A RESEARCH ON DETERMINING
THE INFLUENCE OF HRM PRACTICES ON INCREASING ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT1
ESIN ERTEMSIR
Yildiz Technical University, Turkey
YASEMIN BAL
Yildiz Technical University, Turkey
SERDAR BOZKURT
Yildiz Technical University, Turkey
Human resources have become the key source of competitive advantage for the organizations that strive in challenging environments. In order to retain and satisfy their employees, organizations should design their human resource management (HRM) functions and practices consistent with the expectations of their employees. In this sense, organizational commitment of employees has become very important in order to retain the employees in the organization. Human resource managers can increase the organizational commitment levels of their employees by designing HRM functions and practices according to their expectations and by that way employees can feel that they are the most important assets of the organizations. The purpose of the research is to investigate the relationship between organizational commitment dimensions and HRM practices. Also determining the perceptions of employees for organizational commitment levels and HRM practices is another purpose of this research. According to the results of the research it will be possible to give insights to employers that
1 The earlier version of the study was presented at the 4th International Makelearn Conference, 25-27 June, 2014, Portorož, Slovenia

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can contribute to develop organizational commitment by HRM practices in organizations.
Key words: Human Resource Management, Organizational Commitment
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INTRODUCTION
Human resources are considered as the most important asset of an organization and human resources management function plays a vital role for organizations to gain competitive advantage. Several studies have shown that human resources management (HRM) practices have an impact on performance and competitive strategies of organizations. Taking into account that human resource management (HRM) has a strategic role | 5 | for organizations; it is possible to say that the design of HRM functions and practices should also be aligned with the expectations of employees.
Keeping employees committed to the organization is one of the most important priorities for many contemporary organizations. Especially in times of crises and job cuts, committing top performers to the organization becomes a challenge and organizations, which fail to accomplish this, will have reduced resources for the capability of competing in the future. Organizational commitment is one of the main reasons for these successful employees to stay in the organization (Neininger et. al. 2010, 567). Also the rapid change of factors such as globalization, economical and legal arrangements, technology has influence on organizational structures. These changes will have a positive impact on organizations only if the attitudes of employees to the organization are positive. Otherwise these changes may cause negative results such as job dissatisfaction, high turnover rate or absence of employees. In order to manage these change factors, organizations need to have and retain talented employees to work with high performance. In order to retain these employees, organizations should make efforts to increase the motivation and commitment of their employees. In this case HRM function of organizations has an important role on increasing the motivation and commitment of employees because the development of organizational commitment needs effective HRM practices.
The aim of the research is to investigate whether there is a relationship between employees' perceptions on human resources management practices and their organizational commitment or not. In this sense, HRM practices and organizational
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commitment literatures are reviewed in the paper and then an empirical research from Turkey is given in order to investigate the relationship between HRM practices and organizational commitment dimensions. It is found that there is a medium or strong level relationship between HRM practices and organizational commitment dimensions of employees.
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ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT AND HRM PRACTICES
ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
Organizational commitment emerged in 1970s and 1980s as a key factor of the relationship between individual and the organizations (Mowday et. al. 1982). Today organizational commitment is even more important since it is considered as the driving force behind organizational performance and a desirable quality which can reduce employee turnovers (Meyer et. al. 1989). The concept of commitment has been defined in different ways in the literature by various researchers (Kumar & Krishnaveni 2008). Organizational commitment as defined by Porter et al. (1974) has three major components; a strong belief in and acceptance of the organization's goals, a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and a definite desire to maintain organizational membership (Angle and Perry 1981; 0gaard, Marnburg and Larsen 2008).
Commitment is a positive feeling toward the organization, which depends on what employees' experience on the job and how they perceive the organization (Mowday et al. 1982). Organizational commitment is the individual's psychological attachment to the organization. Commitment represents something beyond loyalty to an organization. It involves an active relationship with the organization such that individuals are willing to give something of them in order to contribute to the organization's well being (Lamba and Choudhary 2013). According to another definition, organizational commitment can be interpreted as the employee's long-term relationship and intention to stay in the workplace with a devoted effort to reach the goals and objectives of the organization (Steers 1977;
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Mowday, Steers and Porter 1979). Organizational commitment has been defined as a psychological link between the employee and the organization that makes it less likely the employee will voluntarily leave the organization (Allen and Meyer 1996).
