The identity-based explanation of affective commitment
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on social identity and self-categorization theories and building on Meyer and Herscovitch's (2001) work on affective commitment, this study aimed to examine the relationship between organizational identification and affective commitment, and the relationships between these two variables and employees' attitude and behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected on-site from 158 automobile dealership employees in central China. Regression analysis and hierarchical linear modeling were used to analyze the survey data.
Findings
Organizational identification was positively related to affective commitment. Affective commitment was negatively related to turnover intention and positively related to job performance. Affective commitment mediated the relationship between organizational identification and turnover intention, but did not mediate the relationship between organizational identification and job performance.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to the literature by integrating organizational identification and affective commitment, the two distinct types of employees' organizational attachment. However, results should be cautioned with the limitations of the study.
Practical implications
Managers can use employees' organizational identification to foster affective commitment since it leads to a variety of positive work attitudes and behavior.
Social implications
Society as a whole may benefit by having more loyal and committed workforce in organisations.
Originality/value
This study develops a model that aligns employee commitment and identification. Doing so answers the call for more efforts to integrate the two forms of organizational attachment in order to make more progress in this line of research.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to give their sincere thanks to Editor Lois Tetrick, former Editor Dianna Stone, and the two anonymous reviewers, who have provided them with a particularly useful guidance for the improvement of their manuscript.This study is part of a social science research project at Wuhan University, partly supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
Citation
W. Lam, L. and Liu, Y. (2014), "The identity-based explanation of affective commitment", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 321-340. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-02-2012-0036
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited