Affective Commitment and Universities Workers’ job satisfaction: Mediating Roles of human resource management practices

The paper examines multiple mediating mechanisms through which affective commitment affects job satisfaction among workers of public universities in developing countries. Four mediating variables, compensation and rewards, promotion, training and development, and welfare practices were examined relative to the impact of affective commitment on job satisfaction. A simple random sampling technique was used to select a sample of 384 respondents from the workers of the University of Cape Coast. Research instrument used in data gathering was the questionnaire. The Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) technique was employed to estimate the measurement and structural models. Findings revealed that compensation and rewards, promotion, and welfare practices partially mediated the association between affective commitment and job satisfaction. Additionally, affective commitment positively relates to compensation and rewards, promotion, welfare practices, training and development, and job satisfaction. By adopting human resource management practices that improve performance in organisations, the study showed that, to foster job satisfaction among the workers, management should leverage on the right welfare practices with the hope to boost affective commitment of the workers. However, research in this area has not fully looked at the various mediating paths that influence the link between affective commitment and job satisfaction. The study theorises and empirically examines compensation and rewards, promotion, welfare practices, and training and development as novel mechanisms through which affective commitment enhances job satisfaction.