Fluent Essays

HI please read the articles given below. i have uploaded three documents, the article, guidelines for the assignment and the template which we have to follow and do the assignment. please read all the three documents before making a bid. if you can do the assignment thern only send me a message and a bid. once again read the guidelines document then see the template of the assignment and then read the article and do the assignment as per the guidelines and the template given. the assignment must be exactly the same as the template. i need the assignment by Sep 6th 2021. Thank You. RESEARCH IN PRACTICE HRMT 620 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Please select one of the attached articles for the purpose of this assignment.        Now write a review of this article. The purpose of this review is to describe the journal article for an audience of non-experts, using an appropriate level of detail and formality so that the scientific issues are clear. The big goal is to investigate the applicability of the research to HR practices in Canada. Please use the attached template to write your paper. Your key objectives are the following: 1.      To summarize this article for non-experts with enough details as to catch all the key things discussed including the methodology and the results. 2.      To connect research to practice- Comment on the applied potential of the article you are reviewing. This means you should focus more on the conclusions section of the article and focus more on the key results, how they can be adopted/applied in practice (in the industry, local organizations etc.). Comment on if you think the results can be generalized or not. Also, comment on the potential of furthering the research so as to becomes more relevant to HR practices in Canada.   You may wish to consult your textbook, course notes, and other sources for additional details regarding the issues discussed. Be sure to cite these sources appropriately. Specific Instructions:  1.      Your paper should be typed, with double-spacing. Margins and font size should follow APA (e.g., 1-inch margins, Times 12-point font). 2.      The paper will fill between 5 and 7 pages (not including a title page, and the reference page, which must be included). All papers should adequately address the goals described above. 3.      Expectations: a.       Opening paragraph needs to capture your audience and introduce your short paper. A thesis statement at the end of your introductory paragraph is mandatory. b.      Each topic sentence of each body paragraph introduces the point of focus for that paragraph. (Each topic sentence in each body paragraph appears in the order stated in the thesis statement.) 4.      Title page, essay, and reference list all to APA formatting standards. 5.      A minimum of ten articles including the one you choose must be cited for this assignment within the body of your paper as well as on your reference list. All citations (in the text and on the reference page) must be consistent with APA style. 6.      Assume that your paper will be read by an intelligent layperson with no specific training in Human Resources. To be considered complete, your paper must include all information that would be necessary for such a reader to understand it. 7.      Limit the use of direct quotes, and make sure that you avoid plagiarism. 8.      You may not work together on writing your papers, although you should feel free to discuss the topics and the journal articles.  Grading  1.      Grading will be based on both content and writing.  2.      When grading the form of your paper, I will examine the general clarity and organization of the paper.  3.      The content portion of your grade will reflect the extent to which your paper completely and accurately achieves the goals described in the General Instructions. Note, however, that if your writing is not clear, this may have a negative impact on my ability to see that you have achieved these goals, so unclear writing may indirectly impact this part of your grade. Important Note: You are strongly encouraged to re-read these instructions after writing your paper so that you don’t leave anything out.  A note on Plagiarism It is extremely important that your paper consists entirely of your own writing. There are two reasons for this. First, it is intellectually dishonest to claim credit for someone else’s writing. Second, I cannot evaluate what you have learned unless you express your ideas in your own words. Many students plagiarize papers without realizing that they are doing so, and it is, therefore, necessary to describe what plagiarism really means. Obviously, if you copy an entire paper from some other source, that is plagiarism. But it is also plagiarism to copy a single paragraph or even a single sentence. It is even plagiarism to change the individual words but copy the structure of someone else’s paragraph or sentence. A common form of plagiarism (and one that should be avoided) is a mixture of copying and paraphrasing, as exemplified by the following sentences:   The original sentence from published work: “Without an attentional mechanism that can bind together the features of a given object, incorrect combinations of features are likely to be perceived. Thus, just as in FIT, this analysis suggests that illusory conjunctions are likely to occur in the absence of attention.” A plagiarized version: “Without attention to binding together the features, incorrect combinations of features are likely to be perceived. That is, illusory conjunctions are likely to occur in the absence of attention.” It is easy to detect this sort of plagiarism. If I discover any plagiarism in your paper, your grade will be lowered significantly, and you may face severe sanctions from the University. The best way to avoid accidentally plagiarizing a paper is to write your paper based on your memory and not to look at any books or journal articles while you are writing. You should also be careful when looking at your notes, because your notes may contain exact duplicates of phrases from published works. After you have written a draft of your paper, you should then go back to the published works to make sure that your memory was correct. 