This study examines the relationship between attitudes of non-management professional staff-members in the Malaysian Public Works Department (PWD) toward participation in decision making (PDM) and their organizational commitment. It also intends to analyze the extent to which organizational variables and individual/personality variables moderate the participation - organizational commitment relationship. / In the early phase of the study, an exploratory survey was conducted where open-ended questionnaires were sent to twenty-five non-management professional staff in the PWD. The data collected from this exploratory survey, combined with other empirical studies, helped the researcher to develop working hypotheses and the framework that guided the inquiry. Decision areas of PDM included in the questionnaire were participation in social issues, participation in personnel issues and participation in economic/strategic issues. The organizational commitment construct has four measures which include conformity to rules, desire to remain in the organization, willingness to exert extra effort, and commitment to develop professionally. The moderator variables for the organization were career advancement opportunities and organizational communication process while the individual/personality variables were superiors' attitudes toward PDM and sense of competence. From a total of 384 questionnaires which were distributed to non-management professional staff, 328 (85.4%) were returned and usable for the analysis. The statistical techniques employed to analyze the data include descriptive analysis, t-test, correlation analyses, and moderated multiple regression. / The results of this study show that male non-management professional staff in the PWD perceive they have higher levels of participation in decision making than their female counterparts. Also, those respondents who perceived they enjoy a higher level of participation tended to feel more committed to the organization. The analyses of moderator variables revealed that increased participation in decision making will increase commitment to the organization among the non-management professional-staff who perceive their superiors as having favorable attitudes toward PDM. For the respondents who perceive they have a high competency level, an increase in participation in all the three decision areas (social, personnel, economic/strategic) heightens their commitment to extra effort and to develop professionally but decreases their desire to remain in the organization. Non-management professional staff who perceive they have high opportunities for career advancement tend to demonstrate high commitment to remain in the organization, to exert extra effort, and to develop professionally. For those who were highly satisfied with the communication process in organization, increased participation in decision making on social and economic/strategic related issues raised their commitment to conform with the rules, remain in the organization, exert extra effort, and develop professionally. / Future studies of employees' attitudes toward participation of different kinds and in different decision areas will help the Malaysian managers to develop and implement more effective participatory systems leading to an improved quality of working life. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-11, Section: A, page: 4255. / Major Professor: Frank P. Sherwood. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77042 |
| Contributors | Mat Zin, Razali Bin., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 328 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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