Demographic and Organisational Antecedents of Commitment among SME Employees in Imo State, Nigeria

The study examined some demographic (gender, age, length of service, educational qualification and marital status) and organisational (level of job tension and perceived job characteristics) antecedents of commitment among employees of fourteen SMEs in Imo State of Nigeria. A total of 174 participants, comprising of 117 females and 57 males, aged between 18 - 40 years with a mean age of 24.99 years and SD of 4.56 were administered with three instruments Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn and Snoek-s Job-related Tension Inventory, Hackman and Oldham-s Job Characteristics Scale and Meyer, Allen and Smith-s three dimensional Organisational Commitment Questionnaire. Survey designed and One-Way MANOVA was used for data collection and analysis. Results indicated that, employees did not significantly differ in their levels of job tension on the three dimensions of organisational commitment. Also, employees- perceived level of job characteristics, except for the continuance commitment, did not significantly differ in affective and normative commitment. Results also show that gender and age differences were significant for affective commitment but were not significant for continuance and normative commitment. Furthermore, the findings showed that length of service, educational qualification and marital status were not significant across all three dimensions of organisational commitment. The results were discussed with particular reference to the commitment needs of SME employees in Nigeria.