odern theoretical philosophy in the world of the business agrees that the human element needs to be taken care of. The reason is that this particular element is more important than all others related to business such as information, etc. In the world of business, it is realized that the criterion of success as to organizations and institutions are measured by the extent to which the human element is taken care of. In particular, senior leaders are becoming more aware of the important role of human resources, which play in the success of their organizations to achieve performance (Al-Hawary & Shdefat, 2016). Consequently, organizations concern more with the human element through creating a department or division which gives Author: Researcher Amman, Jordan. e-mail: [email protected] more attention to the individuals working for them. By building and maintaining such a workforce, the organization can gain a competitive advantage over its competitors (Sparrow et al. 1994; Al-Hawary & Nusair, 2017; Tayeb, 1995). Human resources contribute directly to achieve strategic objectives (Becker and Gerhart, 1996). Therefore, HRM practices should be central to the organizational strategy (Barney, 1995) Organizational commitment in its broadest sense has been the target of several studies and research. Business organizations' success is primarily bound by the orientations and behaviors of their human resources. According to Barney (1991), there is an emphasis nowadays on the way the organization's employees work together to form distinctive sources of competition that cannot be copied by competitive organizations. Also, there is an emphasis on the fact that organizational commitment is one of the most issues related to the study of the employee's behavior within the organization, which is an important fact of organizational success (Al-Hawary & Alajmi, 2017).

Commitment is a voluntary dynamic issue which has a mutual relationship with the human resources management practices for the purpose of achieving definite outcomes (Ghabamosi, 2003). Cascio (1992) suggests that today's organizations must gain competitive advantage through the effective utilization of their human resources. Palmer (2006) stressed the fact that the practices of the human resources management do influence organizational commitment. As for as the service sector is concerned, the human resources management is supposed to be of more strategic importance than other managements, simply because the production and creation of a service in its different stages basically depend on human resources. In the sector of banking, for example, it is taken for granted that the human element is the basis of this vital industry. Since the employee is the most important element in service organizations and the secret of their success, these organizations do their best to get to know the behavioral aspects of the employees. However, the success of an organization is not always measured solely or even primarily regarding of economic indicators. In the banking sector, for instance, customer satisfaction is the main performance indicator.

This study derives its importance through highlighting the practices of the human resources management for being the most important organizational unit that needs improvement. The study also highlights the organizational commitment as a prerequisite for the individual devotion to his work, which indicates the attitude of this individual to his/her organization.

a) The concept of human resources management Human resource practices are the primary means by which firms can influence and shape the skills, attitudes, and behavior of individuals to achieve organizational goals (Collins & Clark, 2003). HRM is considered a strategic asset and research has indicated that HR policies and practices are an important source of a firm's competitive advantage in the marketplace since they are difficult to imitate (Becker and Gerhart, 1996). The organizational success and excellence primarily depends on the individuals' job performance (Al-Hawary, 2015). Therefore, organizations spare no effort to understand the behaviors of their workers.

Strait forward definitions of human resource management are difficult to find (Ivan & Eleni, 2007. Different scholars and researchers have defined this term differently. A typical handbook usually defines HRM as the management of the organization's employees (Scarpello and Ledvinka, 1988, p. 4). Shonhiwa and Gilmore (1996) define HRM as the "planning, organizing, directing and controlling of the procurement, development, compensation, integration, maintenance, and separation of human resources to the end that individual, organizational, and societal objectives are accomplished" (p. 16). Dittmer (2002) viewed HRM practices as an individual's perceptions of the extent of the implementation of the strategies, plans, and programs used to attract, motivate, develop, reward, and retain the best people to meet organizational goals. Ferris et al. (1995) gave a very exhaustive definition of HRM as follows: "Human resource management is the science and the practice that deal with the nature of the employment relationship and all of the decisions, actions, and issues that relate to that relationship". Noe et al. (2006) define HRM as the policies, practices and systems affecting the employees' behaviors and attitudes. Alhiti (2003) looks at HRM as the managements whose responsibility is to enable the organization to build its strategic advantages, maintain and develop them by realistic planning of human resources, appropriate employment, accurate training of human resources as well as constant follow-up and developing the human resources in the organization. We conclude that HRM is the management whose core responsibility is to concern with the human resources in the organization.

