ISSN: 2249-7196
IJMRR/Feb 2017/ Volume 7/Issue 2/Article No-3/82-98
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
*Corresponding Author www.ijmrr.com 82
MODERATING ROLE OF POWER DISTANCE ON PERSONALITY TOWARDS
AFFECTIVE COMMITMENT OF LECTURERS IN NIGERIA
Aminu Yusuf Dikko*1, 2
, Rozita Abdul Mutalib1, Sabarani Ghazali
1
1School of Government, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia.
2Department of Public Administration, Umaru Musa Yaradua University Katsina, Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
The study was conducted to ascertain the role played by power distance on the relationship
between personality and affective commitment of lecturers in Nigerian universities. Analysis
for the study was conducted from a sample of 355 respondents, through cross sectional
design with university lecturers of different category in Nigeria. Data was analysed with the
Smart PLS-SEM path analysis and items were all adopted. The finding reveals that three
(NAE) personality traits where found significant within the context and power distance
played crucial role in hierarchical society such as Nigeria, thereby strengthening the
relationship between personality and affective commitment. Furthermore, building on
Hofstede and McCrae (2004) it is found that context plays a role in revealing traits feet for
certain environment as well as occupation. However, no significant relation was found from
OC because employee with such feels more frustrated and dislike abiding to rules guiding
their place of work, such flexible environment as university set up. Hence, institutions are
advised to focus on such traits (NAE) to ensure retention and maintain stable workforce and
regulate power to ensure voice of other is had.
Keywords: Personality, affective commitment, lecturers, Nigeria.
INTRODUCTION
Organizational commitment has become one of the most studied variable in organizational
research(Dunham, Grube, & Castañeda, 1994; Aghdasi, Kiamanesh, & Ebrahim,
2011;Aydin;, Sarier;, & Uysal;, 2013; Ali, Jan, & Tariq, 2014;Giauque, Resenterra, &
Siggen, 2014; Syed, Saeed, & Farrukh, 2015),because of its impact on job attitude, various
literatures as well as several meta-analyses focus on the construct (Cooper-Hakim &
Viswesvaran, 2005; Yahaya & Ebrahim, 2016; Mathieu, Fabi, Lacoursière, & Raymond,
2015; Dwivedula, Bredillet, & Müller, 2016). This is because individuals who are not
committed and performing higher to their jobs are likely to quit. One of the reasons why
organisational commitment is so well studied is because of its impact associated with work
outcomes such as turnover, absenteeism, performance, motivation, and job withdrawal
behaviours (Klein, Becker, & Meyer, 2009;Kumar& Bakhshi, 2010; Khoeini & Attar, 2015;
Mathieu et al., 2015).
However, with the advent of democracy in 1999 which Nigeria records its fourth republic
after long military rule, the country witness development in its educational sector with state
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 83
and federal government as well as individual establish more institutions (Universities) in the
country. The number of universities in Nigeria as at 2013 was 129 which include 40 federal,
39 state and 50 private universities (NEEDS REPORT, 2014). Nonetheless, despite
increasing number of qualified manpower joining the institutions, employers have difficulty
in retaining their staff for a long period of time. Hence, the profession needs to impact on
their lecturers commitment to include allocating challenging as well as interesting jobs.
Moreover, issues relating to lecturers commitment in Nigerian universities poses serious
threat to the development of sound educational system in the country (Mustapha, 2015),
thereby producing unproductive graduates due to poor commitment of lecturers to students,
teaching and their profession (Ologunde, Akindele & Akande, 2013; Peretomode &
Chukwuma, 2012). Therefore, a major concern is to improve student performance through
their mentors’ ability to effectively train and impact positively on them. Hence, the study
seeks to investigate how lecturers’ personality affects their organisational commitment.
Whether individual lecturers’ personality significantly predicts their commitment to the
organisation?
Research has indicates that commitment is dependent upon organisational factors like the
nature of work and employee personality which has being predicted to influence their
commitment to their organisation as well as profession (Dwivedula et al., 2016). However,
despite several aspects of this construct are overemphasized in the body of literature. One
deficiency in literature is the possible role of personality characteristics as predictors of
commitment and researches focus more to extraversion, conscientiousness and neuroticism
(Akhtar, Boustani, Tsivrikos, & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2015), which affects person
psychological state. Literatures on personality towards organisational commitment are limited
and reports mixed findings (Klein, et al., 2009; Kumar & Bakhshi, 2010; Spagnoli &
Caetano, 2012; Panaccio & Vandenberghe, 2012; Akhtar et al., 2015). Moreover, a
comprehensive framework is needed to explain the relationship between personality traits
using the big five factor model and organisational commitment. Accordingly, literatures
affirm that these conflicting findings are due to possible mechanisms to explain the
relationship between personality and organisational commitment (Zimmerman, 2008; Kumar
& Bakhshi, 2010; Panaccio & Vandenberghe, 2012; Spagnoli & Caetano, 2012).
In line with the above, these mixed findings create a void which needs to be studied.
Therefore, the study employs national culture as a moderating mechanism to explore the
relationship between the two study constructs. Studies have supported that organisations
needs to focus on culture due to its esteem importance to the management (Budin & Wafa,
2015; Inju, 2016). This current research seeks to develop a framework to steam the body of
literature on organisational commitment, personality trait and national culture to test the
relationship between the constructs.
The primary objective of this research is to determine the effect of individual personality
traits and national culture as moderating variable on organisational commitment.
Furthermore, organisational commitment will be assessed from affective commitment
dimension, because of its emotional attachment to the organisation. According to the
attachment theory, individual employee level of commitment is reflected through their
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 84
attachment to the organisation (Maxwell, Spielmann, Joel & MacDonald, 2013). On the other
hand, the study will focus on power distance as adimension of national culture because,
Nigeria is defined as a hierarchical society were age and position is respected (Bamgboje-
ayodele & Ellis, 2015)and base on Hofstede’s rating the country is rated high on power
distance index (80) (Hofstede, 2002). Hence, the study intends to contribute to literature by
examining the role of national culture between the study constructs.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The objective of these study is to examine the relationship between personality traits on
affective commitment and how national culture moderates between personality and affective
commitment.
Organisational Commitment
Organisational commitment is defined and well known from Mowday and others (1982)
perspective as “the relative strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in
a particular organisation”. Literarily, these definition postulates:
A strong belief in acceptance of the organisation’s goals and values.
Willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organisation.
A strong desire to maintain membership in the organisation.
According to Meyer (2009, p.54) opined that “employees as human beings have a natural
inclination to make commitment to and expect commitment from others”, and also argues
that organisational commitment is crucial even in the changing environment of work. Studies
on organisational commitment have been employing the concept from Allen and Meyer
(1990)dimensions of affective, normative and continuance commitment, which are clearly
distinct from one another (Gonzales & Guillen, 2008).
Organisational commitment is perceived more clearly as “the psychological bound created
between the employee and his organisation” (Nicol, Rounding, & MacIntyre, 2011). This is
because strong psychological attachment and loyalty to the organisation by the employees
only played a passive and static form. Hence, these enhances employee stability within their
jobs and to the productivity of the organisation, therefore, organisational commitment
postulates the feelings of employees towards their organisation (Ifie, 2014). Individuals
within the organisation align their duties with that of the organisation to fulfil their
psychological contract and perceive that the organisation cannot fulfil their future goals, thus
affects their commitment when trying to balance between the two (Guerrero, Bentein, &
Lapalme, 2014).
Affective Commitment
Affective commitment is define as employee’s emotional attachment to his organisation.
Individual employees with high affective commitment are committed to their organisation
because they feel is the right thing to do. In the earlier work of Kanter (1968) affirm that
commitment is “the attachment of an individual’s fund of affectivity and emotion to the
group”, on the other hand, Buchanan (1974) sees it as “a partisan affective attachment to the
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 85
goals and values of the organisation” and Mowday et al. (1979) perceive it as “the relative
strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in a particular organisation”.
Previous researches has indicates the validity as well as reliability of organisational
commitment constructs with promising results (Allen & Meyer, 1990; Meyer, Allen, &
Smith, 1993). Nevertheless, controversies on such reliability and validity of specific
constructs (continuance and normative commitment) across various cultures remain
questionable (Liao, Toya, Lepak, & Hong, 2009)and lacks clear distinction between
normative as well as affective commitment construct (Bergman, 2006; Meyer, Stanley,
Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002). Therefore, the problem is on normative commitment
(Bergman, 2006) and these study focus on affective commitment to explore the level of
commitment in Nigerian universities. A study indicates that employee’s characteristics as
antecedent of affective commitment is evaluated from demographic and dispositional
differences (Allen & Meyer, 1996).
Affective Commitment and Job Behaviour
Studies reveals that employees with high level of commitment will have high performance
and productivity (Dalal, 2005), highly motivated (Darolia, Kumari, & Darolia, 2010), low
turnover (Lee & Liu, 2006) and highly satisfied with their work (Brown & Peterson,
1993).However, those with low commitment harm the organisation by increase cost of
employing new staffs as well as training them which invariably affects the institution
(Mowday et al. 1982). Accordingly, a study reveals that affective commitment is positively
related with work behaviour like attendance and performance (Meyer et al., 2002) and
employee health and wellbeing. Furthermore, same correlation was found with normative
commitment but relatively weak compared to affective commitment and continuance
commitment has negative correlation with job behaviour and individual wellbeing.
Empirically a study reveals that affective commitment dimension predicts most jobs related
behaviour of individual employees against other two dimensions (Chen & Francesco, 2003)
and these may include engagement on your duty which measures performance. The
importance of these construct as against other two in predicting employee commitment is
proved empirically (Darolia et al., 2010; Wasti, 2002), enhances individual willingness to
relate and share with colleagues (Randall, Fedor, & Longenecker, 1990). Hence, employees
with such characteristics put more effort, enhance organisational effectiveness and maintain
their esteem relationship with the organisation (Allen & Meyer, 1991).
Previous studies findings reveal that employee committed to their organisation by his
willingness will contribute towards organisational success, his duties and beyond all be part
of the system. Therefore, this study will evaluate the role of affective commitment on
lecturers in Nigerian Universities.
Personality Traits
Extraversion
Extraversion is one of the five personality traits which connote an individual to be sociable,
cooperative, affectionate, outgoing and talkative (Lounsbury, 2012). Individual on this
dimension indicates satisfaction level with relationship. Highly extrovert people have more
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 86
energy, outgoing and dominate social situations (Peeters, Rutte, Tuijl, & Reyman, 2006),
decision making, looking for power and taking risk (Barry & Stewart, 1997) and social skills
(Beatty, Mayer, Coleman, Reynolds, & Lee, 1996) in determining the role of individual
employee in the organisation. Furthermore, individuals with this trait are affected by anger
and dissatisfaction which could affect the organisation and their problem solving technique
(Rajiv, Scott, Weaven & Baker, 2013). Nonetheless, individuals low on this trait possesses
low energy, integration with people and quiet even when they are not necessarily depressed.
Openness to Experience
Individuals on this trait are analytical, original, cultured, imaginative, curious, independent
and scientific thinkers (Yang & Hwang, 2014; Hasso, 2013). They employs unique method so
they become more productive and creative in their organisations and more so they are open
minded, easy going and healthier (Yahaya, Bon, Ismail, & Noor, 2012). Employees’ low on
this trait is close minded who tend to confront issues from a complex situation in a
straightforward way. They prefer to be traditional in nature and don’t accept innovations
easily (Ames & Bianchi, 2008).
Neuroticism
Neuroticism is seen as one of the important trait in personality literatures. This is sometimes
referred to as emotional stability, individuals who are emotionally stable adjust easily to new
environment, remain stable in difficult situations, confidence and peaceful (Robert R.
McCrae & Costa, 2004), and high on this trait poses; anger, depression, moodiness and
anxiety (Hasso, 2013). Hence, employees with this trait lack concentration and emotions if
they are faced with stress (Barling & Boswell, 1995) and lack trust as well as social skills
(Yahaya et al., 2012), thereby getting it difficult to relate with his co-workers and other
individuals (Lounsbury, 2012). This leads to individuals interpreting normal situation as
threat and overstress slight frustration difficult and have issues controlling their emotion
(Terracciano, Löckenhoff, Zonderman, Ferrucci, & Costa, 2008).
Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness is perceived as dependability, perseverance, reliable and has sense of
responsibility (Harris & Fleming, 2005). According to Digman (1990) this trait is related to
educational success, hard work and goal oriented which depicts the need for success. Costa
and McCrae (1992) reported that “Conscientious” individuals in organisations often tend to
avoid making mistakes and aim for high standards of commitment through structural
planning and Conscientiousness is referred to positive affectivity (PA) trait disposition.
Agreeableness
Agreeableness trait is seen as social interaction among individual members, interpersonal
relation, mixing with people (Yang & Hwang, 2014). This trait has attributes like; kindness,
likeability and thoughtfulness which could lead to successful relationships (McCrae & Costa,
1991) and increase performance and motivation among employees. Agreeable individuals are
kind, cooperative, attentive, flexible, forgiving and courteous (Hasso, 2013; Connolly &
Viswesvaran, 2000).
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 87
Power Distance
National culture is defined as a set of values and beliefs which guide individuals in making
decision and distinguishes them (Hofstede, 2001). National culture may include among others
norms and values which forms the informal organisation. Accordingly, “informal
organisations (Culture) at this level change very slowly, on the order of centuries or
millennia” (Williamson, 2008). This imposes pressures on the top-down and implies that
culture impact on organisations practices within a country. Hence directly affects individual
actions and decision making.
To contribute to the existing literature, universities should start considering the differences of
their workforce (Ng & Burke, 2005). Existing literatures expose our understanding of
managing differences in workplace; prior studies focus more to Anglo-American regions
(Jonsen, Maznevski, & Schneider, 2011; Shore et al., 2009). Nonetheless, previous studies
suggest that context plays an important role (Boehm, Kunze, & Bruch, 2013), and started to
study the influence of cultural context on management of diversity in workplace, such as
absenteeism and turnover (Peretz, Levi, & Fried, 2015).
Furthermore, this study will contribute personality and organisational commitment literature.
Taking to account the role of culture (Peretz et al., 2015; Dunham et al., 1994; Toh &
Leonardelli, 2013), it indicates that national culture influences organisations management of
diversity (Toh & Leonardelli, 2013), hence this study argues that national culture will
strengthen the relationship between the study construct. For example, high power distance
societies pose greater challenge than feminine culture. Therefore, this study develop a
conceptual model to acknowledge the contribution of cultural tightness (Gelfand, Nishii, &
Raver, 2006), in the framework proposed for the study.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE STUDY
The study will adapt the trait activation theory to explain the study framework. The theory
focuses on person-situation contact to evaluate behaviour on the bases of trait relevant cues
explore in situations (Tett & Guterman, 2000). The observe behaviour serve as the basis for
evaluating behaviour on the various assessments as performance evaluation (Tett & Burnett,
2003). Trait activation is very important to evaluate and understand individual personality
trait which evolve in person’s behaviour. This theory assumes that fit between an individual
personality characteristics and his occupational environment.
Therefore, the current study come with the framework depicted below;
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 88
Relationship between Personality and affective commitment
Personality traits have been demonstrated by studies to influence affective commitment.
Previous studies has indicates that literatures on personality and organisational commitment
are still needed (Erdheim, Wang, & Zickar, 2006; Zettler, Friedrich & Benjamin, 2011), and
so important in understanding human behaviour which easily affects individual performance
as well as productivity. The more employees are affectively committed to organizations, the
more they will help others (Pare & Tremblay, 2007). Besides helping behaviour, other
dimensions, such as conscientiousness, civic virtue, courtesy and sportsmanship, are also
found to influence organizational citizenship behaviour affected by organizational
commitment (Joo, 2011).
