Modeling the predictors of organisational commitment among operational hotel employees in Malaysia / Siti Aishah Edros

Achieving a strong organizational commitment is indeed a winning differentiating strategy for an organization to survive in today's highly competitive marketplace, especially in the service industry. However, due to limited studies and a narrow approach, the existing literature has lacking sufficient explanation of the contributing factors in the establishment of a strong organizational commitment. The main aim of this study is to investigate the structural relationships between Servant Leadership (SL), Perceived Organisational Support (POS), Employee Engagement (EE), and Organizational Commitment (OC) among operational Malaysian hotel employees. The aim is to identify the perception of employees concerning the SL, POS, EE, and OC that they have perceived at their workplace. This study also assesses the mediating effect that EE has through SL and POS on OC. To test the proposed framework, this research adopted the positivism, deductive and quantitative approaches. A stratified random sampling technique was used in this research. The data have been collected through sets of questionnaires answered by 502 respondents who are operational departments which is from four (4) selected operational departments which are Front Office, Food and Beverages, Housekeeping, and Kitchen departments in Northern Region hotel in Malaysia was analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The result of this study reveals that SL, EE, and OC are perceived as confirmed valid constructs. Findings also show that there is a significant link between SL and EE, POS and EE, SL and OC thus POS and OC. EE the mediating variable partially mediates the relationship between both independent variables which are SL and POS towards OC. Accordingly, the finding provides empirical evidence respondents perceive that the more they possess SL, EE, and POS, the more they are committed to their job. This study also brings significant theoretical contributions to enhancing the knowledge of model development. Further, these findings are important to the organizations to develop programs through employee engagement strategies that could retain the employees working with them. Finally, this study also discusses the limitations and future research directions are also discussed.