Index

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, how do specific HRM practices such as faculty job security, compensation and job autonomy relate with commitment behaviour which, in turn, affects quality education? Second, how does faculty commitment behaviour play a mediating role in the links between those specific HRM practices and quality education? To answer these questions, a theoretical framework using the side-bet theory as its basis was established. Using measurement scales created to assess different aspects of job security, compensation, job autonomy, commitment behaviour of the faculty members and quality education, a survey instrument was developed to test various hypotheses implied by the side-bet theory. Data (n=516) were collected from 20 business schools in private universities in Bangladesh and the analysis of this data-set helps answer questions about the relationships between afore-mentioned HR constructs and quality education. The findings suggest that the faculty commitment behaviour significantly mediates between quality education and faculty job security, compensation and job autonomy in the private universities in Bangladesh.

Keywords: Quality education, Specific, HRM practices, Faculty commitment behavior, Side bets.

Received: 18 November 2019 / Revised: 30 December 2019 / Accepted: 3 February 2020/ Published: 24 February 2020

Contribution/ Originality

This study is one of few studies which have investigated the influence of HRM practices on quality education in private higher education institutes mediating by faculty commitment behaviour.


1. INTRODUCTION

Recently, the United Nations Committee for Development Policy, on completion of its review of the LDC (Least Development Country) category, announced that Bangladesh has met all criteria for graduation from the status of LDC to developing one for the first time (Daily New Age, 2018). Prior to this recent information about the economic growth process of Bangladesh, Nobel laureate economist (Sen, 2017) expounded that in some socioeconomic and human development indicators, Bangladesh is comparatively way ahead of India. Undoubtedly, in spite of several sociopolitical bottlenecks, Bangladesh has proven its worth as one of the rapidly emerging economies improving all its development indicators particulalry notable in human development index. In this respect, emerging private higher education sector has a remarkable contribution to this continuous growth process by developing a large number of skilled human resources specifically in the business and IT sector since 1992 when the Private University Act was passed by the government of Bangladesh.  Although Bangladesh is a small deltaic land formed by the Bay of Bengal on its northern side, it has surprisingly bagged quite a large number of established private universities which are currently more than hundred in number approved by the university grant commission (UGC, 2018). However, despite this growing trend, private higher education institutes have not been without challenges (Psomas and Antony, 2017).

It is reported that the authorities of these private universities of Bangladesh including UGC seem ineffective in improving quality education (Ashraf et al., 2009; Joarder, 2012; Ashraf et al., 2016). In fact, except a few, in most of the private universities, quality of education has been staggering in unfathomed quagmires inflicted by unplanned and improper human resource management practices for which the faculty turnover rate in these universities is very high (Ashraf, 2009; Jalil, 2009; Joarder, 2012; Ashraf et al., 2016; Imran et al., 2017; Wong and Wong, 2017; Pham-Thai et al., 2018). This high faculty turnover rate intuitively implies a lack of organisational commitment behaviour of the faculty members (Joarder, 2012; Imran et al., 2017; Kokubon, 2018; Sutherland, 2018). Although there have been few studies available on this issue of high faculty turnover rate in private universities in Bangladesh, research about the actual associations between HRM practices and quality education is parse. Specifically, there is no such study which investigates how quality education relates to faculty job security, compensation package and job autonomy as well as how faculty commitment behaviour mediates between those constructs and quality education.

Thus, the purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, how do faculty job security, compensation and job autonomy relate with faculty commitment behaviour which, in turn, affects quality education? Second, how does faculty commitment behaviour play a mediating role in the links between those cited human resource (HR) constructs and quality education? To answer these questions, a theoretical framework using the side-bet theory developed by Becker (1960) as its basis was established. Using measurement scales created to assess different aspects of those stated constructs, a survey instrument was developed to test various relationships implied by the side-bet theory. Data were collected from 20 private universities in Bangladesh during the 2017 holiday season and the analysis of this data helps answer questions about the relationships between afore-mentioned HR constructs and quality education. The plan for this paper is as follows: first, the side-bet theory is briefly reviewed, as are the relevant literatures on dependent, independent and mediating variables. Next, the research model and hypotheses are presented, followed by a discussion of the research method and findings from the data analysis. A discussion of the meaning of the results and their implications ends the paper.

