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Organizational commitment and its effects on behavior
Abstract
This study is an investigation into the complexities of organizational commitment and its effect(s) on people's behaviors. In recent management literature, the concept of organizational commitment has developed along two separate lines of research. One holds commitment to be a set of positive attitudes towards an organization with motivational effects on performance and membership. The other views commitment as an outcome of "investments" in a relationship which retrospectively bind the individual to continued membership. Following an exploratory study into managers' views on "commitment", a measure of commitment to "goals" was added. All three types were compared to hypothesized outcome behaviors. An interactive effect between "calculative" commitment and "job alternatives" on "intent to remain" was included. A questionnaire was used to measure individual commitment on the three commitment scales and reported behavior on seven outcome variables. All ten measures were operationalized by combining existing measure with ideas drawn from the exploratory study. The questionnaire was administered to 250 people at two private companies. Factor analysis was conducted on related variable measures in order to examine discriminant validity. Correlation analysis, multiple regression, and LISREL analysis were conducted in order to test 26 separate hypotheses derived from two models. All three types of commitment were confirmed as separate constructs. As expected, both "affective commitment" and "goal commitment" appeared to have positive relationships with performance variables. Also as expected, "affective" and "calculative commitment" proved to be strong predictors of "intent to remain". "Affective commitment" also a predicted low "search behavior" and high "desire to remain". Contrary to expectations, the effect of "affective commitment" on performance variables was stronger than that of "goal commitment". Also contrary, "calculative commitment" had a positive relationship with "desire to remain" and low "search behavior". There was no evidence of an interactive effect between "calculative commitment" and "job alternatives". The results confirm the power of "affective commitment" as a motivating phenomenon and suggest that its power exceeds that of commitment to "goals". Results also suggest that "calculative commitment" is related to desire to remain a member, though not with a willingness to expend extra job effort.
Subject Area
Management|Occupational psychology
Recommended Citation
Brown, Randall Blackshaw, "Organizational commitment and its effects on behavior" (1990). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9035384.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9035384