Employees high on agreeableness easily associate with members and develop relationship
(Yang & Hwang, 2014), those high on conscientiousness do better job by committing
themselves to achieve the desired state due to their hardworking, carefulness and reliability
(Barrick & Mount, 1991). Moreover, job that requires teamwork needs emotional stable
employees to adjust to difficult situations, pressure and control their temper (Salgado, 1997)
and a study indicates that sociable, active and talkative employees are free minded individual
who hold no issues with others and exhibits high performance in their workplace (Hurtz &
Donovan, 2000). Finally, those on openness to experience accept new innovations and try
working with them to improve standards, thereby committing high to their organisations.
Literatures have indicates finding are inconsistent (see, Syed et al., 2015; Spagnoli &
Caetano, 2012; Panaccio & Vandenberghe, 2012; Kumar & Bakhshi, 2010; Erdheim et al.,
2006).
Therefore, the study came with the following hypothesis:
H1a: There is significant relationship between agreeableness and affective commitment
among university lecturers.
H1b: There is significant relationship between conscientiousness and affective commitment
among university lecturers.
H1c: There is significant relationship between extraversion and affective commitment among
university lecturers.
H1d: There is significant relationship between neuroticism and affective commitment among
university lecturers.
H1e: There is significant relationship between openness to experience and affective
commitment among university lecturers.
The moderating role of power distance
According to Hofstede (2001) power distance is seen as the level of acceptance of inequality
within a given cultural setup. Societies with low power distance involve their subordinates in
decision making and rank plays a little role, while societies high on this dimension are
divided into superior and followers and rank play crucial role as well as recognised (Koc,
2013). Hence, interactions in such high power distance societies is influenced by hierarchical
relationships and rank or status is highly respected among groups (Oudenhoven, Mechelse, &
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 89
Dreu, 1998), as such due to importance of status as well as hierarchy, groups insist on status
quo and relinquish exclusive advantages. This is likely to bring about social stratification that
supports discrimination of members within the groups. As such this is expected to be less in
societies with low power distance.
Nevertheless, the study propose that in high power distance societies, inequality in power and
poor inclusion in decision making process affects the workplace which also contribute to
employee poor commitment and turnover. This is related to exchange between and among
different status groups (Koc, 2013) and indicates privileged to certain members within a
group. Hence, the privileged took power at the disadvantage of the minorities. Therefore, the
study hypotheses:
H2: Power distance moderates the relationship between personality and affective
commitment: high power distance societies, personality will have stronger effect on affective
commitment.
METHODOLOGY
The study is quantitative by use of questionnaires to generate information from respondents
and the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) Smart PLS is used to analyse the relationship
between the study constructs as well as testing the moderating effect of national culture. The
study is cross-sectional in nature due to time constraint (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010), with a
sample size of 375 (Krejci & Morgan, 1970) were the study adopts the simple random
technique to give every respondent opportunity to participate and measurements of the
construct were adopted; national culture (Yoo, Donthu, & Lenartowicz, 2011), affective
commitment (Meyer et al., 1993) and personality traits (John & Srivastava, 1999). Important
to note is, the use of Smart PLS for this study is because of its ability to predict existing
theory and its applicability in the settings (Hair, Sarstedt, Ringle, & Mena, 2012).
RESULT INTERPRETATION
The study received 355 questionnaires to the respondents from the initial 400 distributed,
after deleting outliers which stands to be 26.4%, the valid sample for data analysis is 261
which represent a total of 73.6%. The result indicates that 76.6% represent male and 23.4%
female, greater percent of lecturers have Master degree 44.4%, Bachelor 27.6% and 28%
PhD. Hence, greater proportion of lecturers holds Mater followed by PhD and then those with
Bachelor, known as Graduate Assistant.
Assessment of the measurement model
Field (2009) affirm that item loading with at least 0.5 is acceptable to analyse data. In the
current study all items from the factor analysis are substantially higher than 0.5, which
include all the five personality traits, culture and organisational commitment respectively.
The constructs, convergent and discriminant validity as well as composite reliability were
measured to determine the acceptability of the model and measurements. Accordingly,
constructs indicators that have loadings of less than 0.4 were deleted (Hulland, 1999) and the
composite reliability and discriminant validity have a value ranging between 0.70 to 0.80
respectively (Hair et al., 2012; Bagozzi & Yi, 1988).
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 90
Moreover, the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for the entire construct met the criteria
threshold of 0.5 (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988), to determine the discriminant validity square root of
AVE is equated with that of the path coefficient of the interrelated constructs and this
indicates a value of more than 0.70 which is above all the correlated coefficients of the
construct. This reveals that the constructs have sufficient discriminant validity. The tables
below depict the cross loading of the construct and the discriminant validity:
Table 1: Cross Loadings
Items Cross Loadings Composite Reliability AVE
AFC1 0.51
0.51
AFC3 0.79
AFC4 0.86 0.84
AFC5 0.61
AFC6 0.75
AGRS4 0.89
0.55
AGRS6 0.72 0.78
AGRS8 0.58
CONS3 0.68
0.51
CONS5 0.52 0.75
CONS8 0.89
EXTV1 0.75
0.55
EXTV2 0.72 0.78
EXTV7 0.75
NEUM1 0.78
0.51
NEUM4 0.70 0.75
NEUM5 0.65
OPNS1 0.77
0.53
OPNS3 0.83 0.76
OPNS6 0.54
Table 2: Discriminant Validity
VARIABLE AFFEC AGREE CONSC EXTRA NEURO OPENN
AFC 0.72
AGRRS 0.66 0.74
CONS 0.55 0.63 0.71
EXTV 0.41 0.32 0.45 0.74
NEUM -0.56 -0.29 -0.46 -0.28 0.71
OPNS 0.33 0.59 0.23 -0.21 -0.23 0.73
Structural Model
The structural model tries to measure the path coefficient to each study construct to the
dependent variable. According to Hair and others (2014) path coefficient measures the
greatness as well as significance of the model. Therefore, indicates the strengths or weakness
of relationship direction between and among the study variables. Hence, the study tests its
hypothesis through the structural model using the t-value of above 1.96 (Hair et al., 2014) to
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 91
show the significance level. The table below indicates the relationship between the study
variables:
Table 3: Path Coefficient
Hypothesis Beta Standard Error T Statistics Decision
AGRS -> AFC 0.55 0.05 11.02 Accepted
CONS -> AFC 0.00 0.03 0.05 Rejected
EXTV -> AFC 0.11 0.03 3.56 Accepted
NEUM -> AFC -0.38 0.04 10.62 Accepted
OPNS -> AFC -0.06 0.04 1.59 Rejected
From the table above, it indicates that three out of the five hypotheses were significant and
accepted, while two were rejected. Agreeableness, Extraversion and Neuroticism are
significant at 1% one tail, Openness to experience is significant at 10% but the study reject
because it is not acceptable in social science research and Conscientiousness was not
significant.