2 Assignment 2: PM article Review (Add name of article here) Your Name University Canada West HRMT 620: Human Resource Management Instructor Name 1 Due Date, 20XX (Present the study you are reviewing, name the design, and briefly explain the study. See the example abstract below, which you may use as a guide.) Abstract This article, Insert Title Here, employs a [insert name of the quantitative design (e.g. experimental, correlational, quasi-experimental)] design and investigates …. using a sample of…. . 2 Indicate the journal article selected Surname, Initial., Surname, Initial., & Surname, Initial. (Year). Title of journal article with no caps. Title of Journal, Volume number (issue number), page numbers. Statement of Problem [What is the research problem being addressed, and what are the specific research question(s)? What are the researchers trying to do? Why?]. What is your goal? How will you use this article to guide practice. Literature Review [Briefly describe relevant research that guided or precipitated this study. Include citations. Note: this should not be an exhaustive restatement of the article’s introduction; just summarize the key theory or empirical findings that provide the background and rationale for the study being reviewed.] Hypotheses To Be Tested [What are the hypotheses of this study? What did the researchers predict they would find?] Method [Note: the content under each of these headings should be one or two lines.] Participants [Who were the participants (demographics), and how were they recruited/selected?] Materials [Briefly make note of the materials/measures that were used to assess the variables and to assess reliability and validity.] Procedure [Briefly describe the procedure – what was done in the study?] Statistics [Name the primary statistical design(s) employed. How were the data analyzed? What inferential analyses were performed? Which statistics and/or tests of significance were used?] Results [Briefly describe the main findings (include numerical values where appropriate).] Implications Implications for HRM- [What are the implications of the findings? Support your assertions with citations from the text and additional references where possible.] Discussion (Please note this is the most important section of your paper. Use further research to develop this section) Summary [Summarize the main results with reference to the original hypotheses. To what extent were the hypotheses supported by the findings?] Interpretation and Application [Are the conclusions made by the author(s) warranted? What are the possible alternative explanations of the results? What are the strengths of the study? What was done well? What are the weaknesses/limitations of the study? Incorporate your knowledge of course-related concepts in your discussion of these questions (e.g., can the results guide practice, were they based on latest HR theories and ideas). Support your claims with material from the text and other scholarly references, as appropriate.] For Further Study [Recommend what should be done next in this area. How can this work be followed up or extended?] References [alphabetical order] Surname, Initial., Surname, Initial., & Surname, Initial. (Year). Title of journal article with no caps. Title of Journal, Volume number (issue number), page numbers. Surname, Initial. (Year). Book title: No caps except after colon or if the capitalization is for proper nouns like names of assessment tools. City, State or Province written as 2 letter abbreviation, such as ON: Publisher Name. Read online: Scan this QR code with your smart phone or mobile device to read online. South African Journal of Business Management ISSN: (Online) 2078-5976, (Print) 2078-5585 Page 1 of 11 Original Research http://www.sajbm.org Open Access Authors: Kehinde G. Somoye1 Şerife Z. Eyupoglu1 Affiliations: 1Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Near East University, Nicosia, Turkey Corresponding author: Kehinde Somoye, [email protected] Dates: Received: 13 Nov. 2019 Accepted: 03 Apr. 2020 Published: 25 June 2020 How to cite this article: Somoye, K.G., & Eyupoglu, S.Z. (2020). The functionality of reward in influencing the reinforcement of performance evaluation criteria and organisational commitment among employees. South African Journal of Business Management, 51(1), a1848. https://doi.org/10.4102/ sajbm.v51i1.1848 Copyright: © 2020. