This section provides the background of the study. Later it discusses the research purpose, research questions and significance of the study. In the end of the chapter the delimitations of the study as well as the definition of key terms for a better understanding of the entire study are listed.
Research Background
Taiwan has become a center for global innovation and more and more companies are interested in establishing their branches and research and development centers in Taiwan.
Naturally every organization wants its employees to be committed and loyal to the company and to have low turnover rates. The success of an organization largely relies on its human resources. Having committed and loyal employees is a competitive advantage (Dias & Silva, 2016) and organization’s ability to retain the workforce is even more crucial to its success.
There are many factors affecting the level of organizational commitment among employees, and it is very important for HR professionals to be aware of these factors. The impact of perceived training on organizational commitment is a relatively new discipline and this field has not been researched much. Most of the available studies in this field come from Western researchers (Gamble & Huang, 2008), and research on this topic in Asia, especially in Taiwan is limited therefore the given research is focused on local employees in service and manufacturing companies in Taiwan and it aims to investigate if companies are able to increase organizational commitment and lower the turnover intention rates using training activities.
As mentioned before the research on how perceived training is influencing organizational commitment is limited but several studies have shown that training can play a role in the development and maintenance of organizational commitment (Bartlett, 2001).
Employee perceptions of training can be categorized as availability of training, supervisor and co-worker support for training, motivation to learn, and perceived benefits of training (Newman, Thanacoody, & Hui, 2011). Meyer, Allen and Smith (1993) have categorized organizational commitment into three elements: affective, continuance and normative commitment. The benefits of high organizational commitment as high job satisfaction, increased performance, low turnover and others has been widely researched (Newman et al., 2011). Previous research suggests that irrelevant training programs may negatively affect organizational commitment (Bartlett, 2001). In addition, according to the research done by
Cheng and Waldenberger (2013) the design, organization and implementation of training influences employees’ attitude towards employer.
There is a large amount of research available linking organizational commitment with turnover intentions (Joo & Park, 2010; Newman et al., 2011). Organizational commitment is one of the main factors influencing turnover intention (Yamazaki & Petchdee, 2015) meaning that high organizational commitment negatively influences turnover intention (Joo &
Park, 2010).
Due to the limited research about these issues in Taiwan, the researcher has developed interest in this topic and the study is intended to contribute to the existing knowledge about the issue and help the companies to design the training programs.
Research Purposes and Questions
Training and development, organizational commitment and turnover intentions are popular research topics; however, little research has been conducted on the relationship of these variables as it applies to the service and manufacturing sectors in Taiwan. This study aims to study the relationship of the variables mentioned before and explore how to increase organizational commitment of the employees. It also is examining to what extent organizational commitment is related to turnover intentions and exploring if there is a direct link between the perceived training and turnover intentions.
According to the research purpose, three questions generated of this study are:
1. Does the training and development influence the organizational commitment of the employees?
2. Does organizational commitment influence the turnover intention?
3. Can training and development activities reduce turnover intention?
Significance of the Study
The study is aimed to make a contribution to the existing theory and practice in a number of ways. Firstly, it is known that there are various benefits to companies of having high organizational commitment but the research on this topic mostly focuses on Western countries and the research about Asian countries is limited. The literature suggests that cultural differences affect organizational commitment (Newman et al., 2011) therefore the research gives a valuable insight in this field in Asian context. Secondly, it contributes to examining relationship between employee perceptions of training and organizational commitment. It is an important insight as the research on this topic is limited. Thirdly, it
organizational commitment among the employees and if there is a direct link between training and development and turnover intentions. The research also examines impact of organizational commitment on the turnover intention of the employees.
The research is aimed to give insight on if the service and manufacturing organizations in Taiwan can increase organizational commitment and decrease turnover intentions by using training and development activities. Organizational commitment and training are popular research subjects but there is little data available about the relationship between these two concepts, especially within the Taiwan context. According to the results of this study, the researcher will provide suggestions that can lead to the necessary changes to training programs and improve employees’ organizational commitment.
Definition of Key Terms
In this section the researcher provides both theoretical and operational definitions of the variables in this research. The operational definitions outline how the variables are measured and theoretical definition outline the concept of constructs. The three main constructs investigated in this study include training and development, organizational commitment and turnover intentions.
Training and Development
The study defines training and development as a planned effort by an organization to facilitate learning in order for the employees to acquire job-related competences, skills, attitudes and behavior needed for daily activities and future jobs or positions (Noe, 2013).
Training refers to a systematic process that leads to the acquisition of new skills with the objective to reach personal growth and organizational effectiveness (Aguinis & Kraiger, 2009). This study used five component survey model, i.e., motivation to learn, perceived availability of training, benefits from training and managerial and co-worker support for training. The survey consisted of 23 questions in total. The scale was adapted from Bartlett (2001) and Newman et al. (2011) studies who have adapted questionnaires from previous researches.
Organizational Commitment
Organizational commitment is referred to as a degree of commitment and loyalty that employees exhibit towards organization. It is also known as a degree to which employee identifies with the organization and its goals and wishes to remain with the organization (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Organizational commitment was measured by using an 24 item scale
originally developed by Meyer and Allen (1990). This measure included three components of organizational commitment: affective, normative and continuance commitment.
Turnover Intention
Turnover intention is a voluntary decision to leave the organization and is often a predictor of actual turnover (Joo & Park, 2010; Yamazaki & Petchdee, 2015). Turnover intention was measured using 4 item scale originally taken from Newman et al. (2011) research.
Research Delimitations
Firstly, this study focuses on the investigation of the relationship of training and development, organizational commitment and turnover intention in the service and manufacturing fields in Taiwan. Other factors that affect commitment are not under the scope of this study. Secondly, this study focuses on a specific industry in Taiwan therefore the results may not be generalized to other sectors and other countries. The research investigated the relationships among the training and development, organizational commitment and turnover intention only in the service and manufacturing industries therefore all of the participants of this study were full time employees from service or manufacturing industries currently employed in Taiwan. The third limitation for this study is that the researcher partly relied on the HR manager to distribute and collect the questionnaires therefore the researcher did not have complete control over the random selection of participants.