Research in HRM has identified som of practices including ''employee participation and empowerment and job redesign, and performance contingent incentive compensation'' as influential in improving organizational performance According to Youndt, et al. (1996), focus on boosting the employees' basic skills through HRM's practices such as choosing the employees, intensive training, broad developmental efforts such as job shifting and mutual interests in addition to adopting and activating the concept of capability, joint problemsolving and encouraging team work to redesign work and motivate collective work (Youndt, et al., 1996). Thite (2004) believes that HRM's strategy can never succeed unless the organizations have a comprehensive philosophy assuring the employees that they work for an organization that takes care of them, develop their abilities and confides in them. The HRM, like other managements in organizations, has two duties: administrative and specialty ones. The first duty includes planning, organizing, leading, supervising and monitoring just like other organizational units. The specialty duty consists of human resources planning, analyzing and describing jobs, and employment procedures: training, performance assessment, division compensations system and incentives as well as vocational safety and caring for employees (Al-Salem & Saleh, 2002; Zwelf, 1993).

Organizational commitment predicts the attitude of the individual towards the organization (Al-Hawary & Alajmi, 2017). It also forms the basis for the individual's love of work, and indicates his/her loyalty towards the organization. Also, this commitment is a desirable behavior favored by managers especially when it is translated into actual behavior. The concept of organizational commitment has attracted considerable attention over recent years, and has become a central objective of human resource management (Helen, 1994).

Organization commitment, according to Meyer & Allen (1991) is a complicated phenomenon describing the psychological force that relates the individual to a certain organization and makes him involved in it (Nwadei, et al., 1979). Porter, Steers, Mowday and Boulian (1974) defined organizational commitment as the strength of an individual's identification with and involvement in a particular organization but then further stated that commitment is characterized by three factors (a) a belief in and acceptance of goals and values, (b) a willingness to exert effort, and (c) a strong desire to maintain membership. Foote, et al. (2005) Believe that organization commitment has been described for a long time that it is the acceptance of the organizational aims, and devotion of efforts on behalf of the organization. Andolsek & Stebe (2004) defined organizational commitment as the attitude of the employee towards a certain organization that affects his/her interactive participation in the current or future organizational activities. Al-Hawary & Alajmi (2017) define organizational commitment as the psychological factor that connects the individual with the organization and makes him interested in its values and makes every possible effort to achieve its aims.

Meyer & Allen (1991) looked at organizational commitment as a multi-dimension structure which they divided into three dimensions which give a more accurate definition of commitment. These dimensions are: Affective commitment refers to employees' emotional attachment, identification and involvement in the organization; ii) the Continuance component refers to commitment based on the costs that employees associate with leaving the organization; and iii) Normative commitment reflects an employee's feeling of obligation to remain with the organization, i.e., persons with a strong sense of normative commitment remain in organizations because they feel they ought to do so (Samad, 2007;Ayeni, et al. 2007, Omar, et al. 2008). The searchers developed a questionnaire as an instrument of measurement. This model and this instrument are to be used in this particular study. Meyer & Allen (1991) did not look at commitment as merely a psychological state that reflects the conformity of the individual with the aims and values of the organization. And therefore their efforts aimed at extending the dominant outlook at that time towards organizational commitment and considered to be a psychological state that reflects the individual's desire or need to be biased towards the organization.

So organizational commitment could generally be described as a psychological state reflecting the relationship between the employee and the organization he/she is working in. This relationship can be understood through analyzing the three types of commitment already mentioned. The nature of the employee's commitment differs according to what sort it is. So an employee with affective commitment stays in his organization out of his desire, but an employee with high continuance commitment stays because needs to. When considering the three sorts of commitment in a group, the employee is expected to have a better understanding of his relation with the organization (Meyer & Allen). The two researchers believe that the conceptual differences between these three types of commitment refer to different reasons and results regarding viewpoints and behavioral acts related to these types of commitment. The researchers also believe that the difference between the three types of commitment lies in the completely different reasons as well as the different attitudes and behavioral results of the three constituents. Meyer & Allen developed an instrument of measurement for the organizational commitment of its three types for the purpose of measuring the three-dimension of commitment.