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. Introduction Reward refers to a potent leverage to motivate employee behaviour, a particular monetary return or event that employees receive in exchange for performed tasks in the workplace and a precondition for achieving organisational goals (Cristofori, Salvi, Beeman, & Grafman, 2018; Gbande, 2016; Franco-Santos & Gomez-Mejia, 2015). There are sources for rewards. Among several sources for reward (such as job, skill, seniority), according to Hamukwaya and Yazdanifard (2014), a proper performance-based reward system is fundamental. Before an employee can be rewarded, there should be an objective yardstick to it which forms the bases upon what to be rewarded. These yardsticks are called criteria. Using appropriate criteria by an employing organisation to evaluate the employees can positively affect the organisational performance (Pettijohn, Pettijohn, & Taylor, 2000). In practice, what is evaluated are the certain behaviours required from employees to ensure that the services that bring forth performance are provided in the organisations. However, the efficiency of this evaluation mainly rests on the criteria for evaluation (Venclová, Salková, & Kolácková, 2013). For organisations to reinforce the desired behaviours and making these behaviours to be exhibited continuously, reward is one of the needed tools (Dad, Ali, Janjua, Shahzad, & Khan, 2010). Organisational commitment (OC) is considered as one of the most important concepts in the area of organisational behaviour and human resource management (HRM) (Dhar, 2015). It refers to individuals’ loyalty or bond to their employing organisation (Demir, Sahin, Teke, Ucar, & Kursun, 2009). It has been a concept highly valued in every organisation that connects the employee to the Purpose: The primary aim of this study was to provide empirical evidence on how reward can trigger employees to act in a way that is in tandem with an organisation’s performance evaluation criteria in the service delivery sector. In addition, it examines how organisations can use reward to influence organisational commitment. Design/methodology/approach: A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was adopted. Primary data were collected using a structured questionnaire targeting the employees in the Nigerian public service sector. To test its hypotheses, the study used the data collected from 522 respondents in Nigeria Local Government (LG). Data were analysed on SPSS (version 20) using regression. Findings/results: The analysis of this study identifies reward to influence performance evaluation criteria and organisational commitment in the public service sector. The results obtained demonstrate that reward has a significant influence on organisational commitment. In addition, the reward system of an organisation was found to be a significant channel to reinforce the desired behaviours that inform performance criteria. Practical Implications: With the findings of this study it is concluded that reward is a key variable that can help the public service sector to become more effective and efficient. However, the use of reward by managers can make performance evaluation criteria worthy of appreciation by the employees, thereby increasing organisational commitment. Originality/value: This study revealed the dual role reward can play to influence employees’ organisational commitment, and the behaviours that organisations desire to reinforce in performance evaluation criteria. This is the first study that examined this relationship. Keywords: reward; performance evaluation criteria; organisational commitment; local government; public service sector. The functionality of reward in influencing the reinforcement of performance evaluation criteria and organisational commitment among employees Read online: Scan this QR code with your smart phone or mobile device to read online. Page 2 of 11 Original Research http://www.sajbm.org Open Access organisation (Oyeniyi, 2013). Among many scholars, Nazir, Shafi, Qun, Nazir and Tran (2016) showed that increasing OC is linked to a good reward system. Research shows that the substantial level of reward offered by an organisation to its employees for commitment can influence the employees to be more committed. In practice, this suggests that the more frequent the reward for commitment to employees, the stronger the possibility to increase commitment. In the service delivery sector, in which the public sector is a key player, services such as education, energy, health, security, roads, transportation, and many other services targeted at citizens, tourists, public and private companies remain part of their responsibilities. These responsibilities are channels of investment to a nation’s economy in which its daily activities are to be propelled by an effective and committed large pool of human resources for good service delivery to the people. However, in Nigeria, the Local Government (LG), which is a service delivery sector, has not provided optimal services to meet the basic needs of the people at grassroots level. One of the reasons, as provided by Onyishi, Eme and Emeh (2012), is that there is an inconsiderable commitment to duty on the part of the employees. In addition, as highlighted by Simmons (2015), reward in the LG does not take into account performance as it is tainted with unfairness and nepotism. Unfortunately, due to the increase in corruption level, exhibiting good behaviours has lost relevance in the LG performance evaluation criteria. The needed commitment in the LG can occur if it administers reward appropriately to desired behaviours exhibited to given responsibilities. This, as noted by Pitt, Foreman and Bromfield (1995), can nurture employees’ committment to the organisation, making them serve it better. Studies on the relationship between reward and OC is considered less apparent in the LG and there