Human resource management, commitment and performance links in Iran and Turkey

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influences of human resource management (HRM) practices on organizational commitment (OC), individual job performance (IJP) and organizational performance (OP) and the effects of OC on IJP and OP at travel agencies in Iran and Turkey. Given research site observation, improving HRM practices fostering OC, IJP and OP was essential to high service quality in hospitality industry.

Data were collected through a survey based on interview and e-mail from 440 employees working at travel agencies in both countries. Analysis methodology included demographic statistics, descriptive statistics, factor analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis.

Only reward (RE), teamwork (TW), job description (JD), delegation (DL) and career management (CM) influenced affective commitment (AC); JD and CM affected continuance commitment (CC); and recruitment and selection (RS), RE, salary and wage (SW), TW, DL, job security (JS) and CM influenced normative commitment (NC) significantly and positively. Likewise, only RS, TR, SW, TW, DL and CM affected IJP; and TR, JS and CM affected OP significantly and positively. Finally, AC, CC and NC influenced IJP and only AC and CC impacted OP significantly and positively.

Sample and number of respondents were limited. Generalization of findings was not possible. E-mail respondents raised the problem of who filled the form. Scales did not include personality traits, socio-cultural features and economic conditions which should be explored. However, the research provided recommendations to travel agencies in both countries.

This study filled the gap in hospitality industry in Iran and Turkey where research works into wide-ranging HRM practices–OC–IJP–OP links were few and far between.