MGHB02H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4.5: Organizational Commitment
4.5 Differentiate affective, continuance and normative commitment, and explain how organizations can
foster organizational commitment
Organizational commitment: how strongly do employees feel linked to the organization (how likely will
they stay)
• Affective commitment: staying because they want to; identity and involvement to organization
(best)
• Continuance commitment: staying because they have to; costs to leave is too high (worst)
• Normative commitment: staying because they think they should; feels obligated to stay
Factors of Organizational Commitment
• Affective commitment encouraged by interesting, satisfied work
• Continue commitment happens when there is a personal sacrifice incurred by leaving or there is
no better job option (obtaining promotion, living near the office, involvement in the community)
o Increases the longer someone is in the same organization
o I hae to, eause I do’t at to gie XY) up or Where else ould I go
• Normative commitment happens out of obligation, strong identification with the company
values, or loyalty to co-workers; organization gave then tuition funding or special training
o I should stay here, the opay has iested a lot ito e
Consequences of Organizational Commitment
• All forms of commitment decrease turnover
• Performance
o Affective commitment positively relates to performance; there is a focus on goals due
to interesting work
o Continuance commitment negatively relates; they have to be there, so they do the bare
minimum
o Low affective and high continuance: doing jobs they hate
• Problems: bad work/life balance, unethical or illegal behaviour, resistance to changes in the
organization
Changes in the Workplace and Employee Commitment
• Nature of employee commitment: all three types of commitment change after a change in the
workplace
• Fous of eployee’s oitet: changes in workplace will change the focus of the
eployee’s oitet fous o their suuit, or ore oitet outside of ork
o Organization gets bigger, focus becomes smaller to their subunit; threat to their job
security means more commitment outside of work)
• Multiplicity of employer-employee relationships: organizations want dedicated employees, but
part-time workers/those without security are unlikely to have strong affective commitment
o Solution: have a core group for key operations that have high affective commitment
while other groups have less important roles
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