is no study that has examined the influence reward has on performance evaluation criteria (PEC) in the service delivery sector. This is a gap that this study intends to fill. It is against this background that this study examines how organisations can use a reward system to motivate employees to act in a way that is in tandem with the organisation’s PEC and how reward influences OC. The originality of this current study reveals the dual role reward can play to influence employees’ OC and the behaviours that organisations desire to reinforce in PEC. Coupled with this is the setting of the study which is the Nigerian public service sector and no previous study has examined this relationship. This study contributes to the HRM and public service literature by revealing a deeper relationship that exists between the investigated variables, which can bring about effective public service delivery. The conceptual framework for this study is presented in Figure 1. Theoretical framework and hypothesis development Reward In an increasingly competitive society as we have today, organisations that are passionate about their visions and missions are constantly adapting their strategies to attract, motivate and retain competent persons. An efficient reward system seems to be the best way to go about it. Reward is an organisational obligation to the employees to compensate for their contribution towards the attainment of organisational goals (Nwokocha, 2016; Saleem, 2011). Many researchers have argued that reward is the greatest source of motivation to the employees (Tsede & Kutin, 2013; Karami, Dolatabadi, & Rajaeepour, 2013; Nwokocha, 2016). It is known that everyone needs motivation to function effectively and efficiently. According to Armstrong (2010), reward is a form of recognition of a person’s contribution. This recognition, which can be tangible or non-tangible, is on the basis of the job that such individuals do, level of their performance, competence or skill (contingent or variable pay), or for their services in the job (service-related pay) (Nwokocha, 2016). It is in view of this that an organisational reward system has to be well broadened to capture the contributions at a diverse level. The essence of this reward is such that employees can enhance the quality of their work (Mujtaba & Shuaib, 2010). In the views of Karami et al. (2013), there are three reasons why organisations should consistently give rewards. Firstly, with a good reward system, the organisation attracts employees with the necessary competence and qualifications; secondly, the reward that is given to employees instead of service compensation is a medium to get a response from the previous performance; and thirdly, reward is a motivational tool for future performance. This implies that with reward, an organisation gets the best persons for the job and enhances the commitment of the employees. Performance evaluation criteria In organisations, employees are adequately informed about their roles through the job description. This job description can include, for example, responsibilities, skills and job input that relates to the specific jobs which are expected to accurately reflect a comprehensive scope expedient for employees’ success in the organisation (Jacobson, Trojanowski, & Dewa, 2012). Mader-Clark (2013) noted that job description communicates an organisation’s expectation reflecting clear-cut goals. Besides, PEC can be interpreted to be similar to organisational goals (Shen, 2004). The soft goal is an example of an organisational goal that clearly explains the nature of PEC. Fekete and Rozenberg (2014) and Kang and Shen (2016) explained soft goals as work attitude and behaviour, individual performance, experience, leadership skills, interpersonal skills and customer service quality. Furthermore, while defining performance evaluation, Seniwoliba (2014) explained it to be an evaluation process where quantitative scores are assigned to a certain employee’s FIGURE 1: Conceptual framework. Reward Organisa�onal commitment Performance evalua�on criteria Page 3 of 11 Original Research http://www.sajbm.org Open Access performance based on predetermined criteria. The criteria are borne out of the understanding of the relative connections they have with organisational performance. Inspiring the implementation of PEC among employees can be a positive move for an organisation for its potency to encourage employees to behave in the desired way that suits the expectations of the organisation for success. From another perspective PEC describes the common beliefs of employees accompanied by a greater degree of agreement and compliance (Saturno, Palmer, & Gascón, 1999). When an employee has a trait or displays a behaviour naturally that favours or disfavours organisational goals, a point of confluence between the employee and employer can positively or negatively alter the future relationship between both sides. This remains one out of many reasons why criteria are needed to be clear, with both sides agreeing to it for performance evaluation. According to Duraisingam and Skinner (2005), PEC is to be correctly identified by organisations. Also, the employees need to perceive these criteria as being relevant and applicable to their daily tasks, acceptable and fair and mutually agreed between management and employees. Participation of employees in the development of these criteria aids their perception in that it fosters cooperation between the managers and the employees, thereby preventing