What is organisational commitment? Definition and explanation

Organisational Commitment

Terms

Organisational commitment is the individual’s psychological attachment to an organisation.

Usually organisational commitment and job satisfaction are closely correlated together with lower levels of intention to leave the organisation.

3 types of organisational commitment

Researcher’s have identified three types of organisational commitment:

 

  1. Affective commitment: Affective committment where the employee has an emotional bond with the organisation. They ‘want’ to be there.
  2. Continuance commitment: Continuance commitment refers to the situation where an individual feels that they will lose more by leaving than they will gain. In effect continuance commitment is a fear of loss if they left. The loss can be in any domain such as prestige, income, friendships or social loss.
  3. Normative commitment: This is where an individual feels they should stay for some reason. Usually this is because of a sense of obligation to the organisation. This sense of obligation can stem from the moral (working for a charity that is doing important work), ethical, because the organisation spent time and money training you or paying college fees etc.

Back to The Oxford Review Encyclopaedia of Terms

 

Reference 

Yousef, D.A. (2017) Organizational Commitment, Job Satisfaction and Attitudes toward Organizational Change: A Study in the Local Government, International Journal of Public Administration, 40:1, 77-88, DOI: 10.1080/01900692.2015.1072217

 

What develops a new employee’s commitment to the organisation? 

 

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