Factors influencing hotel employees’ organizational commitment

Abstract

The aim of this cross-sectional research was to examine work-related factors’ impact on the level of hotel employees’ affective organizational commitment in hotels in Scandinavia. Another aim was to test a possible mediating role of perceived organizational support between career development/organizational rewards/organizational justice/leader-member exchange and affective organizational commitment. The topic is relevant as affective commitment is linked to employees’ physical and psychological well-being and that affects both employee- and organizational-relevant outcomes. Furthermore, there is little research on organizational commitment in the hotel industry. Therefore, this study extends the research on organizational commitment by focusing on the hotel industry. In addition to the theory related to organizational commitment, the literature review describes the chosen work-related factors hypothesized to influence affective organizational commitment: career development, organizational rewards, organizational justice, perceived organizational support and leader-member exchange. Using a sample of 155 hotel employees, the study found that the work related factors included in the study model explain more than 50% of the variance in affective organizational commitment (R2=52.7%, p<.001). Perceived organizational support and procedural justice made a statistical significant unique contribution to the prediction of affective organizational commitment (β=.502, p<.001; β=.256, p<.001; respectively). Results from the mediation analysis may suggest that perceived organizational support mediates positive associations of career development and interpersonal justice with affective commitment. The findings extend the existing research and bring exciting opportunities for future studies, as well as valuable implications for managerial practices in the hotel industry.