Human Resources Management can play an important role in boosting organizational commitment among workers. The Harvard concept stresses that HRM should lead to employee commitment (Al-Hawary & Alajmi; 2017).

Staffing procedures are considered an effective factor to ensure the best talents. Selection is an important process to maintain a competitive advantage. Wide-scale staffing and recruiting suitable people will pave the way for predicting high performance of all new employees. The adoption of selection policies intended to ensure that only qualified people are to join the organization shows that the organization is prepared to invest the time and resources required for an effective selection process. What is more, recruiting qualified candidates has a negative effect on the performance of the existing employees. They feel that their organization does not appreciate their contribution at all, and that the organization does not care about having a good staff.

Research points out that the process of staffing has something to do with the organizational performance (Al-Hiti, 2003). Al-Hawary & Alajmi (2017) pointed out that staffing has a significant effect on organizational commitment. According to Oglivie, Gaertner & Nollen (1986), organizational commitment on the part of the people working in the organization is related to the institution's awareness of the practices of correct staffing. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:

"Staffing" has a positive effect on organizational commitment.

Training indicates the different styles adopted by the organization to provide the present and new employees with the necessary skills they need to

Volume XVIII Issue IV Version I Year ( ) A perform their jobs successfully (Dessler, 2003). This will result in several benefits for both the individual and the organization 1) it helps improve the individuals' performance 2) boost their moral as a result of being provided with new experience 3) cope with the accelerating development in the work environment 4) reduce the need of supervision 5) improve the organization's services and increase its productivity 6) reduce the rate of job accidents (Al-Ghamdi, 2009; Al-Hawary et.al, 2013). Ogilvie (1986) As far as 'development' is concerned, it is the process of teaching and providing the employees with the skills they need in their present and future work. It aims to qualify the employees to become managers and concentrates on specific things required by the employee. Training and development allow the organization to compromise between developing its work force's competence and its strategic goals, which may include a new technology or a new customers' base or new products (Shatat, 2003). There is extensive evidence that investment in employees' training enhances the human capital of the organization, which later results in a positive relationship between employee training and organizational performance Koch and McGrath, 1996).

According to Cherrington (1995), a successful training and development program would create more favorable employee attitudes; loyalty and help employees in their personal development and job involvement. Organizations can improve the quality of current employees by providing comprehensive training and development activities after selection of workers. Evidence from the previous research suggest that investments in training produce beneficial organizational outcomes (Knoke & Kalleberg, 1994). Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed: H2:

"Training and development" has a positive effect on organizational commitment.

iii. Performance appraisal and organizational commitment Performance appraisal is "a vital process aiming to explore the performance and behavior of workers in their work, and get them to know their duties and responsibilities well (Naserallah, 2002). Performance appraisal means obtaining facts and specific data that can assist in analyzing and understanding the employee's performance and behavior in his work within a limited period, estimating the degree of his technical and practical competence in performing the duties related to his present and future work (Al-Hawary & Alajmi, 2017). This involves the analysis of occupying a higher standard job in the future. This aims to create chances for progress in work, and to exploit human strength in a way that helps achieve the organization's aims using meeting the needs of workers (Shawish, 2010). Concerning the practice of performance appraisal, Guchait (2007) came up with the result that the appraisal of the employees' performance has an impact on the level of their organizational commitment, for an increase in performance appraisal could make the employees more committed to their organization.

Folger & Cropanzano (1998) and Konovsky & Cropanzano (1991) discovered that employees' perceptions of fair performance appraisal have positive associations with commitment. Performance appraisal (or performance management) systems provide employees with feedbacks on their performance and competencies, and give directions for enhancing their competencies to meet the needs of the organization (Dana, 2002). Chang (2005) also confirmed this fact when he proved that there is a positive relationship between performance appraisal and organizational commitment. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed: H3:

Performance appraisal has a positive effect on organizational commitment.