2. THEORY AND PAST RESEARCH

2.1. The Side-Bet Theory (SBT)

The side-bet theory (Becker, 1960) of employee commitment behaviour has originally been conceptualized by Howard Becker and later expounded and tested by Meyer and Allen (1997). At the heart of the theory is the side-bet worked as antecedents of organisational commitment behaviour to lead to further consequences or outcomes see Figure 1. For SBT, commitment behaviour toward the organisation and engagement in the employee behaviour are thought to influence either to stay in the organisation and to perform quality work or to quit from the jobs for achieving better opportunities in other jobs. By the idea of side bets, Becker meant some extra incentives to provide strong motivation of the employees to stay longer in the organisation in parallel to their main bets of handsome compensation structure. The side bets thus increase commitment behaviour to the main bet. As Becker (1960) described, "Commitment behaviours come into being when a person, by making a side-bet, links extraneous interests with a consistent line of activity”. According to Meyer and Allen (1997).

“Becker described commitment behaviour, in general, as a disposition to engage in      ‘consistent lines of activity’ as a result of the accumulation of ‘side bets’ that would be lost if the activity were discontinued. When used to explain commitment behaviour to the organisation, the consistent line of activity refers to maintaining membership (i.e., employment) in the organisation. The term side bet has been applied quite loosely in this context. Generally, it has been used to refer to anything of value the individual has invested (e.g., time, effort, money) that would be lost or deemed worthless at some perceived cost to the individual if s/he were to leave the organisation.” In this respect, Hausknecht et al. (2009) is apposite to mention that: “despite the vast literature on employee turnover, which is aimed at identifying factors that cause employees to quit, much less is known about the factors that compel employees to stay”. As the underlying theory explicates, invested investments done by employees may contain contributions to nonrefundable pension plans, development of organisation-wise skills or status, usage of organisational paybacks such as reduced mortgage rates, and so on Meyer et al. (2013), Powell and Meyer (2004), Wallace (1997). At any rate, it is the risk of loss that commits the person to the organisation, if an employee decides to quit (Meyer and Allen, 1997). According to Wallace (1997) the side-bet theory measures the continuance commitment behaviour rather than affective commitment behaviour. There are several empirical research which used SBT as their theoretical foundations such as Onuoha and Idemudia (2018), Jesus and Rowe (2017), Lam and Rahma (2014), Meyer et al. (2013); Chang et al. (2007), Meyer et al. (2006) and Powell and Meyer (2004).

According to SBT, an individual employee’s performance of certain behaviours in the job is determined by her/his commitment behaviour to perform that behaviour. Commitment behaviour is itself informed by side bets toward the behaviour. According to Becker (1960) side bets toward any behaviour can be positive or negative evaluations of performing that behaviour. Becker actually termed this type of positive behaviour as continuance commitment behaviour and negative behaviour as to discontinuance commitment behaviour (i. e. quit from the job). There have been other two types of commitment behaviours such as affective and normative commitment behaviours (Allen and Meyer, 1990; Meyer et al., 2013). According to Meyer and Allen (1997) several tests of Becker’s SBT demonstrate that commitment behaviour increases as the number or size of side bets increases. As a general theory, SBT does not specify the particular “side bets” that are associated with employee commitment behaviour, so determining those side bets as HRM practices are left up to the researcher.

Figure-1. Side-bet theory.

Source: Becker (1960).

An underlying premise of the current study is that faculty job security, compensation and job autonomy influence organisational commitment behaviour of the faculty members toward quality teaching and research which helps excel quality education. In this context, SBT provides a robust theoretical basis for testing such a premise (Meyer et al., 2002; Powell and Meyer, 2004; Meyer et al., 2006; Chang et al., 2007) along with a framework for testing whether faculty job security, compensation and job autonomy are indeed related to faculty commitment behaviour to engage in a particular way of tasks of effective teaching and research, which itself should be related to the actual quality education. Based on the theory, different job incentives regarded as side bets should influence employee commitment behaviour which in effect reduces turnover rates. Finally, side bets of different opportunities and resources as enjoyed by the faculty members in the universities should influence quality education itself.

