How affective commitment to the organization changes over time: A longitudinal analysis of the reciprocal relationships between affective organizational commitment and income

• Published date: 01 May 2016
• Author: Stephen J. Jaros,Torsten Biemann,Xiaohan Gao‐Urhahn
• Date: 01 May 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2088

How affective commitment to the organization

changes over time: A longitudinal analysis of the

reciprocal relationships between affective

organizational commitment and income

XIAOHAN GAO-URHAHN

1

*, TORSTEN BIEMANN

1

AND STEPHEN J. JAROS

2

1

Chair of Human Resource Management and Leadership, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany

2

Department of Management & Marketing, College of Business, Southern University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S.A.

Summary Despite many investigations concerning the outcomes of affective organizational commitment (AC) in the

workplace, very few studies so far have analyzed the long-term development of AC within individuals over

time. Existing research either focused on individuals’initial employment stage or was restricted to a specific

organizational context. To provide supplemental evidence, we examined the development of AC over 6 years

in a group of employees that had passed their initial year of employment. Results from a factorial-invariant

latent change score model with 1004 individuals from different organizations in Korea indicated an overall

increase of AC over time. To further explore why individuals differ in their growth patterns, we related

intra-individual changes of AC to individuals’income in two aspects: levels and changes. Cross-lagged re-

gression models firstly revealed positive reciprocal relationships between AC level and income level, showing

an individual accumulation of AC over time. Furthermore, the study showed a significantly positive impact of

income changes on AC changes, but not vice versa, illustrating the transition of AC at the individual level.

Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, revealing future research on the devel-

opment of commitment. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: affective commitment; organizational commitment; income; intra-individual changes

Affective organizational commitment (AC) captures how employees attach to, identify with and get involved in the

organization (cf. Allen & Meyer, 1990; McElroy, 2001; Meyer, Bobocel, & Allen, 1991; Meyer & Herscovitch,

2001; Porter, Steers, Mowday, & Boulian, 1974; Riketta, 2008). A large number of studies have shown that AC

not only impacts focal work behaviors like absenteeism, job involvement and turnover (Bateman & Strasser,

1984; Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001; Vandenberghe, Bentein, & Panaccio, 2014), but also generates spillover effects

to behaviors such as creativeness and innovativeness (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990; Neininger, Lehmann-Willenbrock,

Kauffeld, & Henschel, 2010). Compared to other commitment mindsets, such as continuance commitment (CC)

and normative commitment (NC) as described in Allen and Meyer’s often-utilized three-component model (TCM;

Meyer & Allen, 1997), AC has the strongest and most consistent relationships with broad dimensions of employee

performance (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001; Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002). Due to its impor-

tance, considerable theoretical and empirical research has explored how and why AC develops (e.g., Ahmad &

Bakar, 2003; Elias, 2009; Fontinha, Chambel, & Cuyper, 2014; Meyer et al., 1991). The majority of studies, how-

ever, focused on cross-sectional effects of AC and associated antecedents, providing little evidence on how AC

changes over time (Beck & Wilson, 2001; Kam, Morin, Meyer, & Topolnytsky, 2013). An investigation of intra-

individual changes would thus enable us to strengthen and extend prior conclusions on causes and trends

in the development of AC (Beck & Wilson, 2000).

*Correspondence to: Xiaohan Gao-Urhahn, Chair of Human Resource Management and Leadership, University of Mannheim, Schloss, 68131

Mannheim, Germany. E-mail: x.gaourhahn@gmail.com

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 06 February 2015

Revised 14 December 2015, Accepted 19 December 2015

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 515–536 (2016)

Published online 19 February 2016 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.2088

Special Issue Article

Research on intra-individual changes of AC can be divided into two main approaches. The first approach com-

prises cross-sectional studies that compare AC among different groups based on individual attributes, such as age

or tenure (Allen & Meyer, 1993; Gregersen, 1993; Morrow & McElroy, 1987). Results from these studies generally

support an increase of AC over time. The second approach is based on theories of development and aims at

explaining changes in AC in different career stages, mostly applying longitudinal data (Meyer et al., 1991; Mowday,

