MIDDLE LEVEL MANAGERS’ ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT ON THEIR JOB PERFORMANCE IN AGRICULTURAL INPUT DISTRIBUTING COMPANIES IN SRI LANKA

Abstract

Due to rapid changes and heavy competition in the agricultural industry, making profits in the way they experienced in the past is inconceivable. Consequently, firms require best performing field level managers since they are the key role players in this sector. Accordingly, this paper discussed the implications of organizational commitment factors namely; affective, continuance and normative commitments on field level managers’ job performance. To understand this, the data set was obtained by surveying randomly selected middle-level managers in Agro-input distributing firms in Sri Lanka. For the data analysis purpose, descriptive statistics, regression analysis, t-test and ANOVA test were used. According to the analysis, it is revealed that affective commitment and continuance commitment are affecting middle-level managers’ job performance but not normative commitments. On the other hand, the implication of demographic factors on commitment factors was studied to identify their behaviours towards job performance. Results of these analyses enabled to understand different groups of employees’ commitment in Agro-input distributing sector which enable firms to develop specific strategies to get the maximum out of their employees to perform well in the market place. Further, based on the analysis results, recommendations were made to trace the value of organizational commitments accordingly.