Effect of Perceived Organizational Support and Work Environment on Organizational Commitment; Mediating Role of Self-Monitoring

Purpose: This study investigates the effect of perceived organizational support and work environment on organizational commitment, as well as, analyzes the mediating role of self-monitoring in this relationship in the service sector of Lahore, Pakistan. Methodology: Self-administered survey was conducted for the collection of responses from employees working in service sector. Total 680 questionnaires were distributed among employees from which 355 questionnaires were completely filled that were used for further analysis. Findings: Results of this study revealed that work environment has significant and positive association with organizational commitment whereas insignificant association is found between perceived organizational support and organizational commitment. Results further exposed that self-monitoring plays mediating role in the association between perceived organizational support and work environment with organizational commitment. Value/Originality: This study divulges that work environment and perceived organizational support help enhance the organizational commitment and self-monitoring mediates this association. This attempt contributes in academic literature and helps to fill the gap in current literature. Practical implications/Limitation: Results of this study do have practical implications for service sector. It helps to convince managers in service sector that facilitative work environment enhances the organizational commitment in employees. This research further suggests that one of the personality variables, namely, self-monitoring plays mediating role in the relationship between perceived organizational support and work environment with organizational commitment. Low sample size, region and time constraint are the limitations of this study.


Introduction
Traditional management views are rapidly altering due to the excessive usage of technology e.g. computers and internet. Whereas, the skills of employees are still substantial, they are considered as assets for any organization because they have tremendous effect on organizations. It is the biggest challenge for organizations to enhance the performance by retaining their employees. Organizational commitment is one of the factors which has direct effect on performance [1] and [2]. Committed employees work for the goals of organization and always have the desire to work in the same organization. For the achievement of stability and to retain the competitive position, it is necessary to enhance the commitment level of employees. Organizational commitment is affected by different outcomes like work environment, motivation, turnover, and organizational support.
Employees normally feel pleasant in facilitative, safe and sound work environment. Better quality in work environment always creates positive impact on the performance of employees. Attractive work environment helps make the employees more committed, enhances their motivation and satisfaction level. It ultimately boosts up the efficiency and productivity of an organization.
Perceived organizational support is the employees' belief that organization supports them but it depends upon the treatment of particular organization. If organization provides different resources to its employees generously according to their professional needs, it will enhance the organizational commitment in employees [3] which ultimately upgrade the performance and profitability of an organization. Self-monitoring is the control of expressive behaviors and plays an important role at workplaces. It is the part of personality and personality is the attitude which has great effect on organizational behaviors. It is also found that self-monitoring is associated with different work-related behaviors like job involvement, organizational commitment and satisfaction etc. [4]. So, it is necessary to understand that how self-monitoring effects the organizational commitment by intervening in the relationship between organizational support and work environment.
The purpose of this is to examine the effect of perceived organizational support and work environment on organizational commitment. This study further analyzes the mediating role of self-monitoring in this relationship in the service sector of Lahore, Pakistan.

Literature Review Organizational Commitment
It is a bond that an employee has with its particular organization. Organizational commitment has ample importance in the study of organizational behavior. Organizational commitment is the combination of three components named as; affective, continuance and normative commitment [5]. In affective commitment employees become emotionally attached with the organization, whereas, in continuance commitment, employees remain the part of organization because of associated cost of leaving the organization. In normative commitment, employees considered the obligation to stay in particular organization. Researchers have given much concentration to organizational commitment in management literature because it influences work outcomes. It is suggested that the employees with high commitment perform well as compared to less committed employees [6]. Highly committed employees always perform their duties with great struggle and positive attitude which ultimately enhances the performance of a particular organization.