any future conflicts between them (Islam & Rasad, 2006). Objectivity is one characteristic of a fair performance evaluation which is to be based on behaviours regarding some functions that are under the control of the employees (Çelik, 2014). Communication is key here. Just as communicating the result of an evaluation process to employees is important, so is the communication of PEC. As noted by Erdogan (2000), this is the duty of an employing organisation. As a fair process, these criteria are to be understood by the employees prior to the evaluation period (Erdogan, 2000). And as a matter of preference, what makes up the PEC, indicate importance and what is absent, indicate unimportance (Islam & Rasad, 2006). Organisational commitment Organisations that thrive in a very competitive market do consider having committed employees as part of their human resources so as to achieve their set goals and objectives (Milgo, Namusonge, Kanali, & Makokha, 2014). Being seen as a necessary part of the organisation creates a psychological relationship between the organisation and the employees, whereby the employees see themselves as part of a team working towards the success of the organisation (Brenda & Onuoha, 2016; Khan et al., 2014). For both the employing organisation and the employees, it has been related to valuable outcomes that can bring about increased feelings of belonging, security, efficacy, greater career advancement, increased compensation and increased intrinsic rewards for the employees (Azeem, 2010). Its antecedents include several variables such as job satisfaction, motivation, participative decision-making, organisational support, financial reward, communication, promotion prospects and leadership (Lok & Crawford, 2004; Salami, 2008). Coupled with this, it has been noted to be dependent on some demographic variables such as age, organisational tenure and education (Elizur & Koslowsky, 2001). One of the most widely accepted definitions of OC is given by Allen and Meyer (1990). They defined OC as affective (which means employees devote themselves to actions because of the desire to achieve goals in favour of their organisation), continuance (which means being calculative as an employee before taking a decision to leave an organisation - an ability that creates an awareness), and normative (which is the costs that employees would have to obtain if the decision to leave an organisation is inevitable). As noted by Nehmeh (2009), OC is what sustains employees to stay in the organisation for a long tenure, makes them understand the goals and work assiduously towards meeting the targets. According to Irefin and Mechanic (2014), individuals who are less committed, are more interested in their personal success than the organisational success; in effect, they do not put their heart into the job and an opportunity elsewhere would result in their quitting their job. On the other hand, committed employees will see themselves as a part of the organisation and remain loyal to it (Permarupan, Al-Mamun, Saufi, & Zainol, 2013). They see the success of the organisation as theirs too and any danger to the organisation is considered as a threat to them too (Irefin & Mechanic, 2014). So OC can be seen as the extent to which the employees see themselves as part of the organisational values and missions and are committed to achieving them. Reward and performance evaluation criteria In the list of decisions that an average organisation makes, one of the top priorities need to be the reward system. On one side, human resources in an organisation must be paid for their work. Meanwhile, from a general point of view, it must be stated that work is not an end in itself, rather a means that gives individuals the opportunity to acquire the resources needed to enjoy their time away from the job (Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin, & Schwartz, 1997) Realistically, work is essential, nevertheless, the acquired resources can be money which is associated with employees’ perception of their work. The perception may be just to be present at work regularly during the working hours, carry out the necessary tasks and get paid at the end of the month. This primarily gives employees the opportunity to afford their basic needs, go on vacations and be at leisure. On another side, employees would not only settle for a salary as they are also interested in promotion, advancement, fringe benefits, to mention a few (Dewhurst, Guthridge, & Mohr, 2009). Correctly rewarding employees can direct them to achieve the goals of the organisation which may have an indirect influence on the quality of services delivered to the customers (Asaari, Desa, & Subramaniam, 2019). It is observed by Paulsen (2002) that an organisation can be a group of coordinated people working as a team to achieve a set of goals - especially the soft goals, which precisely explain Page 4 of 11 Original Research http://www.sajbm.org Open Access the nature of PEC as noted previously. In order to meet these soft goals, amongst other requirements, an important one is building a team who knows the nature of the tasks to be carried out and can get them done with the appropriate behaviours for organisational performance. In the public sector, as claimed by Verbeeten (2008), there are many managers at different levels who have multiple goals and this can complicate the criteria applied to the administration of rewards to employees. For employees’ sake, the public sector has to be consistent with clear