A comparative study on the commitment level of part time workers vs full time workers within convenience retailing in Dublin

Abstract

The concept of commitment is a traditional area of HRM concern and ‘indeed, the whole rationale for introducing HRM policies is to increase levels of commitment so that other positive outcomes can ensue’ (Guest, 1998, p. 42). It is this assumption which underlies the common employer declaration that ‘people are our most valuable resource’. Employees in modern ‘learning’ organizations are increasingly expected to display effort, motivation and initiative. The success of an organization depends not only on how the organization makes the most of human competences, but also how it stimulates commitment to an organization. Employee commitment, together with a competent workforce, seems to be of decisive importance for an organization to be able to compete in quality and to go along with changes (Cited by Wim et aI, 1998). This dissertation is focusing on the subject concerning to commitment theories and its application to both part time workers and full time workers within the retail industry. The research hypothesis addressed in this study -’Part time workers are less committed than Full time workers towards their work place’. The following research questions have been made in order to move on further into this subject: - Are part time workers less committed than full time workers towards their workplace? - Does the amount of time spent working in the same organization affect the level of commitment? - What would be the main factors that would affect the level of commitment of a worker? The research methodology applied in this dissertation includes research philosophy, research approach, and research strategy, sampling design and data collection methods. Primary data was collected with the help of research methodology includes questionnaires designed with quantitative questions. This helped the researcher to collect sufficient data to come out a conclusion. In order to make the research more specific this research is carried out amongst workers at convenience retail store in Dublin City Centre. The questions used in questionnaire were based on Likert scale and findings were made by cross-tabulate the results from questions and calculate the mean, median, mode and standard deviation. The concluding results from this research were more or less defending the literature review stated by various authors except for the second research question i.e. 'affect of time spent in the same organization on employee's commitment where the findings completely contradicted with the statements of various authors.