Validating the Impact of Human Resource Development Practices on Affective Commitment in Nigerian Deposit Money Banks

Within the contemporary Nigerian banking ecosystem, empirical ambiguity persists regarding how specific human capital development mechanisms translate into optimized workforce attitudes-a gap that critically undermines strategic interventions aimed at stabilizing volatile employment relationships. Addressing this theoretical and empirical omission, this study investigated the predictive capacity of Human Resource Development (HRD) practices on employee affective commitment within selected Deposit Money Banks in Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. To ensure a granular structural analysis, the composite architecture of HRD was deconstructed into three latent dimensions-training and development practices, career development practices, and organisational development (OD) practices-which served as the independent operational framework, while affective commitment was modeled as the terminal attitudinal outcome. Adopting a quantitative, cross-sectional research design, primary data were generated from a sample of 294 banking professionals via structured questionnaires and subjected to both descriptive and inferential statistical treatments. The aggregate structural model demonstrated that the unified, composite construct of HRD practices acts as a highly significant, positive predictor of employee affective commitment. However, a deconstructed parameter evaluation revealed distinct variations among the individual paths: organizational development practices emerged as the primary driver of affective commitment (β = 0.279, t = 7.211, p < 0.01), followed by a statistically significant but marginal direct effect from career development practices (β = 0.083, t = 2.375, p < 0.05). Conversely, the regression path for standalone training and development practices proved structurally weak and statistically non-significant (β = 0.018, t = 0.678, p > 0.05), indicating a departure from traditional human resource management consensus. Ultimately, this study concludes that while isolated, short-term skill acquisition programmes fail to independently generate psychological alignment, the holistic, bundled implementation of practices for enhancing human capital functions as a vital catalyst for cultivating deep institutional attachment and emotional loyalty within the Nigerian financial services sector

HRD practices, training and development practices, career development practices, organisational development practices, affective commitment

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