDICES ... xvii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ... xviii
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ... 1
1.1 Introduction ... 1
1.2 Background of the study... 1
1.3 Problem statement ... 8
1.4 Research questions ... 17
1.5 Research objectives ... 18
1.6 Significance of the study ... 20
1.7 Scope of the study ... 22
1.8 Operational definitions ... 23
1.9 Organization of thesis... 25
CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW ... 26
2.1 Introduction ... 26
2.2 Conceptual background of employee commitment ... 26
2.3 Measurement of employee commitment ... 34
2.4 Employee commitment and variables of study ... 39
2.4.1 Career-growth ... 47
2.4.2 Social interaction ... 49
2.4.3 Security and economic ... 51
2.4.4 Stability and freedom ... 54
2.4.5 Recreation, health and transport ... 56
2.5 Job involvement ... 58
2.6 Underpinning theory of the study ... 62
2.7 Hypotheses of the study ... 66
2.7.1 Direct relationship between career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport and employee commitment ... 67
2.7.2 Direct relationship between career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport and job involvement ... 68
2.7.3 Direct relationship between job involvement and employee commitment ... 70
2.7.4 The mediating role of job involvement in employee commitment relationships ... 71
2.8 Research framework... 73
2.9 Chapter summary ... 75
CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY ... 76
3.1 Introduction ... 76
3.2 Research design ... 76
3.3 Unit of analysis and population of the study ... 78
3.4 Sample size and sampling techniques ... 79
3.5 Measurement of variables... 83
3.5.1 Dependent variable ... 84
3.5.1.1 Employee commitment ... 84
3.5.2 Independent variables ... 86
3.5.2.1 Career-growth ... 86
3.5.2.2 Social interaction ... 88
3.5.2.3 Security and economic... 89
3.5.2.4 Stability and freedom ... 90
3.5.2.5 Recreation, health and transport ... 90
3.5.3 Mediating variable: Job involvement ... 91
3.6 Pre-test and pilot test ... 92
3.7 Data collection ... 95
3.8 Data analysis method ... 96
3.8.1 Descriptive analysis ... 96
3.8.2 Partial Least Squares (PLS) Technique ... 97
3.9 Chapter summary ... 98
CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS ... 99
4.1 Introduction ... 99
4.2 Response rate ... 99
4.3 Test for non-response bias ... 101
4.4 Data coding ... 103
4.5 Preliminary analysis ... 104
4.5.1 Data screening ... 104
4.5.2 Missing values analysis ... 104
4.5.3 Outlier detection and treatment ... 106
4.6 Multicollinearity test ... 107
4.7 Data normality test ... 108
4.8 Demographic profile of the respondents ... 109
4.9 Descriptive statistics of the study variables... 112
4.10 Models evaluations... 114
4.10.1 Measurement model ... 114
4.10.1.1 Construct validity ... 114
4.10.1.2 Convergent validity ... 117
4.10.1.3 Discriminant validity ... 121
4.10.1.4 Prediction relevance of the model ... 123
4.10.1.4.1 Variance explained (R2)... 123
4.10.1.4.2 Cross-validated communality ... 124
4.10.1.4.3 Effect size of job involvement and employee commitment ... 125
4.10.2 Structural model ... 126
4.10.2.1 The direct effects ... 129
4.10.2.2 The mediation effects (Indirect Effects) ... 130
4.11 Summary of the findings ... 133
CHAPTER FIVE DISCUSSION ... 135
5.1 Introduction ... 135
5.2 Summary of findings ... 135
5.3 Discussions ... 138
5.3.1 Direct effects ... 138
5.3.1.1 Relationship between career-growth and employee commitment (RQ1)... 139
5.3.1.2 Relationship between career-growth and job involvement (RQ2) ... 140
5.3.1.3 Relationship between social interaction and employee commitment (RQ3) ... 141
5.3.1.4 Relationship between social interaction and job involvement (RQ4) ... 142
5.3.1.5 Relationship between security and economic and employee commitment (RQ5) ... 143
5.3.1.6 Relationship between security and economic and job involvement (RQ6) ... 144
5.3.1.7 Relationship between stability and freedom and employee commitment (RQ7) ... 145
5.3.1.8 Relationship between stability and freedom
and job involvement (RQ8) ... 146
5.3.1.9 Relationship between recreation, health and transport and employee commitment (RQ9) ... 146
5.3.1.10 Relationship between recreation, health and transport and job involvement (RQ10) ... 147
5.3.1.11 Relationship between job involvement and employee commitment (RQ16) ... 148
5.3.2 Mediating effect of job involvement (RQ 11, 12, 13, 14, 15) ... 149
5.3.2.1 Significant mediation effects ... 150
5.3.2.2 Insignificant mediation effect ... 153
5.4 Implications of the study ... 154
5.4.1 Theoretical implication ... 154
5.4.2 Methodological implication ... 156
5.4.3 Practical implication ... 157
5.5 Limitations of study ... 159
5.6 Suggestions for future studies ... 160
5.7 Conclusion ... 161
REFERENCES ... 163
APPENDIX A: RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE ………...208
APPENDIX B: DATA COLLECTION LETTER………...217
APPENDIX C: PRELIMINARIES ………..218
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
Table 1.1Definition of key terms ... 23
Table 2.1Definitions of commitment ... 32
Table 3.1Stratified sampling of the respondents ... 82
Table: 3.2Questionnaire design ... 83
Table 3.3Measurement of employee commitment... 85
Table 3.4Measurement of career-growth ... 87
Table 3.5Measurement of social interaction ... 88
Table 3.6Measurement of security and economic ... 89
Table 3.7Measurement of stability and freedom ... 90
Table 3.8Measurement of recreation, health and transport ... 91
Table 3.9Measurement of job involvement ... 92
Table 3.10Reliability statistics... 94
Table 3.11Reliability of the constructs ... 95
Table 4.1Questionnaire distribution and retention... 100
Table 4.2Results of independent-samples T-test for non-response bias ... 102