2.2. Faculty Job Security

Job security is a vital factor of employee motivation to influence her or his commitment behaviour toward the organisation in which s/he is employed. According to Herzberg (1968) job security is the extent to which organisation provides stable employment opportunities for its employees. Job security has thus been conceptualized as the degree to which an employee could expect to stay in the job for over an extended period of time (Hausknecht et al., 2009; Moritz, 2014; Mahlagha et al., 2017). Researchers identified job insecurity as one of the most important components of human resource practices (Unsal-Akbıyık et al., 2012; Yusuf and Olusola, 2015) while there are evidence that job security enhance employees’ organisational commitment behaviour (Meyer and Smith, 2000; Chang and Chen, 2002; Wong et al., 2002; Hausknecht et al., 2009; Vujičić et al., 2015). This in motivate employees to exchange their obligation by showing reciprocal commitment behaviour to the organisation. Similarly, Chang (2005) argued that through job security the organisation demonstrates commitment behaviour to the employees and in return employees reciprocate the commitment behaviour to the organisation.

2.3. Faculty Compensation

Employee compensation is one of the major HRM functions and it has been defined as the forms of pay or rewards going to employees arise from their employment (Dessler, 2007; Bhatti and Nawab, 2011; Alamelu et al., 2015; Riana and Wirasedana, 2016). It is important to the employees because it is one of the main reasons for which people work and sound compensation can attract, motivate, and retain competent employees of an organisation. In fact, employees’ living status in the society, their motivation and loyalty, productivity are also influenced by the compensation (Aswathappa, 2008). Empirical research evidences found that compensation is one of the most important factors for determining employees’ job satisfaction, which in turn reduce the intention to leave. In line with this view, Abbasi and Hollman (2000) have identified that competitive compensation package is one of the major reasons for employee turnover in the organisation. It is argued by many researchers that compensation is negatively related to turnover intention, that is, higher the compensation for employees, lower the employee turnover for the organisation (Grace and Khalsa, 2003).

2.4. Faculty Job Autonomy

Job autonomy is the employee’s ability to set organisational goals and structure of the organisation to maximize professional concerns, while Hackman and Oldham (1976) termed it as the “self-determination and discretion” in once job activities. In other words, job autonomy refers the freedom of an employee of doing his or her own work or the control over his or her job activities such as scheduling, work procedures, and task variety (Nwoksu et al., 2013; Lin and Ping, 2016). In this regard, Ahuja et al. (2007) assert that employees with less job autonomy usually demonstrate less commitment behaviour to the organisation and higher turnover intention. This situation is particularly applicable to the faculty members in most of the private universities in Bangladesh (Ashraf et al., 2016). Faculty job autonomy can also be seen as the ability of a faculty member to decide work patterns, active participation in major academic decision-making process, and relatively free of bureaucratic regulations and restrictions (Lin and Ping, 2016). In this respect, Daly and Dee (2006) found that freedom of work in the academic profession has been considered as one of the most important reasons for faculty members to remain with the organisation or not. Usually, employees with high degree of job autonomy are less likely to leave the organisation than the employees with less or no such job autonomy (Lin and Ping, 2016).

Several Recent organisational studies have found job autonomy to be significantly and positively correlated to organisational commitment behaviour (Dude, 2012; Park and Searcy, 2012; Naqvi et al., 2013; Lin and Ping, 2016; Karim, 2017). The concept is therefore straightforward; when employees perceive themselves as having discretionary power in performing their organisational roles, they are more likely to remain in their current organisations because of enhanced ownership in work (Lin and Ping, 2016) and the increased motivation to master new tasks (Morgeson and Campion, 2003).

