High Involvement Work Systems and Organizational Commitment in Insurance Companies in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya

Abstract

Building a committed and efficient workforce relies on effective human resource management (HRM) processes at the corporate level and contributions at the individual level. In this regard the High Involvement Work Systems (HIWS) as a HRM practice needs to enhance reciprocity of organizational commitment at the expense of employee turnover or counter work productive behavior. However, the mechanics of how to forge the right level of employee commitment to the organization is still not straightforward, more specifically among insurance firms in Kenya. In this regard the insurance industry in Kenya continues to face performance challenges with low penetration. Thus, the current study was designed to assess the effect of high involvement work systems on organizational commitment in insurance companies in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya. The study was guided by the following specific objectives: to assess the effect of information sharing, team-based support on organizational commitment in insurance companies in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya. In a bid to effectively achieve these objectives, the study adopted a descriptive research design based on samples drawn from across the insurance companies in Uasin Gishu County. The target population was 754 insurance companies' employees. A two-stage sampling technique was adopted where stratified random sampling was used to select the insurance companies after which simple random sampling was used to select respondents within the insurance companies. The study used the Slovin's Formula to calculate the sample size which was 261 respondents from the target population of 754 respondents. Data was collected by use of selfadministered questionnaires and analyzed by use of both inferential and descriptive statistics using SPSS version 25. From the findings, high involvement work systems had a positive and significant effect on organizational commitment in insurance companies in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya. In addition, considering the two independent study variables, there is a probability of 46.8 percent (R 2 =0.468) in predicting organizational commitment. In this regard the insurance companies should invest in this HIWS as information sharing, team-based support, for maximal organizational commitment. The findings are significant to the human resource management of organizations in seeing the need for strengthening their HIWS through a policy framework