Table 4.3Variable coding ... 103
Table 4.4Missing values ... 105
Table 4.5Results of multiconllinearity test ... 108
Table 4.6Demographic characteristics of the respondents ... 110
Table 4.7Descriptive statistics for study variables ... 113
Table 4.8Factor loadings and cross loadings ... 116
Table 4.9 Loadings, composite reliability and average variance extracted……….118
Table 4.10Fornell and Lacker Criterion ... 122
Table 4.11Discriminant validity (HTMT criterion) ... 122
Table 4.12Variance explained in the endogenous latent variable ... 123
Table 4.13Predictive relevance (Q2) ... 124
Table 4.14The effect size of job involvement, employee commitment and the interaction constructs ... 126
Table 4.15Hypothesis testing (Direct) ... 128
Table 4.16Hypotheses Testing (Mediation) ... 131
Table 4.17Summary of results for hypotheses testing ... 133
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page Figure 2.1The Hypothesized Relationships Between
Career-growth, Social Interaction, Security and Economic, Stability and Freedom, Recreation, Health and Transport,
Job Involvement, and Employee Commitment. ... 74 Figure 4.1Measurement Model ... 120 Figure 4.2Structural model ... 127
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix A Research questionnaire ………...208 Appendix B Data collection letter……….………...217 Appendix C Preliminaries ……….…………..218
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AMOS Analysis of Moment Structures
AVE Average Variance Extracted
PhD Doctor of Philosophy
PLS Partial Least Squares
Q2 Construct Cross Validated Redundancy
R2 R-squared values
SEM Structural Equation Modelling
SET Social Exchange Theory
SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
SWT Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
UAE United Arab Emirates
CR Composite Reliability
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction
This chapter presents the background of study, the problem statement, research questions, specific research objectives, significance and scope of the study, and operational definitions of the key terms used in this study, finally, the organization of the thesis.
1.2 Background of the study
The establishment of the Federation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on the second of December 1971 was a culmination of the people’s aspiration for unity, prosperity, and dignity. In doing so, there was consensus that security is a function that needs to be handled by a federal authority (MOI, 2017). There has always been consensus on the need for integrating police and security agencies, particularly from His Highness the UAE President and his brothers, Their Highnesses the members of the Supreme Council and rulers of the Emirates. That emphasis on having a unified security apparatus nationwide has been instrumental in the ensuing achievements accomplished by the Ministry, which has played a pivotal role in enhancing security and stability throughout the country (MOI, 2017). Based on this, the Ministry of Interior (MOI) as the fundamental federal entity of the UAE government, is more expected to play its vital role in providing security and stability all over the Emirates.
MOI upon its establishment was given duties and responsibilities to protect the state’s security, to create, organize and supervise police and security forces, conduct
all naturalization and residency related affairs, regulate traffic, provide protection, security of establishments and property as well. At a national level, the government entities also attempt to improve employee’s commitment (service quality), through assessment and continuous monitoring which is needed to meet the UAE’s long-term strategic goals (MOI, 2017).
The human resources for each government entity, is given the functions to continuously monitor and evaluate the performance of its employees, at the same time implement strategies to motivate the employees to provide best services. Due to the major functions of MOI, the Ministry has adopted a new, methodological approach for boosting its human resources and physical assets in tune with the fast pace of development in all spheres to achieve the UAE Strategic Plan and Mission Vision of 2023. Today, the economy of the United Arab Emirates had prospered phenomenally for the last three decades and had become a competitive and significant player in the global market (Maceda, 2016). In addition, UAE was among the top ten most improved economies 2015/2016 as tracked by Doing Business, which stated to have implemented regulatory reforms to make it easier to do business.
Along with that, the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization affirmed that the average of the government’s employees rate has risen to 11.5% in 2014. Sectors such as the construction and building sector topped the economic sectors in terms of accommodating state employees with a ratio of 19.5% followed by the bulk and retail trade and reparation services sector with 19.1%, the manufacturing industries
sector with 11.6%, governmental services sector with 11.5% and home services sector with 9.5%. The total ratio accommodated by the five sectors amounted to about 71.2% of the total estimated number of state employees in 2014 (MOE, 2016).
Considering the relative distribution of the employees as per the economic sectors in 2017, the construction and building sector topped the economic sectors in terms of accommodating state employees with a ratio of 32.86% followed by the trade and reparation services sector with 23.15%, the manufacturing industries sector with 9.30%, governmental services sector with 11.80% and transportation storage and communication with 7.57% (MOHRE, 2017).
With all the above statistics of both domestic and foreign employees in the country, the Ministry of Interior (MOI) as the fundamental federal entity of the UAE government is expected to play its vital role in providing security and stability over all the Emirates. MOI upon its establishment was given duties and responsibilities to protect the state’s security, to create, organize and supervise police and security forces, conduct all naturalization and residency related affairs, regulate traffic, provide protection, security of establishments and property as well (MOI, 2017).
Thus, through the bestowed duties and responsibilities of (MOI) under the umbrella of the Federal State, MOI attempts to achieve sustainable progress and development by providing security and stability. Therefore, security and stability is the lifeline to ensure that UAE continuously achieve economic progress. Most importantly, at present the MOI should be in good shape to sustain its performance towards the attainment of the UAE Vision of 2023. In fact, the government of UAE is highly
committed to becoming one of the top five governments in the world in terms of the quality of public services provided.
On the other hand, one of the important roles of higher officers in MOI departments is to assess the impact of these various influences on their employees whether nationals or expatriates, and address these challenges. Additionally, there should be a continuous development of the processes of recruitment, motivation, and retention for their employees. In addition to that, in order to compete successfully in the MOI environment, and attract and retain the most qualified and experienced employees, it is very important for MOI to implement best strategies which can increase job involvement and ensure employee commitment (Brown, 2002). Means that once the MOI employees’ involved and committed to their organization, then the organization would have a great outcome (Turkyilmaz et al., 2011; Ibrahim & Al Falasi, 2014).
Therefore, the current study attempts to provide enough understanding and suggest some factors which may enhance employees’ commitment. In other words, this study explores the relationship between work values, organizational involvement, and employee commitment which will be evidenced by the employees of MOI in UAE.
As it is underway as instructed by the federal government, which stresses the need for the public sector to be leaner, more agile and better equipped to deal with public demands.
Furthermore, there are some other issues that may also affect employee commitment in MOI. For instance, the positive interaction styles when they perceive value in their interactions and experiences within the organization. This is because, the lack of
positive employee values and attitudes can make or break any system designed to create goodwill and loyalty among employees. Dissatisfied employees can easily develop negative attitudes and perceptions that can negatively influence other employees (Smallwood, 1998). Therefore, the main objective of the present study is to examine the relationships between work values (career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation health and transport), job involvement and employee commitment in MOI.
In view of the increasing expectations from the MOI employees coupled with demands from the external environment, employees in MOI department have to be highly involved, competent, effective, and efficient. Similarly, in predicting employee commitment, this study incorporates job involvement as suggested by Abdallah et al. (2016) that would act as a mediator between career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport and employee commitment.
It is also crucial to note that employee commitment of MOI’s employees may be attributed to factors related to their departments and jobs they are attached to. Having said so, this study included career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport as the factors that may influence MOIs’ employee commitment. This is because additional empirical evidence on the influence of the said factors on employee commitment is needed in order to enhance overall organizational effectiveness. Importantly, Elizur (1996), Adamson (1997), Elizur and Koslowsky (2001), Burke (2001), Elloy (2005), Ernest
and Lin (2007), Rego, Pina, and Cunha (2008), San (2008), Burke (2010), Weng, McElroy, Morrow, and Liu (2010), Ellerup and Nørreklit (2011), Filstad (2011), Weng and McElroy (2012), Joo, Jun, and Jeung (2012), Holmes and Williams (2012), Gardner and Pierce (2013), Aladwan, Bhanugopan, and Fish (2013), Nishat, and Al-Esmael (2014), Wang, Weng, McElroy, Ashkanasy, and Lievens (2014), Dhondt, Delano, and Kraan (2014), Kasekende, Munene, Ntayi, and Ahiauzu (2015), Singh and Gupta (2015), Skotnes (2015), Sadoughi and Ebrahimi (2015), Williams and Bhanugopan (2016), Monteiro, Castro, Neto, Ferreira, Ferreira, and Gomes (2016), Sloan, Buckham, and Lee (2017), Cafferkey, Harney, Dundon, and Edgar (2017) asserted that employee commitment is affected by many factors. In addition, this indicates that organizational factors are also of significant values in predicting employee commitment.
In accordance to Mowday et al (2013) commitment is conceptually categorized into three components, first, the strong belief in and acceptance of organizational goals and values, second is a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and finally, strong desire to maintain membership in the organization.
On the other hand, Meyer and Allen (1991) illustrate commitment as a psychological
“state where there is an emotional attachment to organizational (affective commitment) recognition of the costs associated with leaving an organization (continuance commitment) and a perceived obligation to stay with an organization (normative commitment)”. From this, the focus of the current study is primarily to identify the antecedents that contributing to the development of employee commitment, which are favorably linked to work attitudes, and job involvement
which inevitably provide conducive workplace. Accordingly, Angle and Lawson (1993) affirmed that there are antecedents to commitment that can be divided into personal characteristics and situational factors. Personal characteristics may include variables like gender, age, and employment tenure. At the same time, situational factors may include variables like job characteristics, organizational characteristics, work situations, and work experiences that employees may have.
Based on Meyer et al. (1989), and Meyer and Allen (1991), an employee who is affectively committed strongly “identifies with the goals of the organization, desires to remain a part of the organization, and is willing to exert great effort on behalf of the organization”. Besides, the study of antecedents and consequences to commitment among workers in UAE should be explored regarding whether they are valid and can be representative of the same concerns that employees have, in other countries.
In the interest of addressing the practical and theoretical issues and furthering the understanding on factors that influence employee commitment of the employees in the departments under the MOI in UAE, this study therefore assesses the role of job involvement as a mediator between career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation health and transport and employee commitment relationships. The subsequent section is the problem statement of the study.
1.3 Problem statement
The Ministry of Interior (MOI) has a great emphasis in achieving national objective to develop its human resources and material capabilities in exerting significant efforts to shape the duties and responsibilities of its security departments (MOI, 2017). To do so, the UAE Government is committed to its vision of turning its government into one of the top five governments in the world in terms of the quality of public services provided (Bin Taher et al., 2015). However, this transformation will require radical changes as it has resulted in restructuring the classical public administration. In addition to that, the public administration has changed in scope, management and organization in a way that is similar to the private sector; hence it has been under pressure to deliver high quality and customer oriented services (Turkyilmaz et al., 2011; Ibrahim & Al Falasi, 2014). As a result of this pressure, the public sector organizations have showed an increased interest in adopting new human resource management practices that would influence employee relations as stated in the vision of MOI strategy (MOI, 2017).
At the global level, there were many developing organizations, including those in developing economies, are experiencing tremendous change where the implications are resulting in a high level of staff turnover, distrust and stress. In view of these increasing circumstances, creating high levels of employee commitment and linking them to their organizations is a constant issue for business managers and leaders (Aladwan et al., 2013). In this respect, employee commitment is considered to be significant research area for Middle Eastern businesses which have an increasing
need to understand both the practical and theoretical implications which describing commitment as an attitude reflecting the quality of the relationships that link the individual to the organization (Aladwan et al., 2013). In spite of extensive research on employee commitment, most of the previous studies has been primarily conducted in Western business contexts, and less is known about employee commitment and its correlates in non-Western countries (Meyer & Allen, 1997).
However, in countries where the culture is greatly different from that of Western countries, the predictors of employee commitment may be very different from the way Western organizations generally expect (AlMazrouei et al., 2016). Based on this, Middle East has provided little research about employee commitment. Where, a review of literature revealed dearth of studies on various aspects of the employment relationship in the Middle Eastern region in general and United Arab Emirates (UAE) in particular (Behery et al., 2016; AlMazrouei et al., 2016). Studies based on UAE organizations can be extremely enlightening, because of its rich diversified workforce and management practices that are influenced by both Islamic culture and Western management practices. Diversity has an impact on employees’ interrelation and employee commitment (Peterson & Xing, 2007; Behery, 2009; Aladwan et al., 2013; Behery et al., 2016; AlMazrouei et al., 2016). In this respect, researchers and practitioners, have believed that the level of employee commitment is considered as a driving force behind organization’s performance (Ibrahim & Al Falasi, 2014).
Bin Taher et al. (2015), declared that there is a lack of employee commitment as an obstacle to change in the UAE public sector. However, several organizational and individual factors are behind this lack as it is a crucial factor in introducing and managing change in the UAE context (Bin Taher et al., 2015). In more specific, UAE is a young nation, and many of its social and economic institutes are still emerging, and because of that, the UAE public sector often suffers from the lack of organizational maturity and stability (Bin Taher et al., 2015).
To date, employees in the UAE are changing jobs more often than the rest of the world. According to the MetLife findings, 75% of UAE employers agree that benefits enable productivity, and 79% want to shift costs of customized benefits to employees (Nair, 2018). Similarly, 85% of UAE employees are not engaged in their jobs. In other words, level of employee engagement in UAE remain very low.
According to Gallup, an analytics firm, about eight in ten UAE workers (85%) are not engaged or actively disengaged in their work, meaning the overwhelming majority are not psychologically committed to their jobs and are less likely to become more productive. Moreover, Gallup’s “State of the Global Workplace”
report, which covers 155 countries, showed that only 16% of employees across the UAE are connected to their work (Maceda, 2018).
However, the key to success is to understand the environment and adapt the right action accordingly, this is because, low employee commitment in UAE (Bin Taher et al., 2015) can be interpreted as a consequence of the lack of understanding of how to
manage people in the organizations, as long as, MOI’s strategic approach seeking for new ways to communicate effectively with all segments of the society, provide them with comfort and peace, and continue to meet their needs (MOI, 2017). Whilst, employee commitment is seen to have a significant impact on workforce well-being (Cafferkey et al., 2017), several studies have attempted to understand the nature, antecedents, and consequences of employee commitment, indicating that employee commitment was significantly associated with employee work related attitudes for instance, job satisfaction, turnover, and some other withdrawal behaviors such as turnover intention, absenteeism, which decrease organizational performance (Meyer et al., 2002). This is supported by Nair (2018) that staff turnover in the UAE higher than global average. Besides that, MetLife reports that 56% looking to switch in next 12 months if benefits don’t add up.