Compensations and rewards constitute a considerable part of work cost that the organization has to shoulder. Also, they have an impact on the organizational productivity. They include all forms of pay and rewards received by employees for the performance of their jobs" (Snell & Bohlander, 2007, p.378). Most studies have included performance-based compensation as one of the high-performance HRM practices (Huselid, 1995 For the compensation to have its desired effect, it should be used in suitably. Generally speaking, it should be associated with performance regardless the length of service, reinforce the desired behavior on all levels, provide the desired competition that helps achieve and maintain the high standard of skills needed by the organization. In the meanwhile, compensations have to be suitable to the workers who actually deserve them. Providing compensations to a person who is incompetent will result in negative effects that are undesirable (Abdul-Wahab, 2004). O'Driscoll et al. (1999) conducted an empirical study on the satisfaction with rewards in explaining job involvement and organizational commitment. A study by Landau and Hammer (1986) showed that employees who perceived opportunities of advancement in their organization were more committed to their organizations. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:

"Compensations and rewards" has a positive effect on organizational commitment.

As shown in Figure 1, the study investigates the effect of Human resources management practices on organizational commitment of the employees in the commercial banks in Jordan, where Human resources management practices are positively affect organizational commitment.

In this section, we discuss Population and Sample and study tool and Reliability and validity of the study as well as the statistical tests used to evaluate the hypothesis.

The population of the study consisted of employees who are working at commercial banks located in the capital of Jordan (Amman). A sample of 500 questionnaires distributed to employees, 425 usable questionnaires were returned, which are usable for statistics. There were 123 female and 302 male respondents. Regarding the age groups, Table I indicates that age group between 30 and less than 40 forms the highest percentage of (53 percent), employees with age less than 30 years make (11 percent), employees with age more than 50 years make (12 percent)

The research instruments were designed using measures from the extant literature, and were scored on a five-point Likert scale. The 27 items five-point Likert scale anchored by "1" strongly disagree to "5" strongly agree was developed to measure human resources management practices were basically derived from Delery & Doty (1996) commitment with three criteria, affective Commitment (AC1-AC5), normative commitment (NC1-NC5), and continuance commitment (CC1-CC5). The instrument was evaluated for reliability and validity. Reliability refers to the instrument's ability to provide consistent results in repeated uses (Gatewood & Field, 1990). Validity refers to the degree to which the instrument measures the concept the researcher wants to measure (Bagozzi & Phillips, 1982). Factor analysis and reliability analysis were used in order to determine the data reliability for the HRM practices, and organizational commitment measures. Factor analysis was performed to assess convergent validity. The results of the factor analysis and reliability tests are presented in Table II and Table III. All individual loadings were above the minimum of 0.5 recommended by Hair et al. (1998). The reliability values were all above 0.8. Thus it can be concluded that the measures used in this study are valid and reliable. On the basis of Cattel (1966) and Hair et al. (1998) criterion, factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 and factor loadings that are equal to or greater than 0.50 were retained. 27 items, loading under four dimensions of HRM practices.

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity has been used as Pre-analysis testing for the suitability of the entire sample for factor analysis as recommended by Comrey (1978), the value of The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure were used to assess the suitability of the sample for each unifactorial determination. The KMO values found (see Table IV) are generally considered acceptable (Kim and Mueller, 1978). All factors in each unifactorial test accounted for more than 60 per cent of the variance of the respective variable sets. This suggests that only a small amount of the total variance for each group of variables is associated with causes other than the factor itself, and Bartlet tests of sphericity was significant at p <0:01, thus, indicating that the sample was suitable for factor analytic procedures (see Table IV).

Table V indicates that employees of commercial banks in Jordan evaluate staffing (with the highest mean scores, i.e. M = 3.49, SD = 0.69) to be the highest practice HRM practice applied, followed by Performance appraisal (M = 3.12, SD = 0.89), Training and development (M = 3.06, SD = 0.83), and Compensation (with the lowest mean scores M = 2.97, SD = 0.79).With regard to organizational commitment, employees of commercial banks in Jordan evaluate their normative commitment (M = 3.53, SD = 0.77) to be the highest organizational commitment factor, followed by Continuous commitment (M= 3.46, SD = 0.76), Affective commitment (M = 3.22, SD = 0.76), which were all rated as moderate commitment by employees.

