تعهد سازمانی خارجی

Building on the organizational commitment literature and recent management practices like relationship marketing and total quality management, a new focus of work commitment is proposed: external organizational commitment (EOC). It is envisioned as a global construct and defined as an employee's identification and involvement with another organization. A model of EOC specifying its antecedents, consequences, and moderating factors is offered and 28 propositions emanating from the model are articulated. Implications for human resource practitioners are discussed.

There have been two main approaches to the study of work commitment. One such approach, advocated by Morrow, 1983 and Morrow, 1993, considers commitment to work as consisting of a constellation of commitment constructs. Her model suggests that one's commitment to work consists of four universal forms: work ethic endorsement, career commitment, organizational commitment, and job involvement. These universal forms range from those that are thought to be more dispositional, cultural, and cohort based to those that are more subject to change and influence. Research on these forms of commitment have varied from studies that look at the forms separately, to research on concept redundancy among these forms (e.g., Morrow, Eastman, & McElroy, 1991) to possible interactions among them (e.g., Blau & Boal, 1987 and Blau & Boal, 1989), to Blau's attempt to develop a comprehensive measure of commitment (Blau, Paul, & St. John, 1993). A second approach to the study of work commitment is a constituency approach. This approach suggests that a reference point is a necessary ingredient in understanding employee commitment. For example, rather than attempting to analyze an employee's commitment to an entire organization, this approach contends that it is more meaningful to examine an individual's commitment to specific constituencies within the organization separately (Brown, 1996). Reichers' (1985) work on commitment to top management within organizations, Zaccaro and Dobbins' (1989) research on commitment to one's work group, and Becker's (1992) investigation of multiple intraorganizational foci of commitment (i.e., commitment to top management, supervisor, work group) exemplify this line of reasoning. A goal of this paper is to extend both of these perspectives by looking at external organizational commitment (EOC), or the commitment — loyalty if you will — that an employee of one organization has toward another organization. This involves taking the idea of commitment toward a specific constituent and extending it to the forms of commitment beyond the boundary of a particular organization. As will be discussed, commitment to multiple organizational targets is commonplace in many business settings, especially where organizational representatives serve as boundary spanners with other client organizations (e.g., advertising agencies, accounting organizations, banks and financial service organizations). However, no attempt has yet been made to examine the antecedents or consequences of cultivating strong EOC among boundary-spanning employees. The idea of being committed toward an external organization is not completely novel, given the long-term interest in union commitment (e.g., Fullagar & Barling, 1989 and Gordon et al., 1980). In addition, the marketing and management literatures have demonstrated a renewed interest in the development of interorganizational relationships. For example, the shift from “transactional marketing” to “relationship marketing” is predicated on building long-term enduring relationships with customers (Gronroos, 1990), “to create involvement and product loyalty by building a lasting bond with the customer” (Copulsky & Wolf, 1990, p. 17). The concept of building relationships with external constituents has been extended from building customer loyalty to building working partnerships between organizations, developing strategic alliances between companies, managing just-in-time relationships, and enhancing commitment among members of a distribution channel Dyer & Singh, 1998 and Kim & Frazier, 1997. Interest in these relationships has also been heightened in the management arena by the adoption of total quality management principles that stress close relationships with external customers (Dean & Bowen, 1994) and by research relating the importance of psychological and physical closeness of boundary-spanning employees and customers to customer satisfaction Pugh, 1999 and Schneider et al., 1998. All of this research, however, is predicated on building commitment between organizations. The purpose of this paper is to examine EOC, more formally defined as an employee's identification and involvement with a client organization (e.g., a supplier, customer, or partner organization). Thus, rather than examining organization-to-organization commitment, the present paper focuses on an individual's level of commitment toward an organization external to the one in which he/she is employed. In doing so, we will use Reichers' (1985) notion of commitment to a specific constituent and expand Becker's (1992) concept of commitment foci to include a commitment focus external to the organization. EOC is viewed here as a specific, rather than a global, construct. That is, employees who deal with multiple client organizations will exhibit some level of commitment toward each of their client organizations but not client organizations in general. Defining EOC in this way avoids confusion with those who have suggested that employees may feel some sense of general loyalty to the public or clients (e.g., Reichers, 1986) and avoids any potential overlap with professional commitment, which entails a service to society dimension (Morrow, 1993). Understanding EOC is important for several reasons. First, many occupations are predicated on a member of one organization developing a long-term relationship with members of other organizations (Dwyer, Schurr, & Oh, 1987). Consultants (e.g., managerial, software, legal, etc.), advertising account executives, executive recruiters, and auditors are examples of individuals who are in a position to develop a sense of commitment toward a client organization. Second, understanding EOC should enhance our understanding of the satisfaction, performance, and turnover of individuals in these types of jobs. Indeed, some may be concerned that EOC may lead to interorganizational mobility, wherein employees voluntarily terminate their employment with an organization in order to join a client firm. Third, research suggests that clients are also more likely to form relationships with individual boundary spanners within a firm than with firms, per se (Berry, 1995). A potentially important consequence of this is the possibility of lost business when the boundary spanner leaves an organization (Seabright, Levinthal, & Fichman, 1992). EOC may also help explain the success or failure of subcontracting, and it may be particularly germane to those organizations that place an employee on-site within a customer, supplier, or other stakeholder organization (e.g., the use of parallel teams where members of one organization are assigned to work with members of another organization). Lastly, greater understanding of EOC may provide keener insight into how commitment to various foci evolve and change over time.

The purpose of this paper has been to identify a new way of thinking about commitment, EOC, and to identify potential antecedents, consequences, and moderators associated with it. Our intent was not to specify every relationship or effect associated with this concept. Rather, our purpose was to stimulate thinking and research on this new form of commitment. We have done so by identifying a set of propositions, albeit general propositions, to initiate research on this potentially important topic. In some respects, the recognition of EOC is an example of how management practice has evolved at a much faster rate than academic understanding. As early as 1985, Reichers suggested that people form multiple commitments to distinct entities or coalitions within their organizations. With the growth in customer focus evident in many organizations (e.g., TQM, relationship marketing), the extension of commitment to an external target should not be surprising. What is needed now is empirical verification of the antecedents and consequences identified in this preliminary model.