The Effect of Social Capital on Employee's Organizational Commitment: Case Study of Governmental Banks in the City of Kerman

This article tries to study the effect of structural، relational and cognitive social capitals on employees’ organizational commitment along with the various dimensions of such a commitment. The research is conducted in descriptive-correlation method. The population of the research consists of governmental banks in the city of Kerman including Bank Melli Iran، Bank Mellat، Bank Tejarat، Bank Refah and Bank Maskan، of which 40 branches are randomly selected. All employees of the branches under study، composed of 400 persons، participated in the research. The data collected from 308 filled out questionnaires were used as the basis of testing the hypotheses and conceptual model of the research. The results showed that: a) the relational social capital is directly، positively and significantly effective on employees’ organizational commitment as well as on the normative and affective dimensions of such a commitment at the level of = α 0. 01; yet it does not have a significant effect on continuance commitment. b) The structural and cognitive social capitals do not have any significant impact on employees’ organizational commitment and its dimensions. c) The structural and cognitive social capitals have significant and positive effect on relational social capital at the level of = α 0. 01. d) Path analysis results indicated that the structural and cognitive social capitals have an indirect، significant influence on organizational commitment and its normative and affective dimensions through relational social capital although they do not have any significant impact on continuance organizational commitment.