تعهد قبل و بعد : یک ارزیابی و مفهوم سازی مجدد یا تعهد سازمانی

A review of the organizational commitment literature has pointed out several advantages as well as some limitations of the approach advanced by Meyer and Allen (Meyer, P.J. and Allen, J.N. (1997). Commitment in the workplace: Theory, research, and application. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.). The advantages include good psychometric properties of the current scales, acceptable discriminant validity of the three dimensions, and research findings that showed the usefulness and acceptable content validity of the three-dimensional approach. Some of the limitations are limited predictive validity, conceptual ambiguity of continuance commitment, and concept redundancy between normative and affective commitment. This paper suggests a conceptualization that builds upon the strengths of the current approaches and minimizes their limitations. The proposed theory contends that organizational commitment is two-dimensional. One dimension is instrumental in nature and the second is affective. In addition, a sharp difference needs to be made between commitment propensity that develops before one's entry into the organization and commitment attitudes that develop after one's entry into the organization. The advantages of the suggested theory and its implications for the understanding of organizational commitment and future research on it are discussed.

The concept of commitment in the workplace is still one of the most challenging and researched concepts in the fields of management, organizational behavior, and HRM (Cohen, 2003, Cooper-Hakim and Viswesvaran, 2005 and Morrow, 1993). A great deal of research has been devoted to studying the antecedents and outcomes of commitment in the work setting. The maturity of the research on commitment has been exemplified by meta-analyses on these concepts (Cooper-Hakim and Viswesvaran, 2005, Mathieu and Zajac, 1990, Meyer et al., 2002 and Riketta and Van Dick, 2005) as well as by several books that have provided a more quantitative summary of the knowledge on commitment(s) in the work place (Cohen, 2003, Meyer and Allen, 1997 and Morrow, 1993). The conceptual and operational development of organizational commitment (OC) has affected the conceptualization and measurement of other commitment forms such as commitment to the occupation, the job, the workgroup, the union, and the work itself (Cohen, 2003, Gordon et al., 1980 and Morrow, 1993). For more than 20 years, the leading approach to studying OC has been the three-dimensional (affective, normative, continuance) scales of Meyer and Allen, 1984 and Meyer and Allen, 1997. This approach was rooted in earlier approaches to OC (Becker, 1960 and Porter et al., 1974) and was affected by their strengths and weaknesses. Each of the approaches, including the dominant one of Meyer and Allen (1997), contributed to the development of the concept of commitment. However, some of their limitations seem to be the reason for problems in the construct as well as in the predictive validity of organizational commitment dimensions (Cohen, 2003 and Ko et al., 1997). This paper will advance a typology that attempts to build upon the strengths of the dominant approaches to OC. The main argument of this paper is that by modifying some of the main postulates of the previous approaches and by revising some of the current conceptualizations, we can create a stronger theory with which to study OC. The first part of this paper reviews the characteristics of the main approaches to OC. It will argue that while the dominant approach of OC is multi-dimensional (Allen & Meyer, 1990), there is controversy about the contribution of some of its dimensions to the understanding of commitment. Overlap between the two dimensions (e.g. normative and affective commitment) and unclear dimensionality in another dimension (e.g. continuance commitment) are some of the causes for the ambiguity in the current approach to OC. The later part of the paper will argue that some of the thinking and ideas developed so far do provide the basic building blocks for suggesting a conceptualization that will attempt to clarify and to better represent the concept of organizational commitment. The suggested conceptualization of organizational commitment is presented in Fig. 1. The model suggests two dimensions to commitment — the timing of commitment and the bases of commitment. The timing of commitment distinguishes between commitment propensity, which develops before entry into the organization and organizational commitment, which develops after entry into the organization. The second dimension, the bases of commitment, makes a distinction between commitment based on instrumental considerations and commitment based on psychological attachment. Following the above conceptualization, the suggested theory advances four forms of organizational commitment.As illustrated in Fig. 1, two of these forms develop before entry into the organization and two develop after. The first two forms that develop before one's entry into the organization are instrumental commitment propensity, which is derived from one's general expectations about the quality of the exchange with the organization in terms of the expected benefits and rewards one might receive from it, and normative commitment propensity, which is a general moral obligation towards the organization. The two forms developed after entry are instrumental commitment, which results from one's perception of the quality of the exchange between one's contributions and the rewards that one's receives, and affective commitment, defined as a psychological attachment to the organization demonstrated by identification with it, emotional involvement and a sense of belonging. As the following sections will demonstrate, these forms are conceptually separate from one another, but they are related because the two pre-entry commitment forms are important determinants of the two post-entry commitments. The four-component model I propose will advance several modifications to the current conceptualization. First, as a result of the distinction between organizational commitment developed before entry and commitment developed after entry, normative commitment, considered in the current conceptualization of Meyer and Allen (1997) as a situational attitude, is defined as a commitment propensity that reflects individual differences. Second, the distinction between instrumental and affective commitment leads to a shift of focus in the current continuance commitment from considerations about the costs of leaving the organization to perceptions about the benefits of staying. These distinctions solve two problems that have plagued commitment researchers. First, the high correlation between affective commitment and normative commitment (Meyer et al., 2002) has caused researchers to question the contribution of normative commitment to the conceptualization of commitment. The conceptualization here argues that the high correlations occur because normative commitment is in fact a propensity to be committed that should be examined before entry into the organization, not after entry. Second, the suggested instrumental commitment here might solve the ambiguities that, for a long time, have been associated with the definition and measurement of the continuance commitment form (Ko et al., 1997). The paper will conclude with a discussion regarding the potential implications of the suggested theory.

This paper argues that most of the approaches to OC developed so far have the potential to contribute to a better understanding of OC and thus cannot be ignored in any re-conceptualization of commitment. I will suggest a theory that incorporates some modifications to the common commitment approaches in an attempt to build on their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. Several conclusions from the dominant approaches to commitment will guide the suggested theory. First, given the criticism (O'Reilly & Chatman, 1986) that has been leveled at commitment typologies that have incorporated references to outcomes of commitment in their definitions and scales, a proposed conceptualization of commitment should remain purely attitudinal to avoid such overlap. Adherence to attitudinal issues will prevent possible negative effects on the construct validity of commitment definitions. Second, in terms of the outcomes of commitment, the benefits of commitment should go beyond turnover, as already suggested by O'Reilly and Chatman (1986). The strong relationship found between commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (Meyer et al., 2002) supports the usefulness of commitment in explaining other valuable outcomes in the workplace. Third, more attention should be given to the notion of time in the conceptualization of commitment. The instability of the factor structures of commitment across different timeframes (Vandenberg & Self, 1993) suggests that employees have difficulty understanding the meaning of the items typically included in measurements of commitment in different stages in their organizational career. Fourth, the role of normative commitment and continuance commitment should be reexamined in commitment conceptualizations. The high correlations between normative and affective commitment also found in meta-analysis (Meyer et al., 2002), and the bi-dimensionality of continuance commitment suggest the need for modifications of these dimensions (Ko et al., 1997). The suggested theory will apply some of the above conclusions, as well as other ones, in its proposed conceptualization.