The Bedrock of Loyalty: How Self-Awareness and Empathy Drive Affective and Normative Commitment in a Nigerian Manufacturing Firm

This study examines the influence of two emotional intelligence competencies emotional self-awareness and empathy on specific dimensions of employee commitment within a Nigerian manufacturing context. A cross-sectional survey design was adopted. Data were collected from 125 employees of Bond Chemical Limited, Awe, Oyo State, using stratified random sampling. Pearson's correlation and multiple regression analysis were employed to test the relationships between emotional intelligence components and the affective and normative dimensions of commitment. Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from 0.82 to 0.89. Both competencies exhibited strong positive correlations with commitment (self-awareness: r = 0.978, p < 0.01; empathy: r = 0.991, p < 0.01). Empathy was the strongest predictor of affective commitment (B = 1.425, p < 0.01), while both self-awareness (B = 1.251, p < 0.01) and empathy (B = 0.847, p < 0.01) significantly predicted normative commitment. Organisations operating in collectivist cultural contexts may benefit from structured training programmes focused on empathy development and self-awareness enhancement as strategic tools for building a committed and stable workforce. This study provides empirical evidence from the Nigerian manufacturing sector on how distinct emotional intelligence competencies differentially relate to specific forms of organisational commitment, addressing a significant gap in the extant African management literature.