Based on the literature, the role of workplace values and beliefs play an important role in determining the understanding of employee commitment (Cafferkey et al., 2017). This means that there is a need to understand workplace values and factors that determine employees’ commitment. This is congruent to the assertion by Becker (1960), who pointed out that “to understand commitment fully, there is a need to discover the system of values within which the mechanisms and processes described workplace”. Since the workplace values are an important component of work, there is a need to review the work values’ construct in the Middle East as it has been limited mainly to Western Europe and North America. From this, it is essentially important to investigate how work values are impacted by the governments of Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC). As stated by, Williams and Bhanugopan (2016) work values in the Middle East have received limited academic attention. This is basically because of social culture in UAE as one of the member states of (GCC), is often clashes with the workplace environment as it consists of more than 180 nationalities from a wide range of cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds (Common, 2011;
Yaseen, & Okour, 2012; Jabeen et al., 2015; Bin Taher et al., 2015). In this respect, Hofstede (2003) indicates that work values are important because they are reflected in culture. Further, work values are generally affect a number of work related behaviors (Froese & Xiao, 2012; Williams & Bhanugopan, 2016).
Since the recognition that work values are an important component of work in UAE, the behavior of nationals at the individual level are not consistently and properly equipped in either experience or skills to effectively replace expatriate management in terms of productivity and performance. This means that work values of nationals have been suggested as being less focused on productivity than those of expatriates (Williams & Bhanugopan, 2016). Therefore, these aspects of Emirati culture require special attention when implementing change. Accordingly, in supporting employee commitment, the key components to create an environment conducive to Emiratization, this can be measured by work values and individual attitudes which may play a very important role of explaining employees’ commitment to the organization. By doing so, the work values need to be examined through career- growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport as the main components of work values in this study. As it is
basically based on the employees’ beliefs regarding what organization owe them and what they owe to their organizations. To a certain context, these psychological contracts explain the employment relationships among an employer and an employee at the individual level. This is confirmed by the social exchange theory that the perception of employees towards psychological contracts will directly affect their commitment and play a crucial role in an organization’s general performance and competitiveness (Jabeen et al., 2015).
In this study, work values are among the various factors that influencing employee commitment in the UAE context where the individual employees might expect organizations to repay them for their loyalty and commitment to non-job tasks, which could be done through a number of non-financial ways such as retention, personal development, flexible working and advancement. As a result, there is a need to achieve more flexibility regarding non-permanent employees, labor resource, address new forms of contractual engagements which in turn, describe characteristics of job insecurity, lack of access to benefits and lack of attachment to the organization, as a whole, in the Middle East context in general and the UAE in particular, career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport describing commitment as an attitude reflecting the good quality of services that needed to uplift UAE and achieving UAE plan to be among exemplary nation in the region. However, by addressing the mentioned factors, this would give more comprehensive understanding on its relationships with the employee commitment, as argued by Forstenlechner (2008)
that, one of the key weaknesses of Emiratization remains the limited information about the work itself. In addition to that, the absence of a clear national framework reflected lack of individualistic efforts.
As for as the employees in MOI is concerned, the present study incorporates their job involvement as a mediator in examining the influence of career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport on commitment. Even though, the construct of job involvement and employee commitment are considered to be similar as both of them are related to an employee’s identification with the work experience, but these constructs are differing. Job involvement is more related with identification with one’s immediate work activities while employee commitment refers to one’s attachment to the organization (Singh & Gupta, 2015).
Based on this, job involvement is included in this study as it is related to both personal characteristics and job characteristics (Brown & Leigh, 1996). As a whole, job involvement is needed as a mediating variable to explain the influence of the predictors on the criterion variable. This is in accordance to Baron and Kenny (1986) assertion that mediator could explain why and how a predictor influences an outcome variable in providing meaningful results. To do so, job involvement in this study assesses employees’ overall attitude towards their job. In addition to that, by including job involvement as a mediator this will provide in depth understanding on the function of it in predicting various organizational outcomes. Further, most of the
studies related to this issues are based on Western experiences and cultural norms.
On the other hand, the related studies on job involvement and employee commitment in Middle Eastern perspective are very limited (Jabeen et al., 2015). Therefore, this study intends to bridge the gap by examining job involvement in the relationship between career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport as predictors to employee commitment under the MOI. Besides, the direct and indirect relationships between the enablers describe the situation far more accurately than the individual factor taken into isolation. Therefore, the study attempts to develop insights into collective understandings of these relationships.
In general, the concept of commitment in the workplace is still one of the most challenging and researched concepts in the fields of management, organizational behavior, and human resource management in GCC countries (Faisal & Al-Esmael, 2014). From this, it is worthy to note that employee commitment in the present study is based on the effects of career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport as they are the primary enablers of employee commitment in an organization. This is emphasized the role of social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) that the organizations can provide all resources to their employees in “social exchange” which, in turn, increase level of employee commitment. Based on social exchange theory, it can be argued that, when organizations provide all resources such as, interpersonal situations, expressions of esteem and respect, and recognition opportunities for their employees, the
organizations initiate a social exchange relationship in which employees feel socially obligated to be committed (Cicekli & Kabasakal, 2017).
Focusing on these enablers namely career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport, job involvement and employee commitment, can help employees to achieve their goals and objectives in the future. At the same time this will create a very good working environment which can be shared among employees, and thus, this would help the decision makers in UAE organizations and human resources to develop better strategies to improve commitment of their employees. Faisal and Al-Esmael (2014) stated that if head of departments and human resource managers meet the needs of their employees, their commitment will increase and they will prefer to remain in their work. However, the key of success is to understand the environment and adapt the right action accordingly as MOI’s strategic approach seeking new ways to communicate effectively with all segments of the society, provide them with comfort and peace, and continue to meet their needs (MOI, 2017).
