The experience of commitment in the contemporary workplace: An exploratory reexamination of commitment model antecedents

Abstract

To reassess and enhance our understanding of employee commitments in contemporary organizations, we conducted a mixed-method study. In open-ended surveys, we asked employees (N = 712) to explain why they are committed to various work-related targets (organization, coworker, organizational goal, and occupation).We content analyzed the responses and derived 15 distinct explanations for those commitments. We then compared these explanations to extant commitment models and examined how explanations varied across commitment targets. Finally, we examined the relationship between these explanations and commitment strength. Our findings indicate that many factors in extant commitment models are still relevant (e.g., Social Exchange), but other aspects of those models were not mentioned by participants (e.g., competition) or mentioned very infrequently (e.g., No Choice). Perhaps most importantly, some current explanations (e.g., Altruism) are not represented in extant models. In addition, some explanations were provided more or less often for different commitment targets. For example, Social Exchange was provided more frequently for coworker commitment but less frequently than expected by chance for organizational goal commitment. Finally, explanations differentially related to commitment strength, with stronger commitment associated with Social Exchange than with Financial Exchange. The implications of these findings for theory and human resource management practice are discussed.

Employees’ emotional awareness as an antecedent of organizational commitment—The mediating role of affective commitment to the leader

“…However, research suggests that the strength of employee commitment to the organization has remained relatively stable over the last three decades. This, underline the probability of other focis of commitment gaining more relevance, such as commitment to the leader, colleagues, among others ( Meyer et al, 2015 ; Meyer, 2016 ; van Rossenberg et al, 2018 , 2022 ; Eisenberger et al, 2019 ; Klein et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Some studies suggest that leadership style influences employees’ organizational commitment ( Bass et al, 2006 ; Zheng et al, 2015 ; Benevene et al, 2018 ; Zhang et al, 2018 ; Bak, 2020 ). However, the leader as a commitment target has only been approached relatively recently, and is still the subject of few studies, whether conceptual or empirical ( Stinglhamber and Vandenberghe, 2003 ; Becker et al, 2009 ; Meyer, 2009 ; Strauss et al, 2009 ; Meyer et al, 2015 ; Klein et al, 2020 ; van Rossenberg et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Although there is consensus around the existence of multiple focis of commitment in the workplace, the same is not the case regarding their relationships and directionality, and few studies have undertaken an approach to two or more commitment focis ( Klein, 2013 ; Meyer et al, 2015 ; Becker, 2016 ; Klein et al, 2020 ; van Rossenberg et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Commitment has been increasingly considered a significant topic for organizations. Strategic interest in workplace commitment is related to the positive effects that it can have on employees, which are reflected in better organizational outcomes ( Meyer, 2009 ; Beer et al, 2015 ; Markoulli et al, 2017 ; Culibrk et al, 2018 ; Klein et al, 2020 ; Lee et al, 2020 ).…”

On the Elusive Moderators of Affective Organizational Commitment

“…Relatively little is known about the moderators of the relationships between affective commitment and its antecedents. According to commitment theory (Meyer, 2009; Meyer & Allen, 1997), these relationships are driven by social exchange processes (Klein et al, 2020). That is, when work experiences (e.g., job characteristics, organizational justice and support; Meyer et al, 2002) are perceived to be positive (i.e., are intrinsically rewarding), employees are inclined to develop an emotional attachment to their organization as a way of rewarding the organization for these positive experiences (Blau, 1964).…”