Rewards and recognition to engage private bank employees : Exploring the “obligation dimension”

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the potential mediating role of employee engagement between rewards and recognition and normative commitment. Design/methodology/approach Responses of a sample of 176 private bank employees in India were used to examine the proposed mediated model. Findings The variable rewards and recognition is found to be significantly correlated to both employee engagement and normative commitment. Results of regression have been analyzed in line with the four conditions of mediation laid down by Baron and Kenny (1986). Further, SPSS macro developed by Preacher and Hayes (2004) is used to test the proposed mediation model. The relationship between rewards and recognition and normative commitment is found to become smaller after controlling the variable employee engagement. The results provide partial support to the mediation hypothesis. Originality/value Normative commitment has been less researched relative to the attention paid to affective commitment. Further, no research has yet focused on the impact of rewards and recognition on normative commitment, with the mediating impact of employee engagement. This study hence provides the first empirical test of the established relationship between rewards and recognition and employee engagement by introducing normative commitment as an outcome variable.