Consequently, from the previous discussion there is a need to investigate empirically the possible relationships between career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport, job involvement, and the employee commitment to have a clear understanding on it and to enhance the UAE Strategic Plan and its vision of 2023. Thus, this study intends to explore the construct validity of all variables in the theoretical framework.
1.4 Research questions
The aim of this research is to determine the relationships between work values and job involvement in enhancing employee commitment. To do so, the researcher seeks to gather findings based on the following research questions:
1. Is there any relationship between career-growth and employee commitment among MOI’s employees?
2. Is there any relationship between career-growth and job involvement?
3. Is there any relationship between social interaction and employee commitment among MOI’s employees?
4. Is there any relationship between social interaction and job involvement?
5. Is there any relationship between security and economic and employee commitment among MOI’s employees?
6. Is there any relationship between security and economic and job involvement?
7. Is there any relationship between stability and freedom and employee commitment among MOI’s employees?
8. Is there any relationship between stability and freedom and job involvement?
9. Is there any relationship between recreation, health and transport and employee commitment among MOI’s employees?
10. Is there any relationship between recreation, health and transport and job involvement?
11. Does job involvement mediate the relationship between career-growth and employee commitment?
12. Does job involvement mediate the relationship between social interaction and employee commitment?
13. Does job involvement mediate the relationship between security and economic and employee commitment?
14. Does job involvement mediate the relationship between stability and freedom and employee commitment?
15. Does job involvement mediate the relationship between recreation, health and transport and employee commitment?
16. Is there any relationship between job involvement and employee commitment among MOI’s employees?
1.5 Research objectives
The specific research objectives of the study are as follow:
1. To find out the relationship between career-growth, and employee commitment among MOI’s employees.
2. To determine the relationship between career-growth and job involvement.
3. To find out the relationship between social interaction and employee commitment among MOI’s employees.
4. To determine the relationship between social interaction and job involvement.
5. To find out the relationship between security and economic and employee commitment among MOI’s employees.
6. To determine the relationship between security and economic and job involvement.
7. To find out the relationship between stability and freedom and employee commitment among MOI’s employees.
8. To determine the relationship between stability and freedom and job involvement.
9. To find out the relationship between recreation, health and transport and employee commitment among MOI’s employees.
10. To determine the relationship between recreation, health and transport and job involvement.
11. To examine the mediating effect of job involvement on the relationship between career-growth and employee commitment.
12. To examine the mediating effect of job involvement on the relationship between social interaction and employee commitment.
13. To examine the mediating effect of job involvement on the relationship between security and economic and employee commitment.
14. To examine the mediating effect of job involvement on the relationship between stability and freedom and employee commitment.
15. To examine the mediating effect of job involvement on the relationship between recreation, health and transport and employee commitment.
16. To find out the relationship between job involvement and employee commitment among MOI’s employees.
1.6 Significance of the study
The study offers valuable insights and findings on the importance of career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport in enhancing employee commitment in Middle East in general and UAE (MOI) in particular. First, the study aimed to significantly contribute to Administrators and Human Resource Officers to have a resource in developing training programs tailored on the matter of work values which seen to be essential in enhancing employee commitment of employees to achieve the UAE Strategic Plan and Vision of 2023, which is based on four pillars:
1. United in responsibility: An ambitious and confident nation grounded in its heritage
2. United in destiny: A strong union bonded by a common destiny
3. United in knowledge: A Competitive Economy Driven by Knowledgeable and Innovative Emiratis
4. United in prosperity: A nurturing and sustainable environment for quality living
Second, scholars would be able to identify what areas and values needed to be improved and effectively will develop employees’ commitment who are vitally fit in driving development in the UAE.
Furthermore, this study provides a vital information as it is contributing in the process of determining an effective environment for employees. One of the most considered factors in management is the increased competition and flexibility in workforce that encourages them to invest more on HR functions; recruitment, retention and training approaches in the goals of implementing strategic practices to provide total quality services and enhance organizational productivity. From this, the results of this study provides new understanding and sheds light on the phenomenon of employee commitment that connects work values to the organization, and the opportunities provided in enhancing individual knowledge and skills for specific jobs covered by the organization which in turn affect the overall performance of the organization.
Therefore, this study contributes to the literature by using social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) to provide deep and better understanding in predicting employee commitment from the perspectives of organizational psychology. In addition to that, the usage of social exchange theory explained the relation between organization and their employees regarding the attitude and behaviors. This would expand body of knowledge by investigating the relationship between career-growth, social
interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport, job involvement, and employee commitment. Further, present study also holds significance in line with the research objectives and the used variables to be investigated in the UAE’s MOI. This can be more reliable when the individual’s work value can be utilized as the main bases of individual’s motivation. At the same time, the organization can use those values to boost the individuals at workplace, which in turn, influence employee’s sense of belongingness to the organization.
1.7 Scope of the study
To answer the research questions and achieve the objectives, this study is conducted amongst employees of immigration departments under the MOI in UAE. This study basically focused on the effects of career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport on employee commitment, which is mediated by job involvement in MOI of the UAE. The MOI was chosen because of its long term strategy to work effectively and efficiently towards enhancing the quality of life in the UAE community, through smart delivery of safety and security services within an innovation-driven environment to protect lives, honors and properties. As well as, the Ministry has adopted well-researched development plans geared toward enhancing their human and physical capabilities and improving public services. These plans are based on sound short and long-term strategies (MOI, 2017). The Ministry of Interior adopted a sound management system and managed to meet significant challenges with the available resources.