Work Environment
This concept is linked with the climate of a specific organization where the employees perform their duties. Facilitative and safe work environment attracts the employees because their needs get satisfied. As [7] mentioned that employees perform high in challenging environment on the other side low performance could adjust in any environment. A facilitative and appropriate work environment boosts up the commitment and productivity level of employees.
It is extracted from the study that organization should provide first aid facilities, clean toilets, rest rooms, water, and safe clothing to their employees [8]. It is also obvious that control in hazards, favorable physical working conditions, attractive rewards and recognition, improvement in friendly relations, fitness in jobs all these creates effective and competent work environment [9]. Organizations should design work environment in a way which increase the organizational commitment and motivation level and it ultimately enhances the outcomes [10].
Perceived Organizational Support (POS) [11], the authors introduced this concept very first time and considered as the predictor of organizational commitment. POS is the expectations of employee that organization appraise their contribution and works for their welfare as well. In fact, the expectations of employees are stimulated according to the actions which are taken by organizations. Employees show their responsibility about work when support from organization is high.
Employees perform their duties with great effort and contribute in organizational goals so that support of organization augments towards them [12]. It is found that perceived organizational support is to be associated with different working attitudes and behaviors i.e. commitment, organizational citizenship behavior and job satisfaction [3]. Different researchers have found significant relationship among organizational commitment, organizational support and job satisfaction [13] and [14].

Self-Monitoring
Self-monitoring is the blend of ability and motivation, and one of the personality variables [15]. It is about to observe the social situations and to control expressive behaviors [16]. Personality plays notable role at workplaces, whereas, organizational commitment is one of the visible feature related to workplace and to self-monitoring as well. Thus, self-monitoring is related to every type of job [17]. It is also established fact that organizational commitment and job performance is associated with self-monitoring [4].
The traits of organizational work may involve organized different attitudes, behaviors and relationships; maintain the performance and its assessment etc. Self-monitoring has direct and indirect association with work behaviors e.g. organizational commitment. In fact, [18] also suggested that self-monitoring theory is responsible to give the explanation about motivational, behavioral and situational components.

Hypotheses
On the basis of above arguments the theoretical framework has been developed which is given in figure 1. The following hypotheses emerge from this proposed model; H1: Work environment is a significant predictor of organizational commitment. H2: Perceived organizational support (POS) has significant and positive association with organizational commitment. H3: Self-monitoring has positive and significant association with organizational commitment. H4: Self-monitoring mediates the relationship between work environment and organizational commitment.

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Effect of Perceived Organizational Support and Work Environment on Organizational Commitment; Mediating Role of Self-Monitoring H5: Self-monitoring mediates the relationship between perceived organizational support (POS) and organizational commitment.

Research Design
Data was collected from different employees of private and public sector working in hospitals, hotels, financial and educational institutions of provincial capital of Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. The basic reason to select service sector is that it plays an important role in the economic growth of a country. This sector is contributing almost 54% in GDP of Pakistan.
Total 680 questionnaires were distributed among the employees of service sector of Lahore, Pakistan. For the sake of data collection, convenience sampling was used. The response rate of sample is 52% because completely filled questionnaires which are received back and used in further analysis are 355. The reason for low response rate is lack of research environment and employees' over engagement in their work. However this response rate is enough to draw conclusion.
Survey Questionnaire which was used for this study comprised of two sections. Section one was related to demographics and section two was about other study variables. Demographics asked in questionnaire were gender, age, marital status, sector, size of particular organization, and tenure in organization. Whereas second section asked questions about organizational commitment, perceived organizational support, work environment and self-monitoring by using five point Likert scale. For the measurement of organizational commitment 18-items revised scale was used in this study, which is developed by [19]. 13 items scale was used to measure the Self-monitoring which was developed by [20]. Results were analyzed with the help of SPSS (16.0), and AMOS 18.

