Abstract:
In Kenya, wholesale and retail sector comprises a sizeable part of the economy in view
of its contribution to GDP which stands at thirty percent. However stiff competition,
from both local and international players, continues to cause unrest in the retail sector
resulting to poor performance. This study therefore sought to determine the moderating
role of Performance Appraisal on Organizational Commitment and Employee
Performance in Supermarkets, Kericho County. The specific Objectives of the study
were; to examine the effect of Affective Commitment on employee performance, to
determine the effect of Continuance Commitment on employee performance, to
establish the effect of Normative Commitment on employee performance, and to assess
the moderating role of Performance Appraisal on Organizational Commitment and
employees’ performance. The Study was guided by Becker’s side bet theory and Goal
theory. Explanatory research design was adopted. The study targeted 357 employees of
all the Supermarkets in Kericho County. A sample size of 189 was determined using
Yamane’s sample size formula, stratified random sampling was utilized to select the
actual respondents. Structured questionnaires were used to collect requisite data which
were subjected to Hierarchical multiple regression for test of both direct and indirect
effects of respective study variables. Study findings indicated that affective
commitment (β = 0.975, p<0.0001), continuance commitment (β= 0.133, p=0.007) and
normative commitment (β = 0.298, p<0.0001) had a significant and positive effect on
employee performance as evidenced by R 2 of 0.63. The study found that performance
appraisal significantly moderated the relationship between organizational commitment
and employee performance by improving the predictive power of the regression model
from 62.7% to 95.4%. Conclusively, Organizational commitment seems to cause the
greatest increase in employee performance when performance appraisals are efficient.
Organizations should put in place a fair, sensible and reasonable performance appraisal
system to enable high performance in view of the positive moderating effect on the
relationship between organizational commitment and employee performance.