HRM practices and organizational commitment was performed in which organizational commitment acts as the dependent variable and HRM practices with the four elements:

staffing, training and development, compensations, and performance appraisal, as the independent variables.

From the result as shown in Table VI, the R2 is 0.362, which means that 36.2 per cent of the variation in organizational commitment can be explained by staffing, training and development, compensations, and performance appraisal. The proposed model was adequate as the F-statistic = 50.962 were significant at the 5% level (p < 0.05). This indicates that the overall model was reasonable fit and there was a statistically significant association between HRM practices and organizational commitment. The findings showed that commercial banks in Jordan concerns with the process of seeking new employees who are experienced and qualified. The investment in this sector of services has recently witnessed a noticeable development in Jordan due to the technological development and the increasing competition among local and foreign banks.

About training & development the findings showed that the practice of training and development reflect the amount of importance given to this practice in bank sector. The purpose is not to waste the resources in this program and not get the benefits wanted. Training opportunities have turned out to be available, and so has the employees' concern about developing their skills and abilities and their interaction with the training programs offered to them. With regard to performance Appraisal the findings showed that the practice which was most applied was performance appraisal, simply because it is the target of competition between Jordanian banks and foreign banks. Performance appraisal indicates the final contribution of the human performance, and therefore it is given attention by both the management and the employees.

With regard to Compensations, the findings showed that, Compensations is applied. The system of wages and salaries in commercial banks is generally satisfactory but not high as expected by employees as compared with the neighboring countries. This is naturally due to the economic situation in the country. However, this is the viewpoint of the employees, which might be exaggerated.

The study also found out a positive impact for HRM practices (staffing, training and development, performance appraisal, compensations) on the employees' organizational commitment. All the HRM practices had a positive impact on the organizational commitment. This was manifested through an analysis of a regression model which showed that the HRM practices had an impact on the organizational commitment of the commercial banks in Jordan. The HRM is considered the channel of communication between the employees and the banks management. It is the administration that is closest to them whose practices are directed to them and intended for them. This will naturally makes them believe that the bank management will reward them for their effort and commitment to it. This belief will finally result in the employee's commitment to his work and to his organization.

This result is consistent with other researchers who found a positive impact of HRM practices on organizational commitment (Al-Hawary & Alajmi, 2017; Meyer & Smith, 2000;Guzzo et al., 2002) indicated that the HRM practices are considered to be effective factors on the increase of organizational commitment among employees. They are a practical way of developing the employees' organizational commitment, and the organization's means to explore and show this commitment, and that commitment is highly affected by the message sent to the employees by the HRM through the practices of HRM itself. HRM practices across subactivities:

staffing, training and development, performance appraisal, compensations, can be used to efficiently manage employees in organizations, affecting the behavior of employees in their efforts to formulate and implement strategic business objectives.

Based on the study results, the researcher recommends managers and decision makers need to be more concerned with the HRM practices, especially the practices of (staffing, training and development, performance appraisal, compensations). They need to activate these practices more inside the banks, develop the mechanisms and procedures needed to

Volume XVIII Issue IV Version I Year ( ) A demonstrate them, follow effective styles to execute them and show more interest in the process of employees' empowerment in their work because this is the most effective practice in organizational commitment. Encouraging employees to put forward their ideas and suggestions that aim to develop performance, increasing orientation towards decentralization through authorization and delegating responsibilities and providing more independence to the employees and giving them the chance to manage their work on their own and decide on a mechanism to do it, and involving them in the process of planning an decision-making, especially those decisions that are important to their work.

Managers are also required to pay attention to the established system of compensations and being fair in this regard: Internally, the employee's salary should accord with the number of efforts he makes, and the employees' salaries within the same organization must be equal provided that they have the same job position, qualifications, skills and experiences.

The researcher also recommends that other future research studies be carried out as concerns other practices, or repeating the study on another sector like health sector, or a comparative study between local and foreign banks. This study also tackled some HRM practices. It is also possible to tackle more other practices such as human resources planning, empowerment, job security and taking more care of employees.

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