Dimensions of Organizational Commitment in the Public Sector: An Empirical Assessment

INTRODUCTION Organizational commitment has been a popular research topic among organizational and behavioral researchers for decades. This interest is due, in part, to the fact that employee commitment is generally recognized as one of the major determinants of organizational effectiveness (Schein, 1970; Steers, 1975). Higher levels of organizational commitment, for example, are linked to higher levels of job performance (Mowday et al., 1974; Van Maanen, 1975; Porter et al., 1976; Steers, 1977; Larson and Fukami, 1984), lower absenteeism (Steers, 1977; Koch and Steers, 1978; Larson and Fukami, 1984), and lower turnover (Porter et al., 1976; Hom et al., 1979; Koch and Steers, 1978; Angle and Perry, 1981; Price and Mueller, 1981; Larson and Fukami, 1984). The interest in organizational commitment research is further emphasized in many recent studies of the various conceptualization issues of commitment (e.g., Mowday et al., 1982; Morrow, 1983; Reichers, 1985). These studies examine not only the methods issue of commitment measurement (Allen and Meyer, 1990; McGee and Ford, 1987; Meyer and Allen, 1984) but also the behavior consequences of multidimensional commitment (Oliver, 1990; Meyer et al., 1989; Randall et al., 1990). Faced with a crisis in the public sector (Volcker Commission, 1989), several public administration researchers (e.g., Romzek, 1990; Perry and Wise, 1990; Dobel, 1990) recognize the need to study specific employee motives. They suggest that organizational commitment is a key to increasing public service motivation and that more empirical studies of employee commitment are needed to understand its motivational base in public organizations. Empirical research on the dimensions of organizational commitment would help public managers to identify key components of commitment and establish policies and programs to foster and enhance employee commitment. The purpose of this study is to fulfill that need by examining empirically the complex subject of public employee commitment using a recent organizational commitment measurement scale developed by behavioral scientists. LITERATURE REVIEW MULTIDIMENSIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT Organizational commitment is conceptualized and measured in a variety of ways. Mowday, Porter, and Steers (1982) noted 10 different definitions of organizational commitment. Morrow (1983) identified over 25 commitment-related concepts or measures in the literature. Staw (1977) pointed out the difficulty in separating the concept of commitment from other affective concepts such as motivation, satisfaction, and involvement. Experts contend that this conceptual chaos has to do with the tendency of researchers to define commitment in terms of its assumed consequences rather than in terms of what it actually is (Oliver, 1990; Buchanan, 1974). Researchers (Angle and Perry, 1981; Mowday et al., 1982; Ferris and Aranya, 1983; Meyer and Allen, 1984; McGee and Ford, 1987) generally agree that two views of organizational commitment dominate the literature: (1) the attitudinal approach and (2) the behavioral approach. The attitudinal approach sees commitment as an attitude reflecting the nature and quality of the linkage between an employee and an organization (Oliver, 1990; Mowday et al., 1979; Porter et al., 1974, 1976) and portrays a highly committed individual as one who has: 1) a strong belief in and acceptance of the organization's goals and values; 2) a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization; and 3) a strong desire to maintain membership in the organizations (Porter et al., 1974:604). The attitudinal dimension of commitment is used in a significant number of commitment studies (Lee, 1971; Buchanan, 1974a, 1974b; Meyer and Allen, 1984: Mowday et al., 1974, 1982; Steers, 1977; O'Reilley and Chatman, 1986). The behavioral approach to commitment is concerned mainly with the process by which individuals develop a sense of attachment not to an organization but to their own actions (Oliver, 1990:20; Salancik, 1977; Staw, 1976; Becker, 1960). …