Testing the moderating effect
The research employs the Smart PLS-SEM to measure the moderating effect of power
distance on personality towards organisational commitment. According to Preacher, Zhang
and Zyphur (2015) moderators are interacting predictors that allow for investigation, thereby
yielding a significant contribution to the existing body of research. Therefore, the table below
shows the moderating effect;
Table 4: Moderating effect
Hypothesis Beta Standard Deviation Standard Error T Statistics Decision
Personality *
CULTURE ->
AFC
0.2426 0.0252 0.0252 9.5852 Accepted
Therefore, the study establishes the moderating role of power distance between personality
and affective commitment at 1% significant level with a T value 9.5852 (1-tail). Statistically,
the intervening variable significantly predicts and supports the hypotheses of the study. This
is in line with previous study findings that high power distance societies are hierarchical and
gave more preference to rank and people in authority (Hofstede, 2001; Koc, 2013).
DISCUSSION
The study investigates the moderating role of power distance on the relationship between
FFM personality model and affective commitment of lecturers in Nigerian universities,
building on Hofstede and McCrae (2004) linking personality traits to cultural dimensions.
The current literature found three FFM traits are significantly related with affective
commitment which reflects lecturer dedication, integrity as well as social interaction
(Extraversion, Neuroticism and Agreeableness) (e.g., Panaccio & Vandenberghe, 2012;
Zimmerman, 2008). However, openness to experience and conscientiousness are not related
to affective commitment which explains the target similarity of social exchange theory
(Lavelle et al., 2007; Masterson et al., 2000). Additionally, the study reveals significant effect
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 92
of the moderator in strengthening the relationship between personality traits and affective
commitment.
The study reveals that those with lower levels of NEA tend to exhibit lower level of
commitment and shows the likely hood of engaging in turnover which is detrimental to the
institution and employees. NAE are traits associated with high level of commitment,
cooperation and dedication which are likely to influence and affect positively individual
engagement to his position and job (Frei & McDaniel, 1988; Hall, Schneider, & Nygren,
1970). NAE employees tend to achieve high level of performance leading to higher
organisational support (Barrick & Mount, 2000) and strengthen their commitment through
removing elements that affects individual performance in the organisation. Furthermore,
agreeable and neurotic employees are supportive, friendly and get along with others.
However, Erdheim et al., (2006) opined that agreeableness is “related to getting along with
others in pleasant and satisfying ways” and helping others within the organisation leads to
high level of commitment, thus removing the willingness of employees to harm the
organisation or its members.
On the other hand, openness to experience and conscientiousness are not related with
affective commitment. This is because, openness to experience is weakly related to
performance due to its complexity (Griffin & Hesketh, 2004; Barrick et al., 2001) and job
attitude (Bruk-Lee et al., 2009; Judge et al., 2002). Moreover, individuals high on this trait
demands rewarding features (Tziner et al., 2008) which further results in quitting their jobs
due to low level of management acceptability to increase welfare packages. Interestingly to
note, within the context of the study, openness to experience and conscientious employee
does not feet the career for teaching, hence demand a change in their jobs.
Nonetheless, understanding the hierarchical nature of Nigerian society with high power
distance (Hofstede, 2001) individual possessing such traits as openness to experience and
conscientiousness feels more frustrated and are likely to quit the organisation (Spagnoli &
Caetano, 2012). In other words, employees who possess these traits are likely to experience
no affective commitment but may have on continuance or normative commitment in the long
run. Drawing from previous studies (e.g. Peretz et al., 2015; Boehm et al., 2013; Jonsen et al.,
2011; Shore et al., 2009) this finding is important in considering the role culture played in the
development process of affective commitment.
The research reveals that by acquiring information on how power distance in societies is
experienced higher, affect employee commitment to their organisation and work-related
values. Therefore, study provides confirmatory analysis to the exploratory work of Hofstede
and McCrae (2004), but only to the predicted correlation of extraversion and power distance.
For example, this study found significant correlation t= 9.5852, (p<0.001) between
personality and affective commitment of employees employing the moderating role of power
distance. However, Hofstede and McCrae study indicates negative correlation 0.57 and 0.001
significance for extraversion and power distance. The two other predicted correlations of
agreeableness and neuroticism with power distance are not confirmed in their study.