Porter and Steers (1973) offered a distinction as attitudinal and behavioral commitment. While attitudinal commitment refers a mindset in which individuals consider the congruency of their goals and values with those of their employing organizations, behavioral commitment identifies the process by which | 7 individuals' past behavior in an organization binds them to the organization (Prabhakar and Ram 2011; Porter, and Steers 1973).
Among the organizational commitment studies, the three-component model of Allen and Meyer (1990) has gained substantial popularity since its inception. Allen and Meyer (1990) identified and developed measures of three forms of commitment; affective, continuance and normative.
Affective commitment reflects an emotional attachment and involvement in the organization. It can be also defined as a desire to belong to the organization. It refers to a positive emotional connection between an employee and an organization. In other words, affective commitment is an indication that an individual is staying in a relationship because he/she feels as a part of the organization. From the organizational aspect, this is the preferred type of relationship with employees because an employee who is affectively committed wants to remain part of the organization and accept the organization's goals as his or her own.
Continuance commitment is based on the perceived costs associated with discontinuing employment with the organization. It refers to a situation in which an employee recognizes the rewards and benefits associated with continuing to work in the organization and maintaining a relationship or not. (Khaldoon, et al. 2011) This choice does not result from the sense of connection with the organization but from the fact that remaining in the organization is more beneficial than leaving (Velickovic et. al. 2014,). The greater an individual's perceived chances of obtaining a different job, and the greater desirability of that
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alternative position, the lower an individual's continuance organizational commitment tends to be (Bateman & Strasser 1984). Although this may seem like a negative aspect to the overall construct of organizational commitment, employees with strong continuance organizational commitment do experience a willingness to involve themselves with, and invest effort on behalf of, the organization (Bogler and Somech 2004). Since it refers to a psychological state in which the employee weighing to leave or stay in the organization chooses to stay, this dimension is also named ad "calculative commitment".
Normative commitment reflects a sense of obligation on the part of the employee to maintain membership in the organization (Meyer and Smith 2000). It explains moral obligations, social norms and one's obligation to the other party in a relationship. (Allen and Meyer 1990) This component is based on feelings of loyalty, developed through experiences prior to, and following, entry into an organization (McCunn and Gifford, 2014 21; Meyer et al. 2002; Weiner 1982) According to Li, Browne and Chau (2006), normative commitment and its implications are more relevant to B-to-B relationships.
In brief, the three components of organizational commitment are interrelated. Employees with strong affective commitment continue employment with the organization because they want to, those with strong continuance commitment remain because they need to and those with strong normative commitment because they feel they ought to do so (Meyer and Allen 1991). Meyer and Allen (1991) argued that the three components of commitment would develop in different ways and have different implications for job behavior. For example, continuance commitment was expected to develop in response to conditions (e.g. side bets) that increase the cost of leaving, whereas affective commitment was expected to be particularly sensitive to work experiences (e.g. job scope; organizational support). Normative commitment was believed to develop in response to social pressure. On the consequence side, affective commitment was expected to have the strongest positive effect on desirable work behaviors (e.g. attendance, performance, organizational citizenship behavior), followed by normative commitment. In
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parallel, Bergman suggested that affective commitment, calcu-lative commitment, and normative commitment are distinct ways that an individual can bond to an organization (Bergman 2006). Continuance commitment was expected to have little, or even a negative, impact on these behaviors (Powell and Meyer 2004, 159). Affective, continuance, and normative commitment reflect distinguishable psychological states (Meyer and Allen 1991) and develop from different antecedents (Allen and Meyer 1990). In a latter study Meyer et al. (2002) conclude from their | 9 | meta-analysis that perceived organizational support constitutes the strongest antecedent of organizational commitment. It creates a relationship of proximity that fosters identification with the organization. Perceived organizational support appears to account for over 50% of variance in affective organizational commitment (Biétry et al. 2014; Riggle et al. 2009). It could be stressed that committed employees have a strong belief in and acceptance of the organization's goals, show a willingness to put effort on behalf of the organization and have a strong desire to maintain membership with the organization (Baptiste 2008).