Results and Discussions
Before starting correlation analysis, and structural equation modeling, it was necessary to test the assumptions. Results suggested that data is normal because the skewness and kurtosis values are within suggested range. It is also confirmed that there is no non linearity issue in data. Data is also clean from other problems like; auto-correlation, multicollinearity and outliers.
The responses of 355 participants were finally used in analysis. From 355 respondents, 207 (58%) are males and 148 (42%) are females. From 355 participants, 176 (49.5%) are performing their activities in public sector whereas 179 (50.5%) are working in private sector. Most of the participants are belonged to the organizations where more than 500 workers are employed. The average age of participants is in the category 25-29 years. The average tenure of respondents is 3-5 years.
Correlation notifies about the relationship of different observed and latent variables. Pearson correlation value should lies between +1 to -1. As table 1 describes correlation analysis suggests that perceived organizational support is positively and significantly related to work environment, self-monitoring and organizational commitment because p-value is less than 0.01. Self-monitoring also has positive and significant (at 1%) association with work environment, perceived organizational support and with organizational commitment. Table 1 also suggests that organizational commitment also has positive and significant relevance with work environment, perceived organizational support and self-monitoring because values are in positive and p-value is less than 0.01. The model in above figure 2 was developed by drawing the direct paths from POS, work environment and self-monitoring towards organizational commitment. Statistical values (CMIN/DF= 1.98, GFI= 0.90, AGFI=0.87, CFI=0.93, RMR=0.05, RMSEA=0.08) suggest that overall model is good fit because all the values are following the fit criteria suggested by different authors. CFI (Comparative fit index) analyzes the fitness of model. The values range of CFI is from 0-1. High value of CFI interprets the model as good fit. CFI value 0.90 or higher suggests that the model is acceptable and good fit [21]. GFI and AGFI are short of 'goodness of fit index' and 'adjusted goodness of fit index'.
These values also help to find fitness of model. The range of these values is between 0-1. If model has 0.90 or high values, which describes that the model is good and acceptable. RMR is short of 'Root mean square residual.' RMR small values lead the model towards goodness [22]. Root Mean Square Error of Approximation RMSEA is acceptable at .08 or below. The path from perceived organizational support to organizational commitment is positive but insignificant as these values suggest (regression weight= 0.05, p-value= 0.33). Whereas, the path from work environment to organizational commitment is positive and significant as these values represent (regression weight= 0.23, p-value=0.000). The path from self-monitoring to organizational commitment (regression weight= 0.34, p-value= 0.000) is positive and significant. The results suggest that self-monitoring plays the mediating role in the relationship of organizational commitment and work environment. Self-monitoring also plays the mediating role in the association of perceived organizational support and organizational commitment. Self-monitoring converts the insignificant association of perceived organizational support and organizational commitment into significant. The results suggested the confirmation of our hypotheses about the relationships and mediation except for the relationship between perceived organizational support and commitment.

Conclusion
It is concluded that facilitative work environment helps to enhance the organizational commitment in employees. Self-monitoring which is the part of personality also mediates the association of work environment and organizational commitment. It suggested that high 316 Effect of Perceived Organizational Support and Work Environment on Organizational Commitment; Mediating Role of Self-Monitoring self-monitors feel comfortable in attractive, facilitative, safe and healthy work environment. On the other side, positive but insignificant association is found between organizational commitment and perceived organizational support. Perceived organizational support is the perceptions of employees about the support of an organization for the well-being of employees. It is evident that organizations are giving the attention towards profitability and stability without considering the well-being of their employees. But self-monitoring mediates the association of perceived organizational support and organizational commitment. As it is mentioned that self-monitoring is the personality variable, which has direct or indirect connection with different work behaviors, personality traits and attitudes like commitment, its importance is threefold. It's a fact that attitudes always influence the behaviors so work behaviors are necessary to consider. That's why self-monitoring plays the mediating role in the association of perceived organizational support and organizational commitment.

Practical Implications and Future Directions
This research was intended to study the effect of perceived organizational support and work environment on organizational commitment, as well as analyzed mediating role of self-monitoring in the service sector of Lahore, Pakistan. Highly committed workforce always led the organization towards success. Service sector organizations should always try to retain its workforce by giving facilitative working environment and by supporting them. It is also the responsibility of an organization to provide the training about self-monitoring and all personality characteristics to their employees, through proper channels.
The sector which was targeted for this study is service sector. So the findings are restricted to service sector only. This research can be replicated in other sectors as well for more generalizability. The future research could investigate emotional intelligence as a part of mechanism between different attitudes and behaviors. Small sample size is also a limitation which can be overcome by including more respondents.