operating goals. According to Van der Hoek, Groeneveld and Kuipers (2018), having clear operating goals can help employees in knowing the expectations of the organisation and behave in a way that will make the goals achievable. In principle, when managers come to a decision that a team is needed to achieve a set of goals, each member of this team should have a strong feeling that their behaviours will be rewarded by the criteria accepted by the management. This can prompt the exhibition of behaviours to central goals and encourage not just the freedom in how these goals are achieved but also in offering rewards appropriate to it. While at the point of hiring new employees, organisations look for some specific behaviours that are core ingredients to achieve the organisational performance. By rewarding these behaviours, new or incumbent employees are routinely reminded of the goals of the organisation and how to achieve them. By so doing, these behaviours become criteria to evaluate the employees. The relationship between reward and PEC was clearly understood when viewed under the lens of Skinner’s theory. According to the theorists, Luthans and Kreitner (1985), four behaviourally oriented strategies were proposed by Skinner to shape employees’ behaviours. They are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment and extinction (Luthans & Kreitner, 1985). This study focuses on the first, which is positive reinforcement. It was said that behavior reinforced by a reward is likely to be repeated (Scott & Cogburn, 2017). For instance, an employee who is rewarded for punctuality or innovation at the workplace will put more effort into this behaviour. One of the main functions of performance evaluation is that it describes the behaviour that is desired, coupled with an observation of employees’ true behaviour (Šišinački, Dobiš, & Šišinački, 2017). In other words, when organisations create the appropriate climate of organisational support such as rewards, they reinforce these desired behaviours among employees. Failure of an organisation to identify, design and roll out a reward system will automatically and purposely reinforce undesirable behaviour among employees. The effectiveness of PEC depends on how just, well and fair organisations reward their employees. The reason for an employee to have low ratings in performance may be because of the poor reward system of the organisation. In the following sequence, this study proposes the following hypthesis: H1: The reward system of an organisation is a channel to reinforcing the desired behaviours that inform PEC Reward and organisational commitment While a myriad of studies have shown a strong correlation between an organisational rewarding system and OC (Eisenberger & Stinglhamber, 2011; Malhotra, Budhwar, & Prowse, 2007; Mabaso & Dlamini, 2018; Milgo et al., 2014; Nazir et al., 2016), there has been no comprehensive study that proves otherwise. Korir and Kipkebut (2016) examined the effect of reward management on employees’ commitment in the universities. The study found that financial reward management practices collectively have a significant effect on OC. While examining the effect of reward practices on employee commitment, Okinyi (2015) assessed the reward policies put in place by faith-based health organisations to enhance employees’ commitment and also examined the effect of intrinsic rewards on employees’ commitment in the organisation. It was revealed that there is a strong relationship, and the better the practice, the more committed employees will be to the organisation. Similarly, Brenda and Onuoha (2016), while examining the relationship between dimensions of reward management strategies (pay structures and employee benefits) and the indicators of OC (affective and continuance commitment), the findings showed a positive relationship between reward management strategies and OC. It was concluded that the implementation of pay structures and employee benefits significantly enhances OC (affective and continuance commitment). Ahmed, Ismail, Amin, Ramzan and Khan (2012) and Smyth and Zimba (2019) describe reward to organisational support and employees always try to give their best in the form of commitment to return this support. However, in this section, this study intends to understand how the Social Exchange Theory (SET) is applied in this relationship. Previously, this theory has been used in health care (Guo, Guo, Fang, & Vogel, 2017; Nazir, Qun, Hui, & Shafi, 2018), social psychology (Chernyak-Hai & Rabenu, 2018; Wikhamn & Hall, 2012), business (Jeong & Oh, 2017), and marriages (Sabatelli, Lee, & Ripoll-Núñez, 2018), to mention a few. Its main foundation emphasised on the assumption that purposive actors engage and nurture relationships according to the belief that rewards will be beneficial (Zafirovski, 2005). The exchange relationship between two or more actors, which can be a worker and an organisation, is the core concern of SET. An exchange takes place within an environment where there are interaction, allowing actors to manage resources that are valued by other actors (Molm, Takahashi, & Peterson, 2000; Nunkoo, 2016). In addition, in the exchange for criteria such as innovativeness, communication or reliability in service delivery, employees anticipate organisational support such as rewards. Similarly, organisations expect employees to perform with desirable results in exchange for rewards. According to Lin, Chiu and Liu (2019), SET puts forward that provision for reward should