Commitment implies “ an intention to persist in a course of action” (Meyer and Allen, 1994). Therefore, organizations should try to foster commitment in their employees to achieve stability and reduce costly turnover.
It is a general belief that the committed employees will work harder and be more likely to “ go the extra mile” to achieve organizational objectives. The researchers had consistently demonstrated that commitment does indeed contribute to a reduction in turnover (Tett and Meyer, 1993). As cited by Allen and Meyer (1994) organizational commitment has three components, including affective commitment, normative commitment and continuance commitment. Affective commitment refers to the employee’s positive emotional attachment to the organization and normative commitment is individuals omits to and remains with the organization due to the feeling of obligation. And continuance commitment is the degree of the employee believes that leaving the organization would be costly.
Sri Lankan banking sector is a vital component of the country’s economy since it is playing a major role in the economy, which had contributed to the gross domestic production by 8. 7% (Central Bank report, 2013). Among the banks operating in Sri Lanka, Licensed Commercial banks are playing an important role since it containedhigher amount of savings than the other financial institutes operating in Sri Lanka. It was 78. 79% of the total savings in Sri Lanka (Economic and Social Statistics of Sri Lanka, 2014).
There are 24 Licensed Commercial Banks operating in the industry. Bank managers have played a major role in the sector since they are the governing body of the employees in the banks to provide a satisfactory customer service and to achieve organizational goals and objectives. Due to that, the importance of the role of the bank managers, their organizational commitment turns into a critical factor to the banks in order to survive in the industry.
