Path analysis of organizational commitment, job involvement and job satisfaction in turkish hospitality industry

Path analysis of organizational

commitment, job involvement and job

satisfaction in Turkish hospitality industry

Ays¸e Kuruu¨zu¨m, Emre Ipekc¸i C¸ etin and Sezgin Irmak

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to determine the structural relationships between job involvement, job

satisfaction, and three dimensions of organizational commitment (i.e. affective commitment, normative

commitment, and continuance commitment) in the Turkish hospitality industry.

Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire survey was conducted among the full-time

employees of five-star hotels in the Antalya region, which is an important tourism destination especially

for Europeans and Russians in Turkey.

Findings – The research model, which was structured by taking related literature as the base, was

revised and a new path model was gathered as a result of this study. Results showed that job

involvement, affective commitment, and normative commitment increase job satisfaction, and job

involvement affects affective and normative commitment.

Practical implications – Job involvement is more stable than organizational commitment, and it might

be difficult to increase job involvement. Therefore, attempts to build organizational commitment

(especially affective commitment) become important in increasing job satisfaction of the employees in

the hospitality industry.

Originality/value – The results of the present study revealed that affective commitment and normative

commitment were related to job involvement and job satisfaction but continuance commitment was not

related to these concepts in the hospitality industry.

Keywords Organizations, Employee involvement, Employee behaviour, Job satisfaction,

Hotel and catering industry, Turkey

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

The concept of ‘‘organizational commitment’’ has gained increasing attention primarily

because of the negative relationship between absenteeism, employee turnover and

commitment. Greater organizational commitment has been linked to low rates of

absenteeism and also better job performance (Cohen, 1992). Because of its relationships

to these important outcomes, organizational commitment is one of the most thoroughly

investigated topics in the organizational literature (Sikorska, 2005). With the hospitality and

tourism industry’s need to retain employees and maximize quality results, the concept of

organizational commitment is most pertinent. There is an obvious need for more research on

organizational commitment in hospitality and tourism businesses around the world

(D’Annunzio-Green et al., 2002).

The construct of organizational commitment is of particular relevance to the hospitality

industry, which is a service-oriented industry with high employee turnover (Smith et al.,

1996). The turnover rate of the hotel employees was found between the range of 30 percent

and 59 percent in a research conducted in the major tourism regions of Turkey (Gu¨c¸lu¨,

2006). High turnover rate of the tourism industry in Turkey causes higher costs and lower

service quality. Prior research in organizational management identifies organizational

PAGE 4 j TOURISM REVIEW j VOL. 64 NO. 1 2009, pp. 4-16, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1660-5373 DOI 10.1108/16605370910948821

Ays¸e Kuruu¨zu¨m is

Professor, Emre Ipekc¸iC¸ etin

is Assistant Professor and

Sezgin Irmak is Research

Assistant, all at Akdeniz

University, Antalya, Turkey.

Received: 23 July 2008

Revised: 1 September 2008

Accepted: 2 October 2008

This study was supported by

Akdeniz University Scientific

Research Projects Unit.