2.5. Faculty Commitment Behaviour

Organisational commitment behaviour is a multi-dimensional construct related to workplace performance (Schulz et al., 2017; Yusuf, 2018). It has been defined by the organisational experts as the strength of an individual’s involvement in a particular organisation (Mohamed et al., 2006; Boon and Kalshoven, 2014; Yusuf, 2018) where faculty members’ commitment behaviour is paramount to excel quality education.  In fact, this is the bond between the faculty and the organisation and the bonded person with the organisation have little reason to quit from the organisation (Lambert and Hogan, 2009).  In reality, highly committed employees are often more involved in their job and have higher occupational commitment behaviour (Meyer et al., 2002) and contributes to higher productivity and competitive advantage for the organisation (Jaramillo et al., 2005). Empirical evidence suggests that there is a positive relationship between different HR practices and organisational commitment behaviour (Wright et al., 2003; Paul and Anantharaman, 2004). Furthermore, HR practices could be influential to the employees’ attitude and work related behaviour (Sturges et al., 2005; Zaleska and de Menezes, 2007). Consistent with the previous views, recent literature found that it is only positive HR practices, not just salary and benefits, can reduce the employees’ intention to leave (Price et al., 2007). Thus, the reciprocal relationship between human resource practices and organisational commitment behaviour can be noticed (Tan, 2008). For this study, organisational commitment behaviour was operationalized as faculty’s emotional desire to stay with an organisation rather than a calculated decision based on perceived costs of leaving the organisation or a sense of obligation.

2.6. Quality Education

In philosophy, quality refers to a property that applies to things singly (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2006). In business, engineering, and manufacturing, quality has a pragmatic interpretation as the non-inferiority or superiority of something; it is also defined as being suitable for its intended purpose while satisfying customer expectations (Ashraf et al., 2016). Dictionary meaning of quality is the degree of excellence in something such as ‘quality education’. Following similar connotations, some universities embalm their slogans as to ‘quest for excellence’ in terms of rendering quality education for producing excellent human resources with intellectual, creative, technical, moral and practical skills to serve community, industry and society as a whole (Ashraf et al., 2016). Relating this fact, UNICEF (2000) included effective teaching by centering on the process of managing qualified teaching staffs as to enhance quality education in the educational institutes. This process incudes the proper human resource management practices in quest for excellence in education.

2.7. Research Model and Hypotheses

The research model used in the study, shown in Figure 2 is based on SBT. The outcome variables in question are faculty commitment behaviour to organisation and quality education in the private higher education institutes. As mentioned earlier, the typical SBT model would include the organisational commitment behaviour which is used in the study as a construct antecedent to quality education. Based on SBT, there are three independent HR variables considered as side bets that influence directly faculty commitment behaviour which in turn influences quality education as a mediating variable. The relationship between subjective norms and purchasing is also posited as a direct relationship here.

The ten hypotheses embodied in the model are listed below. The directionality stated in each hypothesis is derived from the prior discussion about different constructs affecting faculty commitment behaviour and from the basic structure of SBT. There have been a considerable number of research reports which suggest that faculty job security can have positive impact on organisational commitment behaviour of the faculty members positively (Meyer and Smith, 2000; Chang and Chen, 2002; Hausknecht et al., 2009; Moritz, 2014; Vujičić et al., 2015; Mahlagha et al., 2017) Therefore:

H1: Faculty job security has a positive relation with faculty commitment behaviour.

Figure-2. Research framework.

Source: Becker (1960).

Compensation package of the faculty members is an important variable that can impact on faculty commitment behaviour to stay longer in the institution (Llanos and Ahmad, 2017). There are studies that examined the relationship between compensation and organisational commitment behaviour and found their positive relations between them (Paik et al., 2007; Nguyen et al., 2013; Alamelu et al., 2015; Riana and Wirasedana, 2016). Thus,

H2: Faculty compensation has a positive effect on faculty commitment behaviour.

