Review of Economics and Development Studies, Vol. 6 (1) 2020, 43-55 43 The Influence of Training and Development on Organizational Commitment of Academicians in Pakistan a Altaf Hussain, b Muhammad Asad Khan, c Mohammad Hanif Khan a Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce and Management Sciences, University of Malakand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan Email: altafhussain@uom.edu.pk b PhD Scholar, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn (UTHM) Malaysia, Email: asadkhanbte06@gmail.com c Lecturer, Department of Tourism and Hotel Management, University of Malakand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, Email: hanifyousafzai@uom.edu.pk ARTICLE DETAILS ABSTRACT History: Accepted 28 March 2020 Available Online 31 March 2020 It is recognized globally that training and development not only enhances the abilities, knowledge and skills of the staff member but it also changes their attitudes and behaviors. Such change in their attitudes and behaviors makes them committed with their respective organizations. This research work inquired association of training & development along with its dimensions with organizational commitment. We used Smart-PLS to make analysis of the data which were gathered from 320 academic staff of seven public sector universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan. The results of this work found a significant influence of training & development and its dimensions on organizational commitment of academic staff. The results further suggested that training and development play crucial role in the enrichment of organizational commitment of academic staff. Committed academic staff not only stays longer with the universities but put more effort and perform better as compared to non-committed academic staff. We also concluded in this study that if the management of the universities intends to enhance the commitment of academic staff with the universities, they need to provide them maximum opportunities of training & development. We also discussed the theoretical and practical implications of the results. © 2020 The authors. Published by SPCRD Global Publishing. This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 Keywords: Training & Development, Organizational Commitment, Influence, SmartPLS JEL Classification: M53, P36, P46, O30 DOI: 10.47067/reads.v6i1.183 Corresponding author’s email address: altafhussain@uom.edu.pk 1. Introduction Training & development which provides skills, knowledge and abilities to employees are considered crucial for the performance, competitiveness and innovation of any organization (Urbancova, 2013). It is documented by several scholars that training & development is vital tool which helps develop skills, knowledge and abilities of employees in organization. Personnel capital is considered a prime source for gaining competitive advantage in every organization (Bashir & Long,