The perceived impact of management styles on employee job satisfaction and organisational commitment: a case study of Hulamin, Pietermaritzburg.

Abstract

This study, which drew on the view that the management style that a manager uses to direct their employees plays a vital role in ensuring employee satisfaction with their jobs and decisions to commit or not to their organisations, investigated the impact of management styles on employee job satisfaction and organisational commitment. The study used a quantitative research approach in which three variables were tested using job satisfaction as a moderating factor. The study used a questionnaire that had eight Likert-scaled sections numbered from B to I with each section consisting of items that address a specific measurement or construct to collect data from 242 employees at Hu- lamin, Pietermaritzburg. The response rate was 97 percent. The reliability of these constructs was analysed using Chronbach’s Alpha statistic. The study findings revealed that not all management styles impact job satisfaction and organisational commitment. The autocratic management style had a significant negative impact on organisational commitment without job satisfaction as a moderating factor and with job satisfaction as a moderating factor. The democratic management style had a significant positive impact on organisational commitment in the absence of job satisfaction as a moderating factor and with job satisfaction as a moderating factor. It was discovered that the laissez-faire management style can be subdivided into two categories, which comprise of negative attitudes (-) and positive attitudes (+). The laissez-faire management style (-) had no significant impact on organisational commitment in the absence of job satisfaction as a moderating factor and still had no significant impact on organisational commitment with job satisfaction as a moderating factor. Job satisfaction had a significant positive impact on organisational commitment, but its presence in the regression model did not significantly affect the impact of both the laissez-faire(-) and laissez-faire(+) aspects of the laissez-faire management style on organisational commitment. The paternalistic style of management was found to have a significant positive impact on organisational commitment in the absence of job satisfaction as a moderating factor and still had no significant impact on organisational commitment with job satisfaction as a moderating factor. The persuasive management style had a significant negative impact on organisa- tional commitment without the moderating effects of job satisfaction. However, in the presence of job satisfaction, the persuasive management style had no significant impact on organisational commitment. As a result, job satisfaction had a significant moderating effect on the impact of the persuasive management style on organisational commitment. The study findings have implications for practice in organisations, organisational policy formulation and research focusing on the determinants for employee commitment in organisations.