Therefore, it is of concern to management literature to understand the dimensions of culture
in developing higher level of employee commitment through their context of study. It is very
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 93
interesting to note that when occupation is dominate by certain personality traits might give
rise to different cultural practices (Hofstede & McCrae, 2004), as such understanding
organisational problems within the realm of individuals, personality traits play an important
role.
CONCLUSION
Retaining employees in the workplace become a major challenge for educational institutions
more specifically in developing nations. A university as an organisation hired professionals
from different fields to develop manpower and maintaining them becomes a daunting task.
Here we need to understand that individual traits playing a vital role in motivating and
engaging workforce to exhibit certain responsibility, thereby fitting the right object in the
right direction. It is notwithstanding that certain traits within individuals predict level of
commitment than others, thus issue pertaining to individual differences come to the fore.
Furthermore, culture appears to be a strong predictor of employee level of commitment to
organisation. Therefore, organisational management need to understand the role culture play
in enhancing employee commitment, dedication as well as retention.
IMPLICATION AND FUTURE RESEARCH
The importance of this research is manifold. To literature, the study contributes by testing the
role of culture in management studies. As institutions battle with retaining expertise from
different fields, it is quite important for organisational literatures to explore how contextual
factors affect organisational employees. In society like Nigeria were they experience high
power distance, it is very important for the institutions to consider that exercising too much
authority on expertise can affects his productivity where he feels side-lined and not
encouraged to partake in organisational decisions. Secondly, given that organisations of today
need to cope with the problem of job hopping and employee attrition, the research reveals the
type of traits that most predict commitment to organisations.
Future research should focus on exploring the dimension of continuance and normative
commitment, how such may contribute to employee retention. Also, collective relationship
among peers can be investigated so as to understand the level at which individual personality
trait can enhance employee commitment and performance.
REFERENCES
[1] Aghdasi S, Kiamanesh AR, Ebrahim AN. Emotional intelligence and organizational
commitment: Testing the mediatory role of occupational stress and job satisfaction. Procedia
- Social and Behavioral Sciences 2011; 29(2010): 1965–1976.
[2] Akhtar R, Boustani L, Tsivrikos D, Chamorro-Premuzic T. The engageable personality:
Personality and trait EI as predictors of work engagement. Personality and Individual
Differences 2015; 73: 44–49.
[3] Ali N, Jan S, Tariq M. Transformational and Transactional Leadership as Prdictors of Job
Satisfaction, Commitment, Perceived Performance and Turnover. Intention. Life Science
Journal 2014; 11(5): 48–53.
[4] Allen NJ, Meyer JP. The measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance and
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 94
normative commitment to the organization. Journal of Occupational Psychology 1990; 63(1):
1–18.
[5] Allen, Meyer. Affective, Continuance, and Normative Commitment to the Organization:
An Examination of Construct Validity. Journal of Vocational Behavior 1996; 49(3): 252–76.
[6] Ames DR, Bianchi EC. The agreeableness asymmetry in first impressions: perceivers’
impulse to (mis) judge agreeableness and how it is moderated by power. Personality & Social
Psychology Bulletin 2008; 34(12): 1719–1736.
[7] Aydin A, Sarier Y, Uysal S. The Effect of School Principals ’ Leadership Styles on
Teachers Organizational Commitment and Job. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice
2013; 13(2): 806–811.
[8] Bagozzi RP, Yi Y. On the evaluation of structural equation models. Journal of the
Academy of Marketing Science 1988; 16(1): 74–94.
[9] Bamgboje-ayodele A, Ellis L. Knowledge Management and the Nigerian Culture – A
round peg in a square hole ? The African Journal of Information Systems 2015; 7(1): 1936–
282.
[10] Barling J, Boswell R. Work Performance and the Achievementatrivings and
Impatience-Irritability Dimensions of Type A Behaviour. International Association of
Applied Psychology 1995; 44(2): 143–153.
[11] Barrick MR, Mount MK. The Big Five Personality Dimensions and Job Performance :
A Meta Analysis. Personnel Psychology 1991; 44(1): 1–26.
[12] Barry B, Stewart GL. Composition, process, and performance in self-managed groups:
The role of personality. Journal of Applied Psychology 1997; 82(1): 62–78.
[13] Beatty SE, Mayer M, Coleman JE, Reynolds KE, Lee J. Customer-sales associate retail
relationships. Journal of Retailing 1996; 72(3): 223–247.
[14] Bergman ME. The relationship between affective and normative commitment: Review
and research agenda. Journal of Organizational Behavior 2006; 27(5): 645–663.
[15] Boehm SA, Kunze F, Bruch H. Spotlight on Age-Diversity Climate: The Impact of
Age-Inclusive HR Practices on Firm-Level Outcomes. Personnel Psychology 2014; 667–704.
[16] Brown SP, Peterson RA. Antecedents and consequences of salesperson job satisfaction:
meta-analysis and assessment of causal effects. Journal of Marketing Research 1993; 47: 63–
77.
[17] Chen ZX, Francesco AM. The relationship between the three components of
commitment and employee performance in China. Journal of Vocational Behavior 2003;
62(3): 490–510.
[18] Connolly JJ, Viswesvaran C. The role of affectivity in job satisfaction: A meta-analysis.
Personality and Individual Differences 2000; 29(2): 265–280.
[19] Cooper-Hakim A, Viswesvaran C. The construct of work commitment: testing an
integrative framework. Psychological Bulletin 2005; 131(2): 241–259.
