Organisational Commitment and Employee Turnover at an Engineering Faculty of a Tertiary Institution
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Organisational commitment and employee turnover at an Engineering faculty of a tertiary institution LM Eksteen orcid.org/0000-0001-6642-893X Mini-dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Masters of Business Administration at the North-West University Supervisor: Prof CJ Botha Graduation May 2018 Student number: 20801408 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank God, with whom nothing is impossible, for giving me the strength to go on when I felt like giving up. Thank you for being with me throughout this journey to the end. Your love and grace has sustained me and kept me going. I would like to thank my family and friends for all the support they have given me. Thank you, especially my mom, for all the prayers and words of encouragement when I felt like giving up. I was not always available when they might have needed me to be there, but I want to thank you for the understanding shown during this time. I appreciate each one of you for being with me on this journey. To my boss and colleagues – Evalancia Jones thank you for all the support you have shown. Thank you for the encouragement and never allowing me to give up. All of my colleagues, thank you for standing in the gap for me whenever I needed you to be there. The support you guys have shown carried me through when I needed it most. Glory Ministries International, thank you for all the prayers. My supervisor, Prof CJ Botha, thank you for the guidance and assistance. Thank you for taking the time to give valuable input that allowed me to complete this study. John Rantlo, thank you for all the assistance you have given me. I appreciate all you have done for me and thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to assist whenever I called on you. Prof Suria Ellis, thank you for assisting me with the statistics. All the participants, thank you for your cooperation in this study. Thank you for taking time to complete the questionnaire, without you, this would not have been possible. A special thank you to Faadhila Cassim for taking time to assist me. I really appreciate what you have done for me. I might not have mentioned everyone by name, but know that I appreciate all the prayers, words of encouragement and support from all of you. i ABSTRACT Over the past decade the face of the workplace has been faced with drastic changes initiating organisations to survive in a competitive global economy and severe working environments. One of the challenges faced by the organisations in the present day is discrimination in the workplace. The objective of this dissertation is to determine the extent to which perceived discrimination predicts/has an impact on job satisfaction, organisational commitment and employee turnover intention under staff at the Engineering Faculty.Using frequencies and descriptive statistics, the article provides an overview of the extent of the impact of perceived discrimination on job satisfaction, organisational commitment and employee turnover intention. Furthermore, the article evaluates the extent of the relationships between the aforementioned variables. Data collected from 45 respondents using electronic questionnaires was analysed using SPSS and Statistica. The results show that respondents have low levels of perception of discrimination. It also indicates that most respondents are satisfied with their work and their responses to the intention to leave the organisation is not high. Based on the descriptive statistics there is evidence of a relationship between perceived discrimination, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and employee turnover intention. We found that if the perception of discrimination is high it will lead to lower levels of organisational commitment and job satisfaction which will result to higher turnover intention of employees. We did however find that the perception of discrimination of the majority of the respondents, which were white and male, were less than that of other respondents. Furthermore it has been proven that perceived discrimination does have an influence on job satisfaction, organisational commitment and employee turnover intention of staff within the Faculty of Engineering. The study recommends that the management of the faculty adopts a focused approach to improve job satisfaction. In order to manage the perceptions of discrimination, it is recommended that the institution creates awareness and trains employees about diversity. Key terms: perceived discrimination, job satisfaction, organisational commitment, employee turnover intention ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EEA – Employment Equity Act ILO - The International Labour Organisation JSS - The Job Satisfaction Survey SPSS - The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: Theoretical framework Table 4.1 Demographic information on age Table 4.2 Demographic information on gender Table 4.3 Demographic information on race Table 4.4 Demographic information on qualification Table 4.5 Demographic information on employment type Table 4.6: Descriptive statistics for perceived discrimination. Table 4.7: Descriptive statistics for organisational commitment and turnover intention. Table 4.8: Descriptive statistics job satisfaction. Table 4.9 Reliability statistics for perceived discrimination Table 4.10 Reliability statistics for organisational commitment Table 4.11 Reliability statistics for turnover intention Table 4.12 Reliability statistics for total job satisfaction Table 4.13 Group statistics on gender Table 4.14 Group statistics on employment type Table 4.15 Group statistics on race Table 4.16 Group statistics on age Table 4.17 Group statistics on qualification Table 4.18 Correlation table iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………..i Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...ii List of abbrieviations……………………………………………………………………..iii List of figures and tables………………………………………………………………… iii Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Problem statement..................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Research objectives ........................................................................................................ 4 1.2.1 General objective ................................................................................................... 4 1.2.2 Specific objectives .................................................................................................. 4 1.3 Expected contribution of the study ............................................................................... 5 1.4 Limitations of the study ................................................................................................. 5 1.5 Ethical considerations .................................................................................................... 5 1.6 Chapter division ............................................................................................................. 6 Chapter 2: Literature review 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 7 2.2 Discrimination ........................................................................................................... 8 2.2.1 International perspective ....................................................................................... 8 2.2.2 South African perspective ...................................................................................... 9 2.3 Perceived discrimination .......................................................................................... 9 2.4 Perceived discrimination ........................................................................................ 11 2.5 Job satisfaction ........................................................................................................ 12 2.5.1 Age ...................................................................................................................... 14 2.5.2 Tenure ................................................................................................................. 14 2.5.3 Educational level .................................................................................................. 14 2.5.4 Gender ................................................................................................................ 14 2.6 Organisational commitment ................................................................................... 15 2.7 Turnover intentions...................................................................................................... 17 2.8 Interrelationship of the variables........................................................................... 18 iv 2.8.1 Perceived discrimination and job satisfaction ....................................................... 18 2.8.2 Job satisfaction and organisational commitment ................................................ 18 2.8.3 Perceived discrimination and organisational commitment .................................. 18 2.8.4 Job satisfaction and turnover intentions ............................................................. 19 2.8.5 Organisational commitment and turnover intentions ......................................... 19 2.9 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 19 Chapter 3: Research methodology and design 3.1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................