Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between rewards and organizational commitment (OC) of 12,076 employees who work for 32 Japanese manufacturing companies in Malaysia. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that all of three types of reward are important for OC, in the order of intrinsic, social and extrinsic rewards. These findings suggest that the antecedents of OC in Malaysia are different from those in the West or other lower income Asian countries such as China. The comparison between University graduates and others showed that extrinsic and intrinsic rewards had stronger while social rewards had weaker influence on OC in university graduates than in others. In detail: satisfaction with personnel evaluation and autonomy were more strongly correlated with OC in university graduates while co-worker support and role clarity were more significantly correlated with OC in others; fatigue was negatively correlated with OC in university graduates while positively correlated with OC in others; other rewards, i.e., satisfaction with other treatments, supervisor support and training, were equally correlated with OC in university graduates and others. Discussions and implications concerning human resource management of Japanese companies in Malaysia are offered.

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