Antecedents of Organizational Commitment

This report explores the factors or antecedents of organizational commitment and their impact on organizational performance. The antecedents of employee job commitment can be divided into three categories: demographic factors, working environment, and availability of alternative job opportunities in the market. The report discusses the impact of age, culture, career development, job satisfaction, and insecurity on employee commitment. It also highlights the outcomes of employee job commitment, including high motivation, retention of employees, opportunities to use skills and knowledge, sharpening of decision-making skills, and appraisal and promotions.

Running head: ANTECEDENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
Antecedents of Organizational Commitment
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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ANTECEDENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
Introduction:
Geldenhuys, Laba and Venter (2014) define the term organisational commitment as the
psychological attachment or relatedness of employees to the organisations they are working with.
The area of organisational behaviour has gained immense importance because organisational
commitment of employees has great impact on the organisational performances. This is because
employees committed with the organisations deliver higher level of performances compared to
the less committed employees. Moreover, high employee turnover has several detrimental effects
on the organisational