Drivers of employee performance in expatriate-dominant public organizations: Organizational commitment, perceived organizational support, and job satisfaction in the UAE
Keywords:
affective commitment, continuance commitment, employee performance, organizational support theory, perceived organizational supportAbstract
Theoretically, the reasons for systematic differences in performance among employees in expatriate-dominant public organizations are still not well developed, and practically, in this increasingly important context of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries where most of the civil service sector is not national, the situation is as critical as ever. This research aims to develop an integrative model on the basis of social exchange theory, organizational support theory, and Campbell's (1990) theory of performance, which posits that employee performance is mediated by job satisfaction. The survey data obtained from 354 employees from three departments of the Abu Dhabi Municipality were analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Affective commitment (β = 0.671, t = 15.874, p < 0.001) and POS (β = 0.454, t = 7.516, p < 0.001) were the strongest positive predictors of performance; continuance commitment had a significant, negative direct effect (β = −0.296, t = −2.046, p = 0.044), while normative commitment did not have a significant direct effect (β = 0.175, t = 1.119, p = 0.270). The effects of affective commitment, continuance commitment and POS on performance were mediated by job satisfaction, whereas the effects of normative commitment were not. The structural model explained 50.1% of the variance in employee performance (R² = 0.501) and 71.1% in job satisfaction (R² = 0.711). The results showed that in the public sector in the GCC, calculative retention has a negative effect both on job satisfaction and on performance, which is a theoretically important double negative effect that has not been previously mentioned in the public sector literature in the GCC region. Implications for theory and for human resource management practice in expatriate-reliant government settings are discussed.
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