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 95
[20] Costa P, McCrae R. Normal Personality Assessment in Clinical Practice: The NEO
Personality Inventory. Psychological Assessment 1992; 4(1): 5–13.
[21] Dalal RS. A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship Between Organizational Citizenship
Behavior and Counterproductive Work Behavior A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship
Between Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Counterproductive Work Behavior.
Journal of Applied Psychology 2005; 90(1): 1241–1255.
[22] Darolia CR, Kumari P, Darolia S. Perceived Organizational Support, Work Motivation,
and Organizational Commitment as determinants of Job Performance. Journal of the Indian
Academy of Applied Psychology 2010; 36(1): 69–78.
[23] Dunham RB, Grube JA, Castaneda MB. Organizational commitment: The utility of an
integrative definition. Journal of Applied Psychology 1994; 79(3): 370–380.
[24] Dwivedula R, Bredillet C, Muller R. Personality and Work Motivation as Determinants
of Project Success: The Mediating Role of Organizational and Professional Commitment.
International Journal of Management Development 2016; 1(3): 229–245.
[25] Erdheim J, Wang M, Zickar MJ. Linking the Big Five personality constructs to
organizational commitment. Personality and Individual Differences 2006; 41(5): 959–970.
[26] Gelfand MJ, Nishii LH, Raver JL. On the nature and importance of cultural tightness-
looseness. The Journal of Applied Psychology 2006; 91(6): 1225–44.
[27] Giauque D, Resenterra F, Siggen M. Antecedents of Job Satisfaction, Organizational
Commitment and Stress in a Public Hospital: A P-E Fit Perspective. Public Organization
Review 2014; 14(2): 201–228.
[28] Gonzlez TF, Guillin M. Organizational commitment: A proposal for a wider ethical
conceptualization of “normative commitment.” Journal of Business Ethics 2008; 78(3): 401–
414.
[29] Guerrero S, Bentein K, Lapalme M. Idiosyncratic Deals and High Performers’
Organizational Commitment. Journal of Business and Psychology 2014; 29(2): 323–334.
[30] Pare G, Tremblay M. The Influence of on Information Technology Professionals ’
Turnover Intentions. Group & Organization Management 2007; 32: 326–357.
[31] Hair JF, Sarstedt M, Ringle CM, Mena JA. An assessment of the use of partial least
squares structural equation modeling in marketing research. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science 2012; 40(3): 414–433.
[32] Harris EG, Fleming DE. Assessing the human element in service personality formation:
Personality congruency and the Five Factor Model. Journal of Services Marketing 2005;
19(4): 187–198.
[33] Hasso R. The impact of CEO ’ s personality traits (Big 5) and Human Resources
Management Practices on the Innovation Performance in SMEs. 1st IBA BachelorThesis
Conference Conference, (Big 5) 2013; 14.
[34] Hurtz GM, Donovan JJ. Personality and job performance: the Big Five revisited. The
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 96
Journal of Applied Psychology 2000; 85(6): 869–879.
[35] Kefasu I. Customer orientation of frontline employees and organizational commitment.
The Service Industries Journal 2014; 699–714.
[36] Ingo Zettler, Niklas Friedrich, Benjamin E. Dissecting work commitment: the role of
Machiavellianism. Career Development International 2011; 16(1): 20–35.
[37] Inju Y. Article information :Lost overseas? The challenges facing Korean
transformational leadership in a cross-cultural context. Critical Perspectives on International
Business 2016; 3512(2): 1–32.
[38] Maxwell JA, Spielmann SS, Joel SA, MacDonald G. Attachment Theory as a
Framework for Understanding Responses to Social Exclusion. Social and Personality
Psychology Compass 2013; 7: 444–456.
[39] Jonsen K, Maznevski ML, Schneider SC. Special Review Article: Diversity and its not
so diverse literature: An international perspective. International Journal of Cross Cultural
Management 2011; 11(1): 35–62.
[40] Joo BK. Knowledge Sharing: The Influences of Learning Organization Culture,
Organizational Commitment, and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors. Journal of
Leadership & Organizational Studies 2011; 18(3): 353–364.
[41] Kamisah Budin Syed Azizi Wafa. Article information :The relationship between culture
and leadership style preference among Malay-Brunei, Bajau and Kadazan-Dusun community
in Sabah, Malaysia. Journal of Management Development 2015; 34(10): 1202–1210.
[42] Khoeini F, Attar BN. Personality characteristics and organizational commitment in
Iranian employees 2015; 1(1): 61–64.
[43] Koc E. Power distance and its implications for upward communication and
empowerment: crisis management and recovery in hospitality services. International Journal
of Human Resource Management. Taylor & Francis, 2013.
[44] Kumar K, Bakhshi A. The five-factor Model of Personality and Organizational
Commitment: Is there Any Relationship? Humanity and Social Science Journal, 2010.
[45] Lee H, Liu CH. The Determinants of Repatriate Turnover Intentions : An Empirical
Analysis. International Journal of Management 2006; 23(4): 751–763.
[46] Liao H, Toya K, Lepak DP, Hong Y. Do they see eye to eye? Management and
employee perspectives of high-performance work systems and influence processes on service
quality. Journal of Applied Psychology 2009; 94(2): 371–391.
[47] Lounsbury JW. Key personality traits and career satisfaction of customer service
workers. Managing Service Quality 2012; 22(5): 517–536.
