The Influence of Organisational Culture on Employee Commitment in Shinyanga Municipal Council, Tanzania

Local government Authorities (LGAs) have been vested with the power to ensure the timely and consistent
provision of services at the grassroots level. The success of LGAs in meeting their primary goal of serving
community members depends on staff commitment and the culture established within each LGA's context.
However, existing challenges, such as corruption, turnover and turnover intentions, poor leadership, among
others, have been identified as a source of poor service delivery, as they hinder employees' motivation and
commitment to serve fellow citizens at the local level. This study examines the influence of organisational
culture on employee commitment within Tanzania's local government authorities, focusing on the four
typologies defined by the Competing Values Framework: clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy. It utilised
a structured questionnaire, and 92 employees at the Shinyanga Municipal Council were sampled via
stratified random sampling. The responses were considered for analysis using STATA software for inferential
statistics, where the Multivariate Multiple Regression (MMR) Analysis was conducted to examine the effect
of multiple typologies of organisational culture (clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy culture) on multiple
dimensions of employee commitment (affective, normative, and continuance). The findings revealed that
clan culture and adhocracy culture negatively influence all three dimensions of employees' commitment. In
addition, the findings indicated that market culture positively influences all dimensions of employee
commitment. Furthermore, the hierarchical culture exerted a positive influence on some dimensions, such
as affective and continuance commitment, and a negative influence on normative commitment. The study
concluded that organisational culture exerts varied effects on employee commitment, highly dependent on
the specific cultural type and the institutional setting. It further recommended that local government
authorities create a supportive culture to enhance employee commitment at the local level. This study
contributes to the organisational and public administration literature by demonstrating how different types of
organisational culture influence employee commitment in distinct ways in Tanzania's LGAs.