Fostering organizational commitment is a challenging issue both to the organization and the employee. In line with these changes, supervisor support may help organizations to maintain organizational commitment by enhancing the career development and employability of employees (Ito and Brotheridge 2005). Moreover, fair procedures, consideration, approval and respect conveyed by the direct line managers derive organizational commitment, as well as organizational rewards such as training and good-quality work conditions (Biétry et al. 2014; Rhoades and Eisenberger 2002). Two forms of research on organizational commitment appear in the literature such as antecedents of organizational commitment and outcomes of organizational commitment (Garg and Dhar 2014, 65). A large number of factors influencing organizational commitment have been recognized which consist of organizational aspects, job aspects and personal aspects (Mowday et al. 1979). Human resources management is one of the important factors that can affect the organizational commitment levels of employees. HRM functions and practices can increase the commitment of employees when
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they are designed to meet the expectations of employees in the organization and satisfy them. The theoretical background for the relationship between HRM and organizational commitment literature is given below in the next section.
HRM PRACTICES AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
It is important to highlight the point that HRM is not the prop-| 10 | erty of particular specialists. HRM should be seen as an aspect of all management levels. HRM is concerned with both the structure of work in a company and with all the related employment practices that are needed to carry out the work. HRM is not simply about HR or people practices; it is about the management of work and people in the company. HRM is concerned with managing people both individually and collectively (Boxall and Purcell 2003). In today's competitive business world both HR managers and line managers have become responsible for all HRM processes and practices in order to have an effective HR management in the organizations.
HRM functions and practices are the infrastructure elements of strategic HRM process. Organizations should strategically utilize these infrastructure requirements to gain competitive advantage, particularly through their human resources and human resource management practices. Infrastructure requirements consist of those functions and activities are necessary for effective management of an organization's human resources. The major purposes of these activities traditionally have been to attract, retain, and motivate employees. They are referred as HRM practices and the key HRM practices include; human resource planning, staffing including recruitment, selection and socialization, appraising, compensation, training and development. The result of effectively managing human resources is an enhanced ability to attract and retain qualified employees who are motivated to perform, and the results of having the right employees motivated to perform are numerous. They include greater profitability, low employee turnover, high product quality, lower production costs, and more rapid acceptance and corporate strategy (Schuler and MacMillan 1984).
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One of the most essential conditions for businesses to succeed is to have employees motivated by effective human resources practices and thus dedicated to running. In this sense, organizational commitment is the heart of HRM which help to explain a range of human attitudes and behaviors at work. It is the central feature that distinguishes HRM from traditional personnel management (Guest 1995). There are various studies in the literature which investigate the relationship between HR practices and organizational commitment (Delaney and Huselid 1996; Foster 2011; Meyer and Allen 1997; Meyer and Smith 2000; Biétry et al. 2014; Stewart and Brown 2011; Zaitouni, Sawalha and Sharif 2011; Shahnawaz and Juyal 2006; Kumar and Krishnaveni 2008; Prabhakar and Ram 2011; Koys 1988, 1991; Meyer, Becker and Vandenberghe 2004; Boon and Kalshoven 2014; Yu and Egri 2005; Kooij 2010; Mathieu and Zajac 1990; Kirkman and Rosen 1999).
Organizational commitment is expected to be influenced by employees' perceptions of the intensity and consistency of HR practices aimed at employee discretion and skill enhancement based on the following assumptions. First, using HR practices strengthens the ability of employees to carry out their work and to be productive. Allowing employees to direct their work and use their skills are means through which organizations can fully benefit from the capabilities and skills of the workforce. Secondly, offering HR practices can be regarded as an investment from the part of the employer and which employees can reciprocate by being more committed to the organization and by being more productive. This expectation is based on the employees' willingness to contribute to the goals of the organization. And, thirdly, by applying the HR practices consistently, employers signal their expectations about the employees more clearly. This means that consistent practices enhance the knowledge of employees (Foster 2011). Delaney and Huselid (1996) empirically suggested that fair rewards, competence development, empowerment, recognition and information sharing all affect organizational commitment. Previous studies of the effects of HRM practices on commitment have typically measured affective commitment. Meyer and Allen (1997) suggested that HRM
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practices might also influence continuance and normative commitment. Employees who get attractive benefits package might view the organization as supportive and therefore develop a stronger affective commitment. They also believe that loosing such a package would be costly and experience greater continuance commitment and/or feel indebted to the organization and develop a stronger normative commitment (Meyer and Smith, 2000). On the other hand uncommitted individuals tend to express a very low level of subjective career success and so they are detached from the organization due to their differentiated personal standards without including the necessarily restricted nature of the company (Biétry et al. 2014).
Effective HRM acquires quality employees, motivates them to maximize performance and helps meet their psychological and social needs. This leads to long term relationships with skilled and happy employees (Stewart and Brown 2011). HRM focuses on people in organizations. People are a major component of any organizations so organizations with more productive employees tend to be more successful. Employee productivity increases when organizations hire and motivate employees effectively. In addition, good human resource practices create more satisfied employees (Ibid.). It is imperative that management retains its best employees and keeps them committed to the organization in order to attract other quality employees (Zaitouni, Sawalha and Sharif 2011). With the high costs involved in employee selection and recruitment, companies are increasingly concerned with retaining employees. Generating employee commitment is an important consideration for large and small organizations. Commitment is one of the factors of HRM policy for an effective organization (Shahnawaz and Juyal 2006). The commitment and motivation built through well-designed HR practices can lead high performance of employees. Especially innovative HR practices increase the commitment of employees and help them to achieve the goals of the organization. The satisfaction of employees with HR practices elicits the commitment of employees towards the organization (Kumar and Krishnaveni 2008). Organizational commitment is also an important factor for employee retention. Fitz-enz (1990) states
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that employee retention is influenced by many factors training and development, recruitment and selection, which should be managed congruently, and it implies that both organizational factors and HR practices may influence retention of employees and their commitment.
Employees have stronger commitment to their organizations when they perceive that their organizations are committed towards their wellbeing (Benson and Lawler 2003). Therefore, the extent to which employees positively perceive the HRM practices of their organization would determine the strength of their identification with and affiliation to the organization (Iles et al. 1990). Mathieu and Zajac (1990) added that employees who perceive they have more control and autonomy in their jobs tend to be more committed to their organizations. When employees perceive that their supervisors empower them, provide relevant information and training, and apprize and reward them fairly, they are likely to remain loyal and committed to their supervisors. Kirkman and Rosen (1999) noted that work teams vary in the degree they are empowered and this has an impact on their commitment, productivity, and other attitudinal and job outcomes. They found that highly empowered teams are more effective than less empowered teams.
In this perspective; HR functions as employee selection and recruitment, training and development, performance evaluation, compensation management and investigating their relationships between organizational commitments have become very important. For instance, systematic job design can have a series of functional outcomes like job satisfaction, motivation and more importantly commitment (Prabhakar and Ram 2011). Compensation is one of the most critical issues when it comes to attracting and keeping talents. As a result, some leading edge firms use profit sharing and group-based incentive pay (Bassi and Van Buren 1999) in addition to pay premiums, stock options or bonuses (Chew and Chan 2007). Trevor, Gerhart and Boudreau (1997) indicate that there are views amongst employees that performance-based pricing is sometimes an unjust practice. Monetary compensation is important but not sufficient to keep employees. Non-monetary recognition such
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as raise, appreciation and positive feedback from managers, peers and customers for a job well done is imperative to generate job satisfaction and commitment. Monetary compensation is important but not sufficient to keep employees. Praise, appreciation and positive feedback from managers and peers for a job well done is imperative to generate job satisfaction and commitment. The fundamentals of this thought are based on Frederich Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory. Recognition is con-14 | sidered as a main objective to maintain the feeling of high involvement (Zaitouni, Sawalha and Sharif 2011). Koys (1988, 1991) found that employees' commitment is related directly to their faith in the intention of the organization's HRM practices to keep skilled employees and treat them fairly. Employee's skill, training, personal development practices including job redesign/enrichment shows positive results in building employee's confidence level as a result of affective commitment (Meyer, Becker and Vandenberghe 2004). Also employees view attractive benefits package as a sign that the organization cares and supports its employees, resulting in the development of a strong affective commitment (Meyer and Allen 1997). From this point, it is possible to say that effective and well desgined HRM practice can improve commitment and efficiency in organizations by motivating employees.
In the survey conducted by Boon and Kalshoven (2014) on 267 managers, it was seen that the low level of competence of HRM applications had an indirect effect on commitment. Saridakis, Torres and Johnston (2013) indicate that HRM practices are an important tool for increasing the commitment of employees and low job satisfaction in SMEs. According to Yu and Egri (2005) on 113 employees, HR practices that are in line with organizational strategies have been found to have an effect on affective commitment levels of employees. In the meta-anal-ysis carried out by Kooij et al. (2011); the relationships between HR practices perceived by employees and affective commitment and job satisfaction differed with age. Also in a study conducted by Triguero et al. (2012) in 102 firms in Spain; study conducted by Zaitouni, Sawalha and El-Sharif (2011) on 398 bank employees in Kuweit and in the survey conducted by Imran and Ahmad
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(2012) on 600 employees in Pakistan, it is found that HRM practices have an impact on organizational commitment. In Chew and Chan's (2008) study, HRM practices except training and development activities were found to have an impact on organizational commitment. Paul and Anantharaman, 370 participants from 34 companies in India, found that HRM practices affected organizational commitment. In our country, Gurbuz's (2011) research on 241 executives shows that human resource applications have an effect on organizational commitment. There is also a lot of research on the relationship between organizational commitment and HR practices, as seen in the studies mentioned above.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The purpose of the study is to determine the relationship between HRM practices and organizational commitment of employees. Another purpose of the study is to reveal the relationship between the dimensions of organizational commitment and HRM practices. The study is important to reveal the HRM practices that can increase organizational commitment of employees. With the results of the research, it is possible to give valuable insights about the effect of HRM practices on organizational commitment. By considering the need of empirical studies in this field, it is obvious that both the theoretical and empirical results of this research will give an important contribution to the related literature.
SAMPLE AND DATA COLLECTION
As of May 2017, the number of employees working in Turkey has been determined to be 30.658.000 (https://biruni.tuik.gov. tr/gosterge/?locale=tr). This figure was determined as 180 persons with a margin of error of 7.3% (https://www.surveysys-tem.com/sscalc.htm).
To this end, 400 employee questionnaires were sent in 2014 and 2017 in banking, insurance, tourism, textile, electronics, hospitality and software sectors in two different periods. Of
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these surveys, 200 were returned, 18 of which were incorrectly populated and 182 were analyzed by questionnaires. Employees who are working in private companies from different sectors participated to the research (n = 182). The method of the research sampling is "convenience sampling". The method is also called as "accidental sampling". It is based on the inclusion of the person reached in the survey. It depends on the inclusion of the person reached. This approach allows the researcher to take samples from familiar surroundings (Balci 2005). Here the researcher begins to set up a sample to begin with the most accessible identifiers until reaching the sample size required (Buyukozturk et al. 2012). The research has been designed as a descriptive research, which aims to determine the relationship between HRM practices and organizational commitment of employees. When the researcher is interested in identifying important variables related to the problem, this study is called correlational study (Sekaran 2003). Descriptive research is a type that investigates the relationships and links between variables (Buyukozturk et al. 2012).
Two scales were used in the questionnaires as measurement instrument of the research. The first scale developed by Demo, Neiva, Nunes and Rozzett (2012) has 6 dimensions (recruitment and selection; involvement; training, development and education; work conditions; performance appraisal and compensation and rewards) and 38 items that measure HRM practices. In the Turkish translation study of the scale; the first translation proposed by Brislin et al. (1973), the first translation evaluation, the back translation, the feedback evaluation and the expert opinion methods were used (Brislin, Lonner and Thorndike 1973). The scale was translated to Turkish by the researchers and an academic at Foreign Language Faculty and then the two translations were compared with each other.
The second scale developed by Allen and Meyer (1990) has 3 dimensions and 17 items that measure organizational commitment and the scale was translated to Turkish by Boylu, Pelit and Guçer (2007). The questions about social demographic qualifications such as gender, education, seniority, position and age were included to the items and the questionnaire form
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was developed. The questionnaires were sent to employees via e-mail and collected by the same way. Questionnaires were sent to employees who are working in different sectors.
DATA ANALYSIS
The items of HRM practices and organizational commitment scales were presented using a five-point Likert item as "1: strongly disagree" and "5: strongly agree. Data was analyzed by SPSS for Windows 18.0 package program.
Cronbach alpha reliability value is computed in order to find the reliability of the scales. The reliability values are 0,960 for HRM practices scale and 0,869 for organizational commitment scale. The reliability values of both scales are very high for researches in social sciences (Kalayci 2005). Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is carried in order to determine the normality of data. It is shown that data has been distributed normally so parametric tests are used for data analysis.
FINDINGS AND RESULTS
Employees from different companies in various sectors participated to the research (n=182). The sample range due to the so-cio-demographic characteristics is shown in Table 1. When we examine the descriptive statistical analysis, the arithmetic mean of the human resources management practices scale is computed as 3,22 (std.dev.: 0,74). This score indicates that participants answered the HRM practices almost as "neutral-agree". According to the arithmetic means of the HRM practices" dimensions, the highest computed arithmetic mean is 3,50 (std dev.: 0,84) for the dimension of "recruitment and selection", besides the lowest mean is 2,65 (std dev.: 1,03) for "compensation and rewards".
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Variables		Frequency	Percentage (%)
Gender	Male	103	56,6
	Female	79	43,4
			
Education	Two year college or lower	20	11
	Graduate school	74	40,7
	Post graduate school	87	47,7
	Unreplied	1	0,06
			
Age	18-25	38	21
	26-35	115	63
	36 and over	26	14
	Unreplied	3	2
			
Marital status	Single	116	63,7
	Status	63	34,6
	Unreplied	3	1,7
			
Organizational seniority	Less than 1 year	44	24,2
	Organizational seniority	98	53,8
	Less than 4-7 years	22	12,1
	More than 7 years	17	9,3
	Unreplied	1	0,06
N=182
Source: Authors' own calculation.
The arithmetic mean of the second scale which investigates organizational commitment is computed as 3,08 (std dev.: 0,67). According to this result, the participants answered the organizational commitment scale nearly to "neutral-agree" as well. The scores of organizational commitment dimensions indicate that the highest computed arithmetic mean is 3,29 (std dev.:0,97), for the dimension of "affective commitment", while the the lowest mean is 2,92 (std dev.: 0,80) for "continuance commitment". The following Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics results.
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A Research on Determining the Influence of HRM Practices Table 2: Descriptive Statistics Results and Reliability Values
Scales and Dimensions	Mean	Std. Dev.
HRM Scale	3,22	,74
Recruitment and Selection	3,50	,84
Involvement	3,31	,78
Training and Development	3,29	,96
Work Conditions	3,28	,93
Performance Appraisal	3,19	1,04
Compensation and Rewards	2,65	1,03
Organizational Commitment	3,08	,67
Affective	3,29	,97
Continuance	2,92	,80
Normative	3,00	,90
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Source: Authors' own calculation.
Within the research, the relationship between employees' perceptions on the human resources management practices and the organizational commitment of the employees is investigated. In this context, the main hypothesizes of the research are given below:
H1: There is a relationship between the perception of employees on human resources management practices and their organizational commitment.
In order to investigate whether there is a relationship between employees' perceptions on HRM practices and their organizational commitment, Pearson Correlation Analysis is carried out. The results show that there exists a medium positive relationship (p<0,01; Pearson correlation (r) =0,535) between the variables and H1 is accepted. This finding shows that HRM practices are important factors and have the potential to foster the organizational commitment of employees for those who have positive perceptions about their companies. As the positive relationship has been proved using Pearson Correlation Analysis, also the relationship between the dimensions of HRM practices and organizational commitment are also investigated.
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H2: There is a relationship between the perceptions of employees on the human resources management practices and the dimensions of organizational commitment.
Table 3 includes the correlations between HRM practices and the dimensions of organizational commitment. According to the correlation analysis results, there is a strong or medium positive relationship between all HRM practices and three organizational commitment dimensions (affective, continuance & normative commitment).
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Table 3: Correlations Between HRM Practices & Organizational Commitment Dimensions
	HR Scale	Recruitment	Involvement	Training and	Work	Performance	Compensation	Affective	Continuance	Normative	Org.
		and		Development	Conditions	Appraisal	and Rewards	Commit-	Commit-	Commit-	Commit-
		Selection						ment	ment	ment	ment
H R Scale	1										
Recruitment and Selection	,765"	1									
	,000										
Involvement	,893"	,672"	1								
	,000	,000									
Training and Development	,739"	,510"	,562"	1							
	,000	,000	,000								
Work Conditions	,855"	,657"	,689"	,509"	1						
	,000	,000	,000	,000							
Performance Appraisal	,829"	,578"	,650"	,621"	,660"	1					
	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000						
Compensation and Rewards	,739"	,429"	,582"	,380"	,662"	,543"	1				
	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000					
Affective Commitment	,479"	,359"	,508"	,377"	,350"	,363"	,287"	1			
	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000				
Continuance Commitment	,241"	,137	,141	,192"	,254"	,242"	,234"	,054	1		
	,001	,064	,057	,009	,001	,001	,001	,471			
Normative Commitment	,434"	,262"	,450"	,350"	,299"	,325"	,332"	,550"	,340"	1	
	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000		
Organizational commitment	,535"	,358"	,520"	,425"	,413"	,426"	,385"	,798"	,550"	,850"	1
	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000	,000	
											
z
I	**p< .01 *p< .05
Source: Authors' own calculation.
NJ
Esin Ertemsir, Yasemin Bal, Serdar Bozkurt
CONCLUSION
Human resources are the key competitive advantage factor for all organizations. In this sense; appealing and retaining the qualified workforce to the organizations can be seen as one of the most important factors in HRM. Organizational commitment is very important for retaining the employees in the organization because only committed employees can feel the organization as a part of their life and family. Effective HRM practices can increase the organizational commitment levels of employees. Functions such as recruitment, participation to decision making process, training and development, performance evaluation, working conditions and compensation management can help to improve organizational commitment.
HR practices are one most important factors that affect the organzational commitment level and performance of employees which have been seen as the main competitive advantage source of all organizations. For example; the use of appropriate tests in the selection placement activity and effective interviewing process can provide recruitment of the right candidate. In this respect, it is possible to integrate the employee with the organization and then increase his commitment. Employees' participation in the decision-making process will also increase their loyalty. Organizing training development activities can also increase the development of the employee by increasing the knowledge and skills of the employee more quickly and can make the organization more active. Additionally, improving working conditions, the fairness of performance appraisal practices and wage and reward management practices can also contribute to the commitment increment.
By considering these factors; it is aimed to investigate the relationship between HRM practices and organizational commitment levels of employees in the paper. According to the research results, a medium-strong level relationship has been found between HRM practices and organizational commitment levels of employees. Also it has been found that there is a strong relationship between "affective commitment" dimension of organizational commitment and "involvement" dimension of HRM and there is no relationship between "continuance commitment"
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dimension of organizational commitment and "recruitment-selection and involvement" dimension of HRM. The results of the research can be seen as parallel with the related empirical studies, which are given above in the theoretical part.
REFERENCES
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