They are endeavoring to prepare teams and provide them with the necessary skills to
maintain security and stability. In a culturally and ethnically diverse environment like the UAE, interaction with the community will always be at the core of the strategic thinking and actual operations. The Ministry has also managed in a short span to build considerable capabilities and highly sophisticated security teams capable of protecting society against the perils of crime. These efforts are contributing to the UAE’s endeavors to build an ultra-modern state and position itself as a regional and international business hub. In doing so, this study contained ideal components to be assessed in order to achieve the UAE Strategic Plan and the Vision Mission of 2023 (MOI, 2017).
1.8 Operational definitions
The following Table 1.1 demonstrated the operational definitions which are used in this study:
Table 1.1
Definition of key terms
DV/IV/MD Variables/
Dimensions Definitions Author
Dependent Employee The extent to which employee commitment is defined as the relative
variable commitment strength of an employee’s identification (Mowday et al., with, and involvement in a particular 1979)
organization.
Independent variables
Career-growth The degree of importance which an individual placeon acquiring new
knowledge, career-growth,exerting (Wu et al., 1996) creativity, and promoting personal
development during the course of their work
Social The degree of importance which an interaction individual place on achieving
an excellent level of social (Wu et al., 1996) interaction and sharing their daily
emotional experiences with and superiors, as well as establishing
harmonious social relationships with others during the course of their work.
Security and economic
The degree of importance which an
individual place on reaching (Wu et al., 1996) reasonable economic remuneration
through holistic organizational systems, to satisfy their sense of security
during the course of their work.
Stability and freedom
The degree of importance which an individual place on regularly and
stably performing hisjob without (Wu et al., 1996) tension, anxiety, chaos or fear.
Recreation,
The degree of importance which an individual place on attaining
health sufficient physical energy, (Wu et al., 1996) and transport recreation activities and availability of
convenient traffic transport options during their work.
Mediating variable
Job
involvement
The extent to which job involvement as a term describe an individual’s beliefs
about one’s present job,a function (Kanungo, 1982).
of the satisfaction of the individual’s
present needs.
1.9 Organization of thesis
This study contains five chapters. The present chapter (chapter one) provides information and discussion about the background of study, problem statement, research questions and objectives, significance of the study, scope of the study, and definitions of terms. Chapter two focuses on the related literature review of employee commitment, career-growth, social interaction, security and economic, stability and freedom, recreation, health and transport, and job involvement and their importance to the current study. Further, it provides underpinning theory, hypothesis of study and research framework. Besides, chapter three covered discussion of the methodology applied in this study. It includes, research design, data collection method, instrumentation, operationalization of the variables, the research sampling, unit of analysis, and data analysis method. Chapter Four presents the descriptive analysis, hypotheses testing, empirical results and findings. Chapter Five which is the last chapter provides detailed discussion on findings, research contributions, limitations and suggestions for future research and conclusion.
CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
This chapter builds upon the review of the literature on employee commitment, underlying theory used in the study and predictors of employee commitment.
Finally, hypotheses are presented to exhibit the relationships between variables in this study. This is then followed by the theoretical framework of the study.
2.2 Conceptual background of employee commitment
The concept of employee commitment in workplace change is one of the important and challenging concepts in the field of human resource management and organizational behaviour (Cafferkey et al., 2017; Cicekli & Kabasakal, 2017; Boon
& Kalshoven, 2014; WeiBo et al., 2010; Jain et al., 2009). In the early 1960’s, Becker (1960) initiated the concept of commitment as “side bet or investments and suggests that employees make side bets as investments in the form of tenure, status, organization specific skills, pension”, “This pulls them to continue their affiliation with the organization”. Thereafter, Grusky (1966) and Brown (1969) shortly undertook studies which explore employee commitment. This is followed by, Morrow (1983) who reviewed literature on work commitment and found that different concepts contain twenty-five relevant measurements. In addition to that, Becker (1960) produced the concept of “exchange approach”, indicating that
commitment is achieved by making “side bets”, which are the losses that might be gained if the employee leaves the organization. When the employees are unwilling to lose their benefits, and perceive benefits as positive elements in an exchange, they will be more likely to stay with their organization because of the side bets made to that organization. Usually, most of the employees are willing to employ their skills and expertise to further an organization because this behaviour leads to attain more benefits for both the employees and the organizations (Becker, 1960).
Based on the literature, the concept of employee commitment has been treated as a variable of interest in its own right and a variety of definitions have been suggested (Cafferkey et al., 2017; Cicekli & Kabasakal, 2017; Boon & Kalshoven, 2014;
Mowday et al., 2013; WeiBo et al., 2010; Jain et al, 2009; Meyer et al., 1998;
Mowday et al., 1982). Recently, the concept of commitment has attracted more attention from researchers, this is due to the changes that taking place in employment practices which have risen from the international employment marketplace and increased alternatives for skilled employees in global economy (Jain et al, 2009).
This is proven in the UAE marketplace environment that many companies attracted to the UAE because of the advanced infrastructure, modern investment laws and extremely skilled employees (Jabeen et al., 2015).