As mentioned earlier, job autonomy is an important antecedent of organisational commitment behaviour in an organisation (Ahuja et al., 2007). Several studies argue that there is a positive relationship between faculty job autonomy and faculty commitment behaviour (Ahuja et al., 2007; Nwoksu et al., 2013; Lin and Ping, 2016). Thus,

H3: Faculty job autonomy has a positive effect on faculty commitment behaviour

Faculty commitment behaviour is regarded as one of the key elements of human resource retention practices in the higher educational institutes where faculty turnover rate is high (Ashraf, 2009; Jalil, 2009; Joarder, 2012; Ashraf et al., 2016). Numerous empirical studies suggest that faculty retention can have positive influence on quality education (Mohamed et al., 2006; Price et al., 2007; Boon and Kalshoven, 2014; Yusuf, 2018). Therefore, it can be hypothesized that:

H4: Faculty commitment behaviour has a positive effect on quality education.

Similar arguments can be put forward based on empirical evidence that faculty job security, compensation and job autonomy are pivotal HR practices that can influence on quality education in the universities (Lin and Ping, 2016; Llanos and Ahmad, 2017; Mahlagha et al., 2017). Therefore, it can be postulated that:

H5: Faculty job security has a positive effect on quality education.

H6: Faculty compensation has a positive effect on quality education.

H7: Faculty job autonomy has a positive effect on quality education.

Very recently Yusuf (2018), Parawansa (2018) and Taba (2018) have employed employee commitment behaviour as a mediating variable in the link different HR practices and quality service in the different sectors of the economy and found positive relations between the variables. Similar results have also been demonstrated by several other studies such as Moin (2018), Indarti et al. (2017), Obedgiu et al. (2017), Banerjee-Batist and Reio (2016), Shuck et al. (2016). Taba (2018) identified several types of rewards that can be termed by SBT as side bets (Becker, 1960) which positively enhance organisational commitment behaviour in the model. Thus, it is hypothesized that

H8: Faculty commitment behaviour mediates between faculty job security and quality education.

H9: Faculty commitment behaviour mediates between faculty compensation and quality education.

H10: Faculty commitment behaviour mediates between faculty job autonomy and quality education.

2.8. Study Design

Data collection took place in November and December 2017. A total of 547 faculty members of 20 private universities across Bangladesh were selected based on a random sampling procedure to complete a self-administered questionnaire that contained measures of the constructs of concern. About 530 respondents filled in the questionnaire and sent back duly, but some of those questionnaires were incomplete and erroneous. Finally, a total of 516 data were employed for analyses. Data were analyzed based on structural equation modeling (SEM). The questionnaire was pilot tested with a small number of respondents. Table 1 lists demographic statistics about the sample.

Table-1. Sample statistic.

Demographic variable
Demographic profile
Valid percent
Gender
Male
69.0
Female
31.0
Age
20 – 25
35.1
26 – 30
24.9
31 – 35
16.3
36 – 40
15.7
41 and Above
8.0
Education
Bachelor Degree
10.2
Master Degree
82.3
PhD
7.5
Designation
Lecturer
21.6
Senior Lecturer
22.5
Assistant Professor
47.2
Associate Professor
4.5
Professor
4.2
Monthly Income
10,000 – 30,000
3.1
30,001 – 40,000
22.7
40,001 – 50,000
22.7
50,001 – 60,000
22.7
60,001 – 80,000
10.6
Above 80,000
18.2
Tenure
Less than 1 year
21.2
1 – 2 years
15.2
2 – 5 years
27.5
5 – 10 years
33.3
More Than 10 years
3.0

The approach to testing the SBT model was based on that used by Lam and Rahma (2014) to test a SBT model with side bets of some HRM constructs of faculty job security, faculty compensation, faculty job autonomy and faculty commitment behaviour which influence quality education in the private universities. Measures of faculty job security (three items), faculty compensation (five), faculty job autonomy (five) and faculty commitment behaviour (seventeen) were based on instruments developed by Delery and Doty (1996), Tessema and Soeters (2006), Daly and Dee (2006) and Allen and Meyer (1990) respectively. Items measuring quality education (seven) were based on Ashraf et al. (2016) who measured the quality education of private universities. Respondent’s perception for all of the constructs was measured using Likert scale, with seven scales (1 = strongly disagree…7= strongly agree). Descriptive statistics and correlations of the constructs are presented in Table 2 and Table 3 respectively.

