Antecedents of organizational commitment among faculty: an exploratory study

Abstract

Faculty are the main asset of a university and determine its success. The attitudes of faculty toward their institution play an especially important role in the academic profession. This study examines the specific antecedents of affective, normative and continuance commitment of faculty to their university. This study is an online survey of 317 faculty of Russian higher education institutions. The results of the regression analysis showed that being an undergraduate inbred (ie, working at the university from which one graduated) predicted affective and normative commitment toward the university, while having a post at another higher education institution predicted only affective commitment. Also, faculty who work at several universities have lower levels of emotional attachment to the primary university.

The affective commitment of academics in a university in Botswana

“…In addition to positive associations with employee physical and psychological well-being, and with job satisfaction (Lovakov, 2016), affective commitment works to strengthen employees" identification with the organization (Allen and Meyer, 1990). It also enhances emotional, mental and physical investment in the organisation, attachment to the goals of the organization and its vision (Moon et al, 2014).…”

“…Most research on organisational commitment has been undertaken in business organisations (Lovakov, 2016). Although academic employees are a university"s key asset that determines the institution"s success (Lovakov, 2016), and their attitudes influence their performance and willingness to do more than what is formally described in their contracts (Jing and Zhang, 2014), scholars have been slow to explore how the tertiary education environment influences their commitment (Chughtai, 2013). It is important to understand the special psychological bond between academics and their university (Lovakov, 2016).…”

Academic inbreeding and publication activities of Russian faculty

“…This situation is reinforced by the fact that a large proportion of universities in Russia are teaching-oriented and teaching and educational performance are specific features that are difficult to measure from the outside (Godechot & Louvet, 2008;Majcher, 2004). University administration may also expect that inbred faculty would become more committed employees who are more involved in job and better prepared for extra work, and have stronger intentions to stay and greater well-being (Lovakov, 2016).…”

Factors associated with organizational commitment of academic employees in Botswana

“…Although in recent years, the concept of organizational commitment has been receiving much attention from higher education researchers (Zhang et al, 2017), most research on organisational commitment has been carried out among private sector business organisations (Lovakov, 2016). Few studies have been developed in the public sector, particularly in higher education institutions (Rafael et al, 2017).…”

“…Understanding the commitment that academic employees feel towards their institution is important given that it is linked with their performance and willingness to do more (Jing and Zhang, 2014;Plattner, 2004), student learning and achievement (McInerney et al, 2015), the achievement of organizational goals (Khalili and Asmawi, 2012) and the institution"s overall success (Lovakov, 2016). The commitment of academic employees to universities is important in the context of reduced government funding in recent decades, increased pressure for efficient management and self-financing of public institutions, demand for academic employees to engage in work activities that go beyond teaching and research, to include attracting research and other funds to the university (Rafael et al, 2017).…”