Career Expectations and Organizational Commitment of Millennials in Indian IT Industry - An SHRM Perspective

Abstract

Purpose –Prior research in the area of studying millennials highlights the role played by HR practices in gaining organiza-tional commitment. One of the objectives of HR practices is specifically to meet the career expectations of employees and these practices drive the right behaviours to bring about organizational commitment. Further there is significant body of literature that talks about the antecedents to organizational commitment as well. There are also several researches that highlighted the impact of generational diversity in the workforce and the role of HR practices in managing this diverse workforce. The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that identifies the effectiveness of strategic HR practices in meeting the career expectations of millennials and the impact of these practices on organizational commitment.

Design/methodology/approach – First, an extensive literature review on millennials and their characteristics have been done at a macro level to identify the importance of career expectations. Second, understanding the differences between technical HR practices and strategic HR practices and why Strategic HR practices are preferred over technical or traditional HR practices in this context are studied. Third, literature on career expectations and organizational commitment is examined to find out possible linkages of strategic HR practices in the relations and also assess if there is any mediation effect of strategic HR practices. Finally, four propositions are presented to build an integrated conceptual framework on establishing the linkages between career expectations and effectiveness of strategic HR practices and its impact of organizational commitment.

Findings – The study contributes to literature by suggesting that organizational commitment can be obtained if career expectations are met. It theoretically establishes the role of strategic HR practices in addressing the career expectations and exploring its impact on organizational commitment.

Research Limitations /implications: Role of strategic HR practices should not be overstated. Looking at the propositions, the dominant role of strategic HR practices is evident and the role of other technical or traditional HR practices is under-mined. Also a combination of technical and strategic HR practices may also play a role in managing the career expectations of the millennials, which is another limitation. However, this paper provides an overview of how certain specific HR practices can impact specific behaviors of millennials in gaining a long term commitment is the organizations.

Originality/value – This framework can be used by the researchers and practitioners to study, guide, frame and model empirical research into the area of studying strategic HR practices in retaining millennials in workplace by acting as a me-diator in understanding the career expectations. So far literature provides studies on technical HR practices and its role in addressing the career expectations. Moreover there are few studies conducted in the context of Indian IT companies. The frame work in this paper would help explore the importance of effectiveness of strategic HR practices implemented to meet career expectations of millennials and its impact of overall organizational commitment of this workforce and ensure retention.