Chapter 3: Organizational commitment

3.1 What is organizational commitment? What is withdrawal behaviour? How are they
connected?

Organizational commitment:
- Is defined as the desire on the part of an employee to remain a member of the
organization.

Withdrawal behaviour:
- Defined as a set of actions that employees perform to avoid the work situation -
behaviours that may eventually culminate in quitting the organization.

3.2: what are the 3 forms of organizational commitment, and how do they differ?
Forms of commitment:
Affective commitment:
- Defined as a desire to remain a member of an organization due to an emotional
attachment to , and involvement with, that organization.
- Feeling of friendship
- The atmosphere
- Culture of the company

- You stay because you want to

Continuance commitment:
- Denied as a desire to remain a member of an organization because of an awareness of
the costs associated with leaving it.

- You stay because you have to.

Normative commitment:
- Defined as a desire to remain a member of organization due to a feeling of obligation

- You stay because you ought to

 - We use the term focus of commitment to referrer to the various people, places, and
things that can inspire a desire to remain a member of an organization.

Affective commitment:
- Employees who are effectively committed to their employer tend to engage in more
interpersonal and organizational citizenship behaviours, such as helping, sportsmanship,
and boosterism.

Erosion model:
- Suggestestaht employees with fewer bonds will be most likely to quit the organization.

Social influence model:

- Suggests that employees who have direct linkages with “leavers” will themselves be
more likely to leave.

- Companies can increase their affective commitment by creating a sense of family at the
workplace and investing in activities that bring employees together.

Continuance commitment:
- Continuous commitment exists when there's a profit associated with staying and a cost
associated with leaving.
 - Another factor that increases continuous commitment is a lack of employment
alternatives.
- Economic conditions
- Unemployment rate
- Marketability of a person’s skills and abilities.

- Continuous commitment therefore tends to create a more of a passive form of loyalty.

Embeddedness:
- Summarizes employee’s links to their organization and community, their sense of fit with
their organization and community and what they would have to sacrifice for a job
change.

Normative commitment:
- Normative commitment exists when there is asese that staying is the “right” or “moral”
thing to do.
- Sense that they should stay.

- Companies may be investing a lot of money in their employees which in turn makes
them feel guilty for leaving the company.

Forms of commitment combination:

Could happen on both the good and bad spectrum:
- Could make good things rly good
- Bad things rly bad.

3.3 What are the 4 primary responses to negative events at work?

1. Might attempt to remove yourself from the situation, either by being absent from work
more frequently or by voluntarily leaving the organization.
a. His removal is termed exit
i. Active, destructive response by which individual either neds or restrict
organizational membership
 2. You might attempt to change the circumstances by meeting with the new team member
to attempt to work out the situation.
a. This action is termed voice.
i. Active consecutive response in which individuals attempt to improve the
situation.

3. You might just grin and bear it, mainniting your effort level and deposing your
unhappiness.
a. This response is termed loyalty.
i. Passive, constructive response that moanitians public support for the
situation while the individual privately hopes for improvement.

4. You might just go through the motions, allowing your performance to detroit slowly you
mentally “check out”
a. This action is called neglect
i. Passive, destructive response.

3.4 What are some examples of psychological withdrawal? Of physical withdrawal? How
do the different forms of withdrawal relate to each other?

- Withdrawal comes in two forms:

- Psychological (neglect)
- Physical (exit)

Psychological withdrawal:
- Actions that provide mental escape from the work environment
- “Warm chair attrition”: employees have essentially been lost weventhie chairs
remain occupied.

Daydreaming:
- When employees appear to be working but are actually distracted by random thoughts
or concerns

Socializing:
- Verbal chatting about non work topics that goes on in the cubicle and office or at the
mailbox or vending machines.

Looking busy:
- Indicates an intentional desire on the part of employees to look like they're working even
though they're not.

Moonlighting:
- They use work time and resources to complete something other than their job duties,
such as assignments for another job.
Cyber Floating:
- Using the internet, email, and instant messaging access for their personal enjoyment
rather than work duties.

Physical withdrawal:
- Consists of actions that provide physical escape, whether short term or long term from
the work environment.

Tardiness:
- Tardiness reflects the tendencies to arrive at work late (or leave early).

Long breaks
Missing meetings

Absenteeism:
- Occurs when employees miss an entire day of work

The population variance is denoted by σ2.

Quitting:
- Voluntarily leaving the organization
Different models of withdrawal:
Independent forms model:
- Argues that the various withdrawal behaviours are uncorrelated with one another, occur
for different reasons but fulfill different needs on the part of the employees.

Compensatory forms model:

- Various withdrawal behaviours negatively correlated with one another
- That doing one means you are less likely to do another.
- Knowing that an emp;loyee cyverflos tells you that the same employee probably
isn't going to be absent.

Progression model:
- Argues that the various withdrawal behaviours are positively correlated
- The tendency to daydream or socialize leads to the tendency to come in late or take long
breaks

- Scientifically this model is supported the most.

3.5 What workplace trends are affecting organizational commitment in today’s

organization?
Diversity of the workplace:
- More minorities working
- Baby boomers are about to retire
- More Canadians in the workforce are born outside of the country which lowers their
embeddedness and affective commitment to the organization.
The Changing Employee - employer relationship
- Many companies partake in downsizing to reduce costs however this strategy often
leads to more money being lost then saved
- Employees who stay are faced with survivors syndrome and experience a lot of
stress especially since they need to work harder to compensate for their lost
colleagues.
- This entire trend has made employees much less loyal to their organization as
downsizing could happen at any time.

Psychological contracts:
- Reflects employees beliefs about what they owe the organization and what the
organization owes them.

Transactional contracts:
- Based on a narrow set of specific monetary obligations

Relational contracts:
- Based on a broader set of open ended and subjective obligations
- Employee owes royalty and willingness to go above and beyond; the
organization owes job security

- Research suggests that employees tend to view their employment relationships in

quasi-contractual terms. Specifically, psychological contracts reflect employees’
beliefs about what they owe the organization and what the organization owes them

3.6 How can organizations foster a sense of commitment among employees?

Perceived organizational support:
Reflects the degree to which employees believe that the organization values their contributions
and cares about their well being.

- Organizations can foster commitment among employees by fostering perceived

organizational support, which reflects the degree to which the organization cares about
employees’ well-being. Commitment can also be fostered by specific initiatives directed
at the three commitment types.