CHAPTER ONE

1.0        INTRODUCTION

Previous and more recent studies show that high levels of organisational commitment (OC) is a catalyst to decreased turnover, increases in productivity, performance, retention and job satisfaction (Steers, 1977; Angle & Perry, 1981; Mowday, Porter & Steers 1982; Mathieu & Zajac, 1990; Meyer, Allen & Smith, 1993; Abdullah, Shuib, Muhammad, Khalid, Nor & Jauhar, 2007). As a result, several researchers have increasingly tried to identify antecedents that determine employee commitment. This is because for researchers to alter commitment, they have to understand its antecedents.

One area where commitment studies have been relatively spares is in the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises sectors. In the last two decades, government and non-governmental agencies have given a lot of emphasis on the development of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria (Sansui, 2003). Various programs and facilities have and are still being provided to increase the performance of SMEs. The activities of government in this area, within the last nine years of democratic experience, have offered SMEs viable opportunities for growth.  In further response to these efforts, investors are springing up in this sector, with Nigeria experiencing more and more investments in SME (Ukaegbu, 2005).   

However, it should be recognised that dependence on these efforts alone have not guaranteed the success of Nigerian SMEs. SME employee’s attitude and psychological attachment towards their organisations’ goals are among recent factors that have been identified that could contribute to the growth or decline of their organisation (Abdullah, Shuib, Muhammad, Khalid, Nor & Jauhar, 2007). 

Usually, SMEs are used as stepping-stones by unskilled or semi-skilled employees to gain experience or additional experience before moving on to bigger and better firms. These unskilled and semi-skilled employees, most times, form the fulcrum of growth in SMEs. As a result, SMEs suffer due to the loss of human assets, who become skilled on the job and could have contributed better to improve the firms’ productivity in the long run. 

The dire need to retain and encourage commitment of employees in this sector is therefore imminent; as such efforts would not only improve the growth of Nigerian SMEs but would ensure that the target for which government has placed so much emphasis on SME is achieved.   One way to achieve this is by identifying the factors that determine the organisational commitment of SME employees. For ease of discussion, the antecedents of employees’ organisational commitment focused on in this study would be divided into two broad categories: demographic characteristics and organisational characteristics.

Amongst some identified demographic characteristics that could predict employee commitment are; age, educational level, gender, job grade-level, job tenure, family life cycle status (made up of marital status; number of children; age of youngest and oldest child; and number of children living at home), salary, and alternative job opportunities (Camilleri, 2002).

 Age and tenure are believed to be demographic characteristics, which are positively correlated with commitment. As employees get older and remain in their organisations, their commitment increases, probably because alternative employment opportunities diminish for older people or because commitment may be a successful strategy in getting along. Or it may be, quite simply, that more committed employees’ stay with the organisation longer. 

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