Porter, & Steers, 1982; Simosi, 2013). Results from this stream of research indicate that AC decreases in the initial

employment stage because of a reality shock, and increases afterwards due to a sense of belonging (Beck & Wilson,

2000; Meyer et al., 1991). The initial stage of employment has drawn relatively more attention in the empirical in-

vestigation, and the results shed light on the potential decline of AC for newcomers (Meyer et al., 1991; Ostroff &

Kozlowski, 1992; Vandenberg & Self, 1993). Contrarily, empirical examination of later stages of employment is

rather scarce (Beck & Wilson, 2000; Simosi, 2013). These few empirical studies indicate a decreasing level of

AC over time, but they were restricted to a single occupation (i.e., police officers) (Beck & Wilson, 2001; Van

Maanen, 1975). This study, therefore, aims to fill this research gap by offering a comprehensive empirical analysis

of AC development within employees who have passed their initial stage of employment in different organizations

(i.e., 1 year after entry; Meyer et al., 1991).

A second research objective is to explain the variations in the intra-individual development of AC. We developed

a reciprocal model that relates levels and changes of income to the development of AC. Income is arguably the most

important work outcome, indicating objective career success for individuals (Heslin, 2005) and providing opportu-

nities to fulfill individuals’needs (Thierry, 2001). The level of income can symbolize, beyond the materialistic re-

lationship, one’s relative position, status of achievement, or autonomy at the workplace that can enable individuals

to identify themselves and establish the bond with the organizations (Gardner, Van Dyne, & Pierce, 2004). Although

income has been conceptualized in the management literature as a factor impacting different levels of AC (Gardner

et al., 2004; Kuvaas, 2006; Torlak & Koc, 2007), it can also be an outcome, resulting from the behavioral implica-

tions following from individuals’various degrees of AC (Fedor, Caldwell, & Herold, 2006; Neininger et al., 2010).

However, little is known about the potential reciprocity between AC and income, for which the underlying causality

has yet to be determined (Ogba, 2008).

To further explore the reciprocal link between income and AC, we distinguish between income levels and income

changes. Different from income level, income change creates disturbances at one point in time, which offers the op-

portunities for employees to experience positive or negative consequences in the working environment (Gardner

et al., 2004). In effect, insights into the reciprocity between AC and income changes enable us to add evidence to

the theoretical premise that positive working experiences are the major causes to changes in AC (Meyer & Allen,

1991, 1997), allowing a detailed analysis of potential drivers of the continuous development of AC.

Note that we focus on the development of AC rather than other bases of commitment in the TCM framework, for

the following reasons. First, as reported in Meyer et al.’s (2002) meta-analytic findings, there is a lack of relationship

between pay satisfaction and CC, casting doubt on its role in this process. Second, even though there is a positive

relationship between NC and pay satisfaction (Meyer et al., 2002), it is clearly weaker than that between AC and

pay satisfaction. Furthermore, the NC construct has also been found to have significant construct validity issues

(e.g., Bergman, 2006), including a lack of discriminant validity compared to AC in empirical research

(cf. Jaros, 2009). More generally, AC shows the strongest and most consistent relationships with most

aspects of employee attitudes and performance (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005; Meyer et al., 2002).

Thus, this study, like other recent research, focuses on the development, causes and consequences of AC inde-

pendent of the other TCM mindsets (cf. Marique, Stinglhamber, Desmette, & Caesens, 2013; Stazyk, Pandey, &

Wright, 2011; Vandenberghe et al., 2014).

To sum up, Figure 1 depicts our three research objectives, including changes in AC over time and reciprocal

relationships with income at levels and in changes, respectively. The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows.

First, we elaborate on the theoretical background and derive our hypotheses. Subsequently, we illustrate our empir-

ical design and report the results. Lastly, we discuss our findings, practical implications, limitations and future

research.

516 X. GAO-URHAHN ET AL.

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 515–536 (2016)

DOI: 10.1002/job