Furthermore, employee commitment is defined as “the psychological attachment felt by the employees for the organization or psychological state of mind which binds the individual to the organization” (O'Reilly et al., 1991). Therefore, in the present study
employee commitment is seen to have a significant impact on organizational outcomes as well as considered to be crucial element in employees’ behaviour (Cafferkey et al., 2017; Aladwan et al., 2013). Aladwan et al. (2013) stated that employee commitment can have a significant impact on organizations through contributing to productivity increases, organizational performance, opportunities for staff satisfaction, and lower absenteeism. To achieve that, committed employees are mainly considered to be loyal and productive members of organizations. In this regard, Kanter (1968) proposed that employee commitment can be defined as “the personal loyalty and individual dedication individuals are willing to give to their organization”. Indicating that, when the employees realize that leaving their current organization will be costly, they will be less likely to leave their organization.
Based on this, Furtmueller et al. (2011) affirmed that most commitment studies to date have focused on understanding employees’ commitment to an organization, as well as its antecedents, correlations, and consequences of commitment (Mowday et al., 1979; Furtmueller et al., 2011). On the other hand, Aladwan et al. (2013) suggest that employee commitment includes both an attitude which describes the linkage between the employee and the organization, and a set of behaviours that employees follow to manifest that relationship. In addition to that, employee commitment basically provides for researchers, a fundamental variable of employees’ attitudes, which in turn, enhances organizational behaviour and related fields (Aladwan et al., 2013). From this, employees’ commitment is considered one of the prominent issues faced by organizations and their managers.
However, it is important to note that the process of organizational commitment has been shown to reflect employee’s attachment through dedicating time and effort and make commitments to their own organization to create identification (Sheldon, 1971;
Aladwan et al., 2013). Another perspective on employee commitment was given by, Porter et al. (1974) that the organizational commitment is based on an individual’s overall perspective regarding one particular organization. Consequently, this will show the degree to which individuals embrace characteristics of perspectives of the organization. Additionally, Staw (1977) incorporates previous studies and divided employee commitment into behavioural commitment and attitudinal commitment. In a similar vein, Stevens et al. (1978) introduced two types of commitment, which are known as normative commitment and exchange commitment. Normative commitment refers to the personal internal idealism in achieving organizational goals such as, the readiness of individuals to stay in the organization to disburse individual effort. While, exchange commitment expresses the utilization of employee commitment which emphasises personal investment return rate (Stevens et al., 1978). From this, the differences between giving and receiving commitment is based on the employees’ commitment to the organization and the benefit for them.
Following this, the concept of employee commitment has gone through several definitions, for instance, Mowday et al. (1979) have proposed that many of these definitions should be classified as behaviours and attitudes. In other words, Mowday et al. (1979) stated that “behavioural commitment is the external expression of
commitment on the basis of individual investment. Through rationalization, thus it can prove the correct rationale to join the organization. However, attitudinal commitment emphasises the value of the individual congruent goals and the organization’s reaching “mental” harmony”. In this respect, the study on the psychology of commitment by, Mowday et al. (1982) and Reicher (1985) provide an extensive review of the theoretical and empirical work on the concept of employee commitment and emphasizing that the attitudinal commitment leads to the conception of behavioural commitment, which in turn strengthens commitment attitudes. This means that employee commitment formed as attitude-behaviour.
The majority of the evidence to date has demonstrated that employee commitment has been widely used in different approaches such as attitudinal and behavioural approaches (Becker, 1960; Kanter, 1968; Sheldon, 1971; Porter et al., 1974; Staw, 1977; Stevens et al., 1978; Mowday et al., 1979; Mowday et al., 1982; Morrow, 1983; Reichers, 1985; O'Reilly et al., 1991; Meyer et al., 1998; Meyer &
Herscovitch, 2001; Jain et al, 2009; WeiBo et al., 2010; Furtmueller et al., 2011;
Mowday et al., 2013; Aladwan et al., 2013; Boon & Kalshoven, 2014; Cafferkey et al., 2017; Cicekli & Kabasakal, 2017).
Despite numerous conceptualizations of employee commitment and in comparison to other studies, this study employs Mowday et al., (1979)’ definition of employee commitment, which was defined as “the relative strength of an employee’s identification with, and involvement in their workplace”, similarly, this study uses
Mowday et al.’s (1979) measure of employee commitment. This is because, employee commitment is considered as a strong belief that related to the employees in supporting organization’s values and goals to maintain a strong relationship with the organization with willingness to invest considerable effort to enhance organizational performance in general (Al-Ahmadi, 2009; Aladwan et al., 2013).
While most studies examined and investigated the antecedents of employee commitment separately such as, the antecedents of employee commitment as an attitude including performance (Riketta, 2002), job satisfaction (Van & Sleebos, 2006), and behavioural variables, such as intention to leave (Meyer and Allen, 1991), this study attempts to examine employee commitment and its enablers as a holistic model including workplace values and beliefs that plays an important role in determining the understanding of employee commitment in Arab countries in general and UAE in particular. This is congruent to the assertion by, Labatmedienė et al.
(2007) that the Arab countries are facing tremendous changes where the implications are resulting in a high level of staff turnover, distrust and stress. Along with these circumstances, generating high levels of employee commitment and linking them to improving competitive advantage is a constant issue for the organizations.
In relation to different conceptualizations of employee commitment, Table 2.1 provides a variety of concepts related to employee commitment and summarise different definitions taken from authors with very different interests and perspectives as follows:
