INTRODUCTION:

Organizational commitment is the relative strength of an individual’s identification with, and involvement in, a particular organization. Mowday et al. (1982) mentioned three characteristics of organizational commitment: (1) a strong belief in, and acceptance of, the organization’s goals and values, (2) a willingness to exert a considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and (3) a strong intent or desire to remain with the organization.

Employee commitment is important because high levels of commitment lead to several favorable organizational outcomes. Fostering organizational commitment among the faculty members is important because, faculty members that are highly committed stay longer, perform better, miss less work, and engage in organizational citizenship behaviors.

Faculty members who are not committed to their work place are likely to put less effort in the classroom as compared to faculty members with high levels of commitment. This would adversely affect student learning and achievement in particular and standard of education in the country in general. Moreover, high turnover among faculty members, especially when good faculty members quit, can have high costs and implications for the education system. This is because good quality faculty members take with them their research, teaching skills, and experience. Other costs include the time involved in recruitment, selection, and training of new faculty; advertising expenses; and increased workloads for existing faculty. With the emergence of private sector institutions, the demand for talented faculty members has increased, and institutions are now constantly looking for talented faculty members and are willing to pay them very attractive compensation packages. This is likely to make it harder for the institutions to retain their faculty members. Because of these changes in the education sector, institutions will have to work hard to create an environment that would enable them to attract new faculty and retain their best faculty members. Faculty members who are committed to their respective institutions are more likely not only to remain with the institution but are also likely to exert more effort on the behalf of the organization and work towards its success.

Moreover, research studies have provided evidence of a positive correlation between organizational commitment and turnover intention (Meyer, Paunonen, Gellatly, Goffin, and Jackson, 1989). The literature suggests that individuals become committed to organizations for a variety of reasons, including an affective attachment to the values of the organization, a realization of the costs involved with leaving the organization, and a sense of obligation to the organization (Meyer and Allen, 1997). Tang et al’s (2000) study confirmed the link between commitment and actual turnover and Griffeth et al’s (2000) analysis showed that organizational commitment was a better predictor of turnover than overall job satisfaction.

Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the concept of organizational commitment and examine its impact on turnover intention of faculty members of technical education institutes in India.The study would also provide guidelines to the technical education institutes to control the turnover of faculty members in India.

LITERATURE REVIEW:

Commitment is an individual’s desire to remain focused and attached to his work. Organizational commitment is perceived as an attitude of association to the organization by an employee, which leads to certain job-related outcomes. Organizational commitment is measured through three tools; affective, continuance and normative commitment (Meyer and Allen, 1990; Dunham, Grube and Castaneda, 1994). Allen and Meyer (1991) argued that affective, continuance and normative components of commitment are separable; conceptually and empirically. Each of the three forms of commitment is equally important and useful. Continuance Commitment refers to an employee’s organizational commitment because of the work-relationships and other benefits; whereas Normative Commitment deals with the sense of obligation of an employee, based on his values and norms.

Organizational commitment is an important aspect in management literature. It refers to the state in which people sense loyalty with their respective organization, aligned themselves with organizational goals and value it (Lambert, Hogan, and Griffin, 2007; Fang, 2001).Mathieu and Zajac (1990) articulated that organizational commitment has a negative relationship with the employee volunteer turnover intention. Employees having high level of Organizational Commitment are less expected to intend to quit than employees who are relatively uncommitted (Joiner, Bartram and Garreffa 2004; Kraut, 1975; Near, 1989). Above discussion supports the hypothesis that organizational commitment has inverse relationship with the turnover intention of employees.

A review of research literatureon organizational commitment by Meyer and Allen (1991), and corroborated by Dunham, Gruba and Castaneda (1994), identified three types of organizational commitment namely Affective, Continuance and Normative, which are explained below.

Affective Commitment

It is defined as the employee's positive emotional attachment to the organization. An employee who is affectively committed strongly identifies with the goals of the organization and desires to remain a part of the organization. This employee commits to the organization because he/she wants to.

Continuance Commitment

The individual commits to the organization because he/she perceives high costs of losing organizational membership (Becker's 1960), including economic costs (such as pension accruals) and social costs (friendship ties with co-workers) that would be incurred. The employee remains a member of the organization because he/she "has to".

Normative Commitment

The individual commits to and remains with an organization because of feelings of obligation. These feelings may derive from many sources. For example, the organization may have invested resources in training an employee who then feels a 'moral' obligation to put forth effort on the job and stay with the organization to 'repay the debt.' It may also reflect an internalized norm, developed before the person joins the organization through family or other socialization processes, that one should be loyal to one's organization. The employee stays with the organization because he/she "ought to".

Turnover Intention

Turnover intention is considered to be as cognitive process of thinking, planning, and desiring to quitjob (Mobley, 1977). “Desire to leave” and the “intent to quit” are considered to be dissimilar (Mobley,1977). Fishbein (1967) has used an expression “attitude toward the act” which describes the feeling of a person towards the act of quitting. In this study we focused one predictors “organizational commitment” to analyze the turnover intentions of employees in technical educational institute.

Turnover intention is defined as an employee’s decision to leave an organization voluntarily. When turnover rate increase in an organization, it will reduce its reputation and increase the cost of rehiring new staff (Liu et al., 2010). Turnover intention is a main problem which is common in every type and size of an organization and is serious issues especially in the field of Human Resource Management. Furthermore, turnover is very costly for an organization especially advertising, recruiting, selecting, hiring and training needed for the newcomers. So, when an employee leaves an organization, the remaining employees need to do more task and responsible for duties. This will cause the employees to reduce their commitment and increase the turnover intention in the organization (Foon, Leong and Osman, 2010).

Organizational commitment and turnover intention are important to study because high level of commitment and low level of turnover intention culminate in favorable organizational outcomes. Hundreds of studies have proved that organizational commitment is positively correlated with job performance (Meyer et al., 1989), job satisfaction (Porter et. al.1974), motivation (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990) and organizational citizenship behavior (Riketta, 2002) while negatively associated with turnover (Khatri and Fern, 2001) and absenteeism (Farrell and Stamm, 1988).

The main focus of this study is on how commitment influences turnover intention; that is how commitment affects faculty turnover and the intention to discontinue employment with the organization. It is means highly committed employees wish to remain with their employment. Large numbers of research support the idea that organizational commitment has strongly associated with turnover. Organizational commitment has been considered as one of the most important predictors of turnover and intention to leave. It was found that employees who were more committed to their organizations had lower intention to leave than those with lower organizational commitment in the organizations (Mowday, Porter & Steers, 1982).

Research Objectives

The main objective of this research is to study about the turnover intention of faculty members of technical education institutes of India. For the purpose of this study, the following research objectives are set:

1. To identify the predictors of organizational commitment among faculty members of technical education institutes of India.

2. To analyze the impact of predictors of organizational commitment on turnover intention of faculty members of technical education institutes of India.

3. To suggest various strategies to enhance commitment and employee retention of faculty members of technical education institutes of India.

Research Variables

An appropriate instrument is required for survey in order to conduct the study properly. The instrument needs some base and background. Table 1 depicts the Independent & Dependent Variables of the study.

Table 1: Independent and Dependent Variable
Independent Variables	Concept	Source	Dependent Variable
Organizational commitment	Allen and Meyer (1990) describe commitment as a psychological state that binds the individual to the organization.	Meyer and Allen (1991), Porter et al. (1974), Koch and Steers (1978), Guest (1991)	Turnover Intention
Affective Commitment (Psychological attachment to organization)	According to Meyer and Allen(1993) Affective commitment is defined as the emotional attachment, identification, and involvement that an employee has with its organization and goals	Meyer and Allen (1991)	Organizational commitment
Continuance Commitment (Costs associated with leaving the organization)	According to Meyer and Allen (1988), continuance commitment is predicated upon the employee’s pragmatic assessment of the costs and benefits of remaining with a given organization.
Normative Commitment (Perceived obligation to remain with the organization)	According to Meyer and Allen (1998) normative commitment is based upon feelings of moral obligation or responsibility.

Table 2: Research Instrument
Variable	Items	Scale/Instrument	Source
Turnover Intention (Y)	Y₁	Not searching for a new job	Donnelly and Ivancevich (1985)
	Y₂	Do not think about quitting present job
	Y₃	Not Leave for ever
Affective Commitment (X1)	X₁₁	Feel as if the institute is mine	Allen and Meyer’s (1996)
	X₁₂	Feel as if the institute’s problem is one’s problem
	X₁₃	Institute is like a part of family
	X₁₄	Emotionally attached with the institute
Continuance Commitment (X2)	X₂₁	Life would be disrupted
	X₂₂	Staying with this institute is necessity more than desire.
	X₂₃	Leaving would require considerable personal sacrifice
	X₂₄	Few options to consider leaving this Institute
Normative Commitment (X3)	X₃₁	Feel obliged
	X₃₂	Feel guilty for leaving
	X₃₃	Deserves loyalty
	X₃₄	Do not feel it would be right to leave theinstitute if benefited

Research Instrument

The Questionnaire is based on scale developed by Allen and Meyer’s (1996) to measure Organizational Commitment. The scale consists of 15 items instrument comprising of Affective, Continuance & Normative Commitment. Turnover intention was measured using a 3-item scale adapted from Turnover Intention scale developed by Donnelly and Ivancevich (1985) as shown in table 2.

The Respondent would rate their level of agreement with each item on a five-point Likert scale) ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree), 2 (Disagree), 3 (Neither agree nor disagree), 4 (Agree), 5 (Strongly Agree). The minimum score of 1 indicated that some are seriously considering leaving and the maximum score of 5 indicated that there are some who do not intent to leave at all.

Research Model

The purpose of this study is to find out the links between Organizational Commitment and Turnover intentionof faculty members of technical education institutes of India. The study focus on determining the various variables of organizational commitment those most significantly influence the faculty’s decisions to quit or stay. In addition, the study sought to describe the importance of retaining efficient faculty members and developing strategies to enhance their retention practices. There are three variables of organizational commitment which have an impact on turnover intention of faculty members. An Organizational Commitment – Turnover Intention Model is generated on the basis of literature review for the purpose of this study as shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: Organizational Commitment and Turnover Intention Model

Research Hypothesis

Based on the above figure, which depicts the relationship between Organizational Commitment and turnover intention, three hypotheses has been postulated. The hypothesis is tested on the sample population of faculty members of technical educational institutes of India. This study seeks to test the following hypotheses:

1. H₁: There is significant impact of Affective Commitment on turnover intention.

2. H₂: There is a significant impact of Continuance Commitment on turnover intention.

3. H₃: There is a significant impact of Normative Commitment on turnover intention.

Research Methodology

The causal research design was applied in this study to identify the variables of Organizational Commitment and to find out their impact with faculty members intention to leave or stay. Convenience sampling method was adopted. The sample comprised of 122 faculty members of technical education institutes of India. The India was divided into 5 zones viz. East, West, North, South and Central. Various popular states of all the 5 zones were chosen for data collection. The data was collected from faculty members including Assistant Professors, Associate Professors and Professors.

Procedure

The data was collected through online survey (Questionnaire). The questions were asked on five point likert scale from the respondents. The questionnaire consisted of three sections i.e. turnover Intention, variables of organizational Commitment. Turnover intention was the dependent variable. The third section was about the demographic characteristics of the respondents. To increase the response rate, the employees were informed regarding the research objective and confidentiality.

Measures

Primary data was collected using online survey through questionnaire. The questionnaire comprised of three sections, the demographics of the respondents and the section regarding Allen and Meyer’s Organizational Commitment Scaleand turnover intention. Organizational Commitment was measured through 12 items taken from Allen and Meyer’s (1996) Organizational Commitment scale (4 items each for affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment were selected) and turnover intention was measured through 3 items taken from [Donnelly and Ivancevich (1985)].Through extensive literature review, 3 variables of organizational commitment were identified and considered as independent variables for the purpose of the study viz. Affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. Turnover Intention of faculty members is considered as dependent variable. The tem reduction was done on the basis of maximizing internal consistency. Accordingly, the scale’s internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) was maintained by selecting items based on reliability with each item removed, and the corrected item-total correlations. The instruments were prepared keeping in mind the faculty members of technical educational institutes of India. The survey questionnaire with a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) was used.

Validity and Reliability of Instrument

The 15 items were subjected to a principal component analysis with varimax rotation, the results of which are shown in Table 3. In line with expectations, the factor analysis yielded three components corresponding to the two variables. The result of factor analysis shows that Y₁, Y₂ and Y₃ items of turnover intention are loaded under 1^st component with high loading values of 0.699, 0.670 and 0.736. X₁, X₂and X₃ variables i.e. affective, continuance and normative are loaded under 2^ndcomponent. As loadings of continuance and normative items X₂₁, X₂₂, X_23,X_24,X₃₁, X₃₂ are 0.640, 0.621, 0.678, 0.640, 0.698, and 0.777 respectively, it is only considered for further analysis and will be denoted by X. Affective items will not be considered because turnover intention is already loaded under 1^st component. X₃₃ and X₃₄ is weakly loaded (0.574 and 0.547), so will not be considered. Therefore, after factor analysis, Turnover Intention will be considered as dependent variable whereas 4 items of continuance, 2 items of Normative are considered as independent variables for further Regression analysis. Reliability or internal consistency of the instruments is estimated with the help of Cronbach Coefficient alpha to check whether the items are all measuring the same thing or not.

Table 3: Validity and Reliability of Instrument
Validity Analysis Rotated Component Matrix			Reliability Analysis
	Component		Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient
	1	2	Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient
Y₁	0.699	0.241	0.863
Y₂	0.670	0.316
Y₃	0.736	0.316
X₁₁	0.860	0.117	0.888
X₁₂	0.778	0.015
X₁₃	0.832	0.138
X₁₄	0.761	0.131
X₂₁	0.317	0.640	0.651
X₂₂	-0.257	0.621
X₂₃	0.291	0.678
X₂₄	0.059	0.640
X₃₁	0.397	0.698	0.834
X₃₂	0.325	0.777
X₃₃	0.574	0.417
X₃₄	0.507	0.547
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.

Data Analysis and Interpretation

The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) (Version 17) was used to facilitate analysis. The psychometric properties of the instrument were analyzed using principal component analysis with varimax rotation to determine construct validity and Cronbach’s coefficient alpha to determine the scale’s internal consistency reliability. Finally, the regression analysis was conducted to determine the impact of organizational commitment on turnover intention. The value of R Square is 0.233 i.e. 23.3% which reveals that data collected is reliable as shown in table 4.

Table 4: Model Summary
R	R Square	Adjusted R Square	Std. Error of the Estimate
0.483	0.233	0.226	1.712
Independent Variable – X and Dependent Variable - Y

Table 5 reveals that organizational commitment has a significant impact on turnover intention of faculty members as F value (36.426) is greater than Fcrit (2.931).

Among all the three components of organizational commitment only two components viz. Continuance (X₂) and Normative (X₃) has significant impact on turnover intention with p values of 0.000 and 0.000 (p<0.05) respectively as shown in table 6. Therefore, research hypothesis H₂ and H₃ are accepted and H₁ is rejected.

The beta coefficients for significant components of organizational commitment i.e. Continuance and Normative are -0.483 as shown in table 6. The negative sign indicates the inverse relationships between organizational commitment and turnover intention of faculty members i.e. if organizational commitment increases the turnover intention of faculty members will decrease as shown in figure 2.

Table 5: ANOVA
Model		Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	f	Sig.
1	Regression	106.757	1	106.757	36.426	.000^a
	Residual	351.695	120	2.931
	Total	458.453	121
Independent Variable – X and Dependent Variable - Y

Table 6: Regression
Model		Unstandardized Coefficients		Standardized Coefficients	t	Sig.
		B	Std. Error	Beta
1	(Constant)	1.932	0.441		4.380	0.000
	X	-0.652	0.108	-0.483	-6.035	0.000
Independent Variable – X and Dependent Variable - Y

Figure 2: Result of Hypothesis Test (H₁ to H₃)

RECOMMENDATIONS:

The findings of the study are consistent with the results of few previous studies, which reveals that continuance and normative commitment have significant impact on turnover intention of faculty members of technical education institute in India.

However, contrary to the findings, the study reveals that faculty members of technical education institute of India are more likely to continue with their current institutions if they get benefitted in the organization. In other words, the commitment level of faculty members is likely to increase if they feel obliged. If they see they are benefitted, the faculty members are likely to view the organization positively, which in turn would motivate them to remain committed to their respective institutions. Thus, by incorporating the above mentioned characteristics in teaching jobs, the management of the institutes can enrich the jobs of the faculty member which consequently may lead to higher commitment.

In addition it might happen that as employees continue their membership of an organization, their belief in organizational values might increase and so might their willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organization. Alternatively, the employee might feel obliged to return the loyalty exhibited by the organization. As far as the organizational outcomes were concerned, the findings of the reveals that turnover intentions were negatively related to commitment. These results show that highly committed faculty members are not only likely to stay with their respective institutions but are also likely to be better performers. These results are not surprising. Highly committed workers are likely to have a strong desire to remain with the organization. Similarly research findings have provided evidence that employees who are highly committed to the organization are likely to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization and therefore tend to perform at a relatively higher level (Meyer et al., 1989).

LIMITATIONS:

The major limitation of the study was the population factor. Only faculty members of technical education institutes of India were considered leaving out the non-academic staff. This poses a threat to generalizability of the study in relation to prediction of turnover intention in Indian institutes – the study may not be generalized for the entire academic community. It is not certain that similar results would be obtained when a study is conducted using all the subgroups (academic, non-academic) for estimation of turnover intention in technical educational institutes of India. Moreover, the sample size was low. More accurate results can be obtained by sampling more number of faculty members.

CONCLUSION:

The study was aimed to evaluate the impact of organizational commitment on turnover intention among faculty members of technical education institutes of India. The three measures for commitment are affective, continuance and normative commitment. The results of the study revealed that highly committed faculty members are likely to continue their association with their current institutions, and at the same time, they are likely to put more effort on behalf of their respective institutions and thereby perform at higher levels than their uncommitted counterparts. Hence, it can be concluded that technical institutions which seek to retain their faculty members by building strong organizational commitment are in a better position to reap the benefits of a more dedicated, motivated, and reliable teaching staff. All this is likely to increase the effectiveness of the educational institutions.

REFERENCES:

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Received on 20.01.2014 Modified on 28.01.2014

Asian J. Management 5(2): April-June, 2014 page 211-217