Data were analyzed employing structural equation modeling (SEM), using AMOS software. First, the model in Figure 2 was run. The measurement models with item loadings appear in Figure 3 (first-order fit model) and Figure 4 (revised final fit model). The average variance explained (AVE) for each construct was above the 0.5 cutoff level Table 3 as prescribed by Hair et al. (2010). Next, item loadings were checked in Figure 4 to make sure they were all above 0.5, and all were Hair et al. (2010).  Internal consistency reliabilities (ICRs) were then computed for each construct and all constructs had ICRs of 0.8 or higher. Measures of reliability for all scales are included in Table 3. Concerned variables, items and factor loadings obtained from the first-order fit model are presented in Table 4. The statistical significance of the paths in the model was tested using AMOS’ jackknifing procedure, with a sample size of 1, for 516 samples. The direct and mediated effects of the model constructs are demonstrated in Table 5 and Table 6 respectively. In order to check the validity of the model fit summary, observed model fit indexes are compared with theoretical indexes and provided in Table 7. Maximum likelihood estimates indicate that eight of ten paths were statistically significant, one at the p < 0.001 level, providing full support for H1, H2, H3, H4, H6, H8 and H10, and partial support for H9.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Numerous past surveys have investigated how different factors can affect quality education in the private higher education sector, but none of these studies have investigated the actual associations between specific HRM practices and quality education. This study has demonstrated for this sample that faculty job security, compensation and job autonomy have important impacts on quality education mediated by faculty commitment behaviour. In terms of direct influences see Table 5 findings indicated that faculty job security had a significant impact on faculty commitment behaviour which, in turn, significantly impact on quality education providing support for H1 and H4. Similarly, faculty compensation and job autonomy had significant impacts on faculty commitment behaviour providing supports for H2 and H3. Faculty job autonomy had a significant impact on faculty commitment behaviour (H3), while it had no significant impact on quality education and provided no support for H7. Similarly, faculty job security had no significant impact on quality education and provided no support for H5. Attitudes toward Internet purchasing, in turn, affected actual purchasing behaviour (H3). As would be expected from SBT, faculty commitment behaviour had mediated between quality education and job security, compensation and job autonomy of the faculty members of the university providing full supports for H8 and H10 and partial support for H9 see Table 6.  In short, all of these findings of the study demonstrated that side bets as specified by Becker (1960) had significant impacts on organisational commitment behaviour of the faculty members whose commitment behaviour had a subsequent significant impact on quality education of the university. It proved once more that as a motivational theory, Becker’s SBT had a robust potentiality to influence the organisational commitment behaviour of the employees.

Table-2. Descriptive statistics of the constructs.

Construct
n
Minimum
Maximum
Mean
Std. Dev.
Faculty Job Security
516
1.00
7.00
4.4528
1.45066
Faculty Compensation
516
1.00
7.00
4.5527
1.45448
Faculty Job Autonomy
516
1.00
7.00
4.6364
1.29563
Faculty Commitment
516
1.00
7.00
5.0239
1.14822
Quality Education
516
1.00
7.00
5.2193
1.10918

Table-3. Correlations and average variance extracted (on diagonal in italic)

Construct
CR
1
2
3
4
5
Faculty Job Security (1)
.82
.61
Faculty Compensation (2)
.89
.594**
.63
Faculty Job Autonomy (3)
.86
.588**
.594**
.55
Faculty Commitment (4)
.84
.503**
.547**
.527**
.51
Quality Education (5)
.88
.450**
.584**
.478**
.668**
.51

Note: ** Correlation is significant at .01 level.

These findings are similar to those reported in other studies. Like Mahlagha et al. (2017), Moritz (2014), Vujičić et al. (2015), Hausknecht et al. (2009), Chang and Chen (2002), Meyer and Smith (2000) there was a strong relationship between job security and organisational commitment behaviour of the faculty members. Like Llanos and Ahmad (2017), Riana and Wirasedana (2016), Alamelu et al. (2015), Nguyen et al. (2013) and Paik et al. (2007) there was a strong relationship between faculty compensation and commitment behaviour. Like Lin and Ping (2016), Nwoksu et al. (2013) and Ahuja et al. (2007) there was a strong relationship between faculty job autonomy and commitment behaviour. Although, like Mahlagha et al. (2017), Llanos and Ahmad (2017), and Lin and Ping (2016), there was a significant relation between faculty compensation and quality education, there were no significant relations between quality education and faculty job security, and  faculty job autonomy.