be done appropriately to enhance performance. This stems from the fact that as employees gain the support of Page 5 of 11 Original Research http://www.sajbm.org Open Access their employing organisation, they feel obligated to embrace the norm of reciprocity for this support by ensuring that they become a better performer for effective organisational performance (Tokay & Eyupoglu, 2018). Quite plainly, an organisationally committed employee is expected to be a better performer (Al Zefeiti & Mohamad, 2017). Employees are the human resources that evaluates the favourable and unfavourable factors in the organisation before taking action. For example, the voluntary exchange of symbolic resources takes place when employees understand that there are benefits attached, according to Hsu, Yin and Huang (2017). This is the norm of reciprocity, and as affirmed by Sungu, Weng and Kitule (2019), it plays a significant role in strengthening the social framework. According to Brown and Roloff (2015), organisational support will strengthen an employee’s belief that the organisation recognises and rewards increased performance. More so, favourable opportunities for rewards serve to communicate a positive valuation of employees’ contributions. This enables employees to interpret the organisational value and become committed to it. On the authority of SET theorists, it has been proposed that a reward brings forth greater commitment from employees, which has a positive effect on their future engagement toward organisational goals (Tsai & Kang, 2019). Reward systems exist with a specific long-run objective to motivate employees to work towards the achievement of organisational goals (Abbah, 2014; Anku, Amewugah, & Glover, 2018). This is possible when the reward system has brought about commitment in the employees. In the study of Osemeke (2016), it was identified that OC is greatly influenced by the type of reward that the employees receive. Also, employees’ commitment to their organisation is enhanced by the use of a profit-sharing arrangement (Long, 2000; Osemeke, 2016), which is a system with the intent of returning to the employees a share of the fruits of their collective labour (Coyle-Shapiro, Morrow, Richardson, & Dunn, 2002). By utilising SET to examine the relationship between reward and OC, the evidence shows that better understanding is obtained with regard to the reason why employees increase their OC with a good reward practice. A social exchange relationship suggests obligation and rights on the organisation and its employees (Liu, Loi, & Ngo, 2018). The employing organisation should offer rewards to its employees, in exchange for their commitment. Based on this premise, this study proposes the following hypothesis: H2: Organisation reward practice positively influences OC among employees Methodology Data collection and measurement The primary data used in this study was gathered via administration of a structured questionnaire. This questionnaire was administered to LG employees in two states in Nigeria. Local government workers represent a part of the workforce under the Nigerian public service sector. Several studies that have been carried out to examine the public sector have also used LG employees as respondents of their surveys (Sam-Okere & Agbeniga, 2014). There are six states in the Southwest region of Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was used in the process of selecting the states used for this survey. Two out of the six states were selected, namely Ekiti State and Osun State. Ekiti state has 16 LGs while Osun State has 30 LGs. In Ekiti state the three biggest LGs were selected with a total population of 2471 employees and in Osun State the seven largest LGs were selected with a total population of 1951 employees. At the time this study was carried out, as released by the Director of Personnel Management of the 10 LGs, the total population was 4422. For this population size, according to Krejcie and Morgan (1970), 354 is suitable at ±5% precision level and 95% confidence level. A stratified sampling technique was adopted to select the employees to participate in the survey. There are nine departments in the LGs in the two states used for this study and they are administration and general services, budget and planning, finance and supply, agriculture and food security, works, water and environmental sanitation, town and regional planning, social and community development, and primary health care. Each department of the LG formed a stratum. To have a robust result, 600 copies of questionnaires were administered in the 10 LGs and 525 copies were collected from the field of survey. The respondents were at ease with the objectives of the study due to the simplicity of each item of the questionnaire. The respondents were offered gifts worth 2 USD each to motivate them to voluntarily respond to the items of the questionnaire. The questionnaire had a cover page on which they were informed of the researchers’ strict adherence to the rules of confidentiality and anonymity. No one was forced to attempt the questionnaire and anyone who was no longer interested to continue the survey was allowed to opt out. The questionnaire that was used for this study was designed according to the literature review of this study. All the constructs in the questionnaire were measured using existing scales. The reward items were adapted from the study of Kassabgy, Boraie and Schmidt (2001), OC from the study of Meyer and Allen (1997) and PEC from the …