[48] Mathieu C, Fabi B, Lacoursiere R, Raymond L. The role of supervisory behavior, job
satisfaction and organizational commitment on employee turnover. Journal of Management
and Organization 2015; 22(1): 113–129.
[49] McCrae RR, Costa PT. Adding Liebe und Arbeit: The full Five-Factor Model and Well-
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 97
Being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 1991; 17(2): 227–232.
[50] McCrae RR, Costa PT. A contemplated revision of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory.
Personality and Individual Differences 2004; 36(3): 587–596.
[51] Meyer JP, Allen NJ, Smith CA. Commitment to organizations and occupations:
Extension and test of a three-component conceptualization. Journal of Applied Psychology
1993; 78(4): 538–551.
[52] Meyer JP, Stanley DJ, Herscovitch L, Topolnytsky L. Affective, continuance, and
normative commitment to the organization: A meta-analysis of antecedents, correlates, and
consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior 2002; 61(1): 20–52.
[53] Mustapha B. Validating Commitiemnt Scale Among Nigerian Lecturers : a Rasch
Model Approuch 2015: 9–10.
[54] Ng ESW, Burke RJ. Person–organization fit and the war for talent: does diversity
management make a difference? The International Journal of Human Resource Management
2005; 16(7): 1195–1210.
[55] Nicol AAM, Rounding K, MacIntyre A. The impact of Social Dominance Orientation
and Right-Wing Authoritarianism on the relation between Person-Organization fit with
commitment, satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Personality and Individual Differences
2011; 51(8): 893–898.
[56] Oudenhoven JP, Mechelse L, Dreu CKWW. Managerial Conflict Management in Five
European Countries: The Importance of Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, and
Masculinity. Applied Psychology 1998; 47(3): 439–455.
[57] Panaccio A, Vandenberghe C. Five-factor model of personality and organizational
commitment: The mediating role of positive and negative affective states. Journal of
Vocational Behavior, 2012.
[58] Paola Spagnoli Antonio Caetano. Article information :Personality and organisational
commitment The mediating role of job satisfaction during socialisation. Career Development
International 2012; 17(3): 255–275.
[59] Peeters MAG, Rutte CG, Tuij HFJM Van, Reyman IMMJ. Traits and Individual Team.
Small Group Research 2006; 37(2): 187–211.
[60] Peretomode V, Chukwuma R. Manpower development and lecturers ’ productivity in
tertiary institutions in Nigeria. European Scientific Journal 2012; 8(13): 16–28.
[61] Peretz H, Levi A, Fried Y. Organizational Diversity Programs across Cultures: Effects
on Absenteeism, Turnover, Performance and Innovation. The International Journal of Human
Resource Management 2015; 26(6): 875–903.
[62] Preacher KJ, Zhang Z, Zyphur MJ. Multilevel Structural Equation Models for
Assessing Moderation Within and Across Levels of Analysis. Psychological Methods 2015;
20(4): 1-17.
[63] Dant RP, Weaven SK, Baker BL. Influence of personality traits on perceived
Aminu Yusuf Dikko et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review
Copyright © 2017 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 98
relationship quality within a franchisee-franchisor context. European Journal of Marketing
2013; 47(1/2): 279–302.
[64] Randall D, Fedor D, Longenecker C. The behavioural expression of organizational
commitment 1990; 36: 210–224.
[65] Shore LM, Chung-Herrera BG, Dean MA, Ehrhart KH, Jung DI, Randel AE, Singh G.
Diversity in organizations: Where are we now and where are we going? Human Resource
Management Review 2009; 19(2): 117–133.
[66] Syed N, Saeed A, Farrukh M. Organization Commitment and Five Factor Model of
Personality : Theory Recapitulation. Journal of Asian Business Strategy 2015; 5(8): 183–190.
[67] Terracciano A, Lockenhoff CE, Zonderman AB, Ferrucci L, Costa PT. Personality
predictors of longevity: activity, emotional stability, and conscientiousness. Psychosomatic
Medicine 2008; 70(6): 621–627.
[68] Toh SM, Leonardelli GJ. Cultural Constraints on the Emergence of Women Leaders:
How Global Leaders Can Promote Women in Different Cultures. Organizational Dynamics
2013; 42(3): 191–197.
[69] Wasti SA. Affective and continuance commitment to the organization: Test of an
integrated model in the Turkish context. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 2002;
26(5): 525–550.
[70] Williamson OE. The New Institutional Economics : Taking Stock , Looking Ahead
2008; 38(3): 595–613.
[71] Yahaya A, Yahaya N, Bon AT, Ismail S, Noor NM. The Relationship Between Big Five
Personality with Work Motivation, Competitiveness and Job Satisfaction. Elixir Psychology
2012; 44: 7454–7461.
[72] Yahaya R, Ebrahim F. Leadership styles and organizational commitment: literature
review. Journal of Management Development 2016; 35(2): 190–216.
[73] Yang C, Hwang M. Personality traits and simultaneous reciprocal influences between
job performance and job satisfaction. Chinese Management Studies 2014; 8(1): 6–26.
[74] Yoo B, Donthu N, Lenartowicz T. Measuring Hofstede’s five dimensions of cultural
values at the individual level: Development and validation of CVSCALE. Journal of
International Consumer Marketing, 2011.
[75] Zimmerman RD. Understanding the Impact of Personality Traits on Individuals
Turnover Decisions: a Meta‐Analytic Path Model. Personnel Psychology 2008; 61(2): 309–
348.