In the current study, SBT served as a useful foundation for helping explain quality education. The relationship between faculty compensation and quality education was strong and positive, even though it was not fully mediated by faculty commitment behaviour. However, for other constructs namely faculty job security and faculty job autonomy were fully mediated by faculty commitment behaviour to influence quality education in the private universities in Bangladesh. Thus, these findings indicate that side bets are significantly important to enhance faculty commitment behaviour which finally impact on quality education in the higher education institutes.

Table-4 . Variables, items and factor loadings from EFA.

Variables
Items
Factor loadings
Faculty job security
Q1  Can stay with this institution as long as wish
0.63
Q2  Difficult to terminate employees
0.83
Q3  Job security is guaranteed to employees
0.87
Faculty Compensation
Q4  Attractive compensation
0.74
Q5  Equitable internal salary system
0.69
Q6  Package provides individual performance
0.84
Q7  Package encourages better performance
0.85
Q8  Package reflects standard of living
0.84
Faculty job autonomy
Q9  Authority how to do job
0.7
Q10 Control over scheduling of work
0.77
Q11 Authority over particular work task
0.83
Q12 Authority to evaluate job evaluation system
0.7
Q13 Ability to modify job objectives
0.71
Faculty Commitment
Q37 Would be happy to spend rest of the career
0.69
Q38 Feel institution’s problem as own
0.6
Q39 Don’t feel sense of strong of belonging
0.14
Q40 Feel emotional attachment
0.81
Q41 Don’t feel emotionally attached
0.08
Q42 Has a great deal of personal meaning
0.73
Q43 Enjoy discussing about institution outside
0.69
Q44 Unavailable salary matching outside
0.6
Q45 Difficult to leave
0.43
Q46 Not costly to leave this institution
0.23
Q47 Have too few options to leave
0.27
Q48 Scarcity of available alternatives to leave
0.26
Quality education
Q62 Curriculum is effective
0.76
Q63 Faculty quality education background
0.66
Q64 Well-equipped with modern facilities
0.55
Q65 High institutional reputation in corporate sector
0.66
Q66 Own selection for education
0.74
Q67 Recommendation of the institution to others
0.82
Q68 Rendering excellent quality education
0.77

Figure-3. First-order model fit.

Figure-4. Revised and final model fit.

Table-5. Direct effects of the constructs.

  Hypothesis
Variable
Std. Estimate
S.E.
C.R.
P-value
Status
Endogenous
 
Exogenous
H1
Faculty commitment
<---
Faculty job security
0.258
0.055
5.235
***
Significant
H2
Faculty commitment
<---
Faculty compensation
0.332
0.036
6.949
***
Significant
H3
Faculty commitment
<---
Faculty job autonomy
0.361
0.044
7.110
***
Significant
H4
Quality education
<---
Faculty commitment
0.596
0.058
10.165
***
Significant
H5
Quality education
<---
Faculty job security
-0.034
0.045
-0.843
0.399
Not  Significant
H6
Quality education
<---
Faculty compensation
0.295
0.032
6.918
***
Significant
H7
Quality education
<---
Faculty job autonomy
0.032
0.036
.757
.449
Not  Significant

Note: *** Significant at p < 0.001 level.

Table-6. Indirect effects of the constructs.

H
Exogenous
 
Mediating
 
Endogenous
Indirect Effect
Direct Effect
Status
H8
Faculty job security (1)
--->
Faculty commitment (2)
--->
Quality education (3)
1→2
β=0.26, Sig*** 2→3
β=0.61, Sig***
 
1→3,
β=-0.034,  Not Sig.
Faculty commitment is fully mediating
H9
Faculty compensation
(1)
--->
Faculty commitment
(2)
--->
Quality education
(3)
1→2 β=0.33,Sig*** 2→3, β=.61, Sig***
1→3
β= 0.29, Sig***
Faculty commitment is partiall
mediating
 
H10
Faculty job autonomy
(1)
--->
Faculty commitment
(2)
--->
Quality education
(3)
1→2, β=0.36,  Sig.*** 2→3, β=0.61, Sig***
1→3,
β=0.032,
Not Sig.  
Faculty commitment is fully mediating

Note: ***Significant at p < 0.001 level.

Table-7. Theoretical and observed fit indexes.

Name of category
Name of index
Level of acceptance
Values extracted from fit model (Figure 4.)
  1. Absolute fit
Chi-square
P < 0.05
P = 0.000
RMSEA
RMSEA < 0.08
RMSEA = 0.053
GFI
GFI > 0.90
GFI = 0.923
  1. Incremental fit
CFI
CFI > 0.90
CFI = 0.920
TLI
TLI > 0.90
TLI = 0.917
  1. Parsimonious fit
Chisq/Df = Ratio
Ratio < 5.0
Ratio = 0.898

Source: Zainudin (2012).

4. RESEARCH AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

From a research perspective, the study results demonstrate once again the robustness of the SBT for helping to explain behavioral effects in terms of faculty commitment to influence quality education in the higher education institutes. Other studies have also successfully used the SBT as theoretical basis in their organizational behavioral studies such as Onuoha and Idemudia (2018), Jesus and Rowe (2017), Lam and Rahma (2014), Meyer et al. (2013); Chang et al. (2007), Meyer et al. (2006), Powell and Meyer (2004) and Wallace (1997). These cases demonstrate the increased power of the SBT as to explain the commitment behaviour. As more and more studies in these realtions are done within the SBT framework, we are more able to discover and confirm which antecedents are most important, helping us build a robust theory of behavioral science in organisational management and to quality services. From a practical perspective, as a cumulative body of work on behavioral science particularly faculty commitment behavior along with HRM practices emerges, we will be better able to advise the authorities of the private universities on the elements they need to address in order to improve their institutes’ organizational behavior and quality education. In this study, the one area of findings that may help the private university managements the most concerns faculty commitment behaviour. We found that faculty job security, compensation and job autonomy as channels for conducting faculty commitment behaviour which was in turn associated with quality education. The implication is that authorities of the private universities can focus on promoting these HRM practices, and in doing so, they can generate positive organizational commitment behaviour toward teaching and research in the universities.

4.1. Directions for Future Research

This study considered only three antecedents to faculty commitment behaviour toward universities to enhance quality education. There may well be other HRM practices that should be considered in future research, such as other aspects of motivation that may enhance faculty commitment behaviour which in turn can enhance quality education. As this study asked only faculty members of the private universities about their opinion about the concerned constructs, future studies could include administrative staffs in the survey to check about their opinion about the matters. This could add deeper insights about enhancing employee commitment behaviour and overall quality education. As this study investigates into the strategy of enhancing quality education only in the private universities, these findings cannot help the public universities to formulate their strategy to improve quality education in those institutes. Hence, future studies could include the public universities in their survey to examine quality education in much broader context. Although the SBT supported much robustly to formulate research model, future studies could include other theoretical models to review similar studies to compare the predictions about enhancing quality education in the higher education sector.

5. LIMITATIONS

As with any study, there are limitations to the study described here. One possible drawback is the use of faculty as respondents from only 20 universities whereas there are more than hundred private universities in Bangladesh. Besides, we included only private universities, while there are also many private colleges which were not included in the survey. The results of the study may be improved in terms of quality, if the sampling size constituting universities as well as colleges could be increased.

Nevertheless, the usual cautions about overgeneralising findings from this sample, to populations for which it is not strictly representative, apply. The sample was not randomly drawn to represent a population to which findings could be generalised. Instead, it was a convenience sample, and as such, the ability to generalise the findings very far beyond the sample is limited.

Funding: The authors thank United International University for financial funding to support this project.

Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgement: All authors contributed equally to the conception and design of the study.

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