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Affective Commitment Definition

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Executive Summary

This research is aimed at analyzing employee engagement and its relation to affective commitment. Empowerment can be of great value for a company and its employees. However, to be able to benefit most from giving employees empowerment, it is not only important to focus on the achievements that could be gained by giving employees empowerment, but also to take into account the possible disadvantages and risks. This study investigates the relations between the dimensions of empowerment (impact, competence, meaning and self-determination) and affective commitment. This study also investigates the interactional effects of the dimensions of empowerment with job engagement and trust in the management on affective commitment.

The …show more content…

Affective commitment subsequently refers to the employee’s emotional attachment to, identification with and involvement in, the organization. When it is assumed that reciprocity comes into play by giving employees autonomy in their tasks causing a sense of self-determination, a positive relationship with affective commitment can be expected.

H2D*: The relation of empowerment self-determination and affective commitment shows an inverted u-shaped curve.

When there is a moderated degree of self-determination affective commitment will be high; when the level of self-determination is low or high, the relation with affective commitment will be low.

An example of an inverted u-shaped relationship is shown in figure 2.1. The relationship starts out to be positive, but on a certain degree, this relation is changing into a negative one. For the relation between self-determination and affective commitment it is expected that from a low level up to a moderate level of self-determination, the relation with affective commitment is positive. Subsequently, the relation changes into a negative one.

Figure 2.1: Inverted u-curved relationship
3.4 Hypothesis …show more content…

The assumption is that a high identification with the organizational goals causes more satisfaction in work and this in combination with absorption in the job will lead to a higher affective commitment to the organization. When an employee scores low on the dimension meaning, we expect a low score on affective commitment, and we do not expect affective commitment to be higher when the employee’s job engagement is high. On the contrary, we expect even a lower score on affective commitment in case the employee is very engaged in his job. This is assumed because the employee does not identify his own goals with the ones of the organization, which is not really satisfying. Besides he is concentrated to his work activities and this causes a chance that the employee is not really committed to the organization and is not really involved with the willingness to stay

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