The relationship between employee satisfaction and organizational commitment: The case of Malawi banking sector

How important is the understanding of the principles of employee satisfaction and organizational commitment for the success of an organization? What correlation is there between the two principles? This thesis in part discusses these two fundamental questions that have proven to be one of the central elements of any human resource management team in various organizations across all economies. It is a generally recognized notion that the most important resource any organization has is its people. They are the ones that can propel it into success or sabotage it into failure. Hence, the task of ensuring maximum possible levels of employee satisfaction is imperative. Additionally, it is also a well-known fact across economies that replacing employees is not only financially costly but carries a high level of risk for the organization. Hence, maintaining a heightened level of organizational commitment is very beneficial. Therefore, this thesis explores, through using the Malawian banking sector as a case study, the various factors that cause employee satisfaction and organizational commitment. It goes further to attempt to establish a link between the two principles in reference to already existing research on the matter. This thesis draws a line between employee satisfaction and organizational commitment as being two very distinct concepts that should be looked at separately. However, it shows the undeniable correlation that exists between them. All in accordance with previous research that has been done in a range of economies and industries. A very common question among those interested in this subject is the issue of causation. There are efforts among researchers to find out whether employee satisfaction leads to organizational commitment or vice versa. This thesis shows and delves into the lack of consensus among researchers on the matter. It also goes further to relate the findings in relation to the Malawian banking sector and to show that in as much as the relationship between the two notions is undeniable, the issue of causation remains quite debatable and open to further study. The issue of satisfaction is discussed with factors based mainly on research by Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) whereas the discussion on commitment is discussed primarily based on the findings of Meyer and Allen (1991) who distinguished commitment into affective, continuance and normative types of commitment. The research was conducted through a survey that was carried out in three randomly selected commercial banks in Malawi. The sample was further narrowed down to only those employees who work in the commercial city, Blantyre. All results are presented graphically and expanded upon to offer further understanding for the interested reader and other researchers. Keywords: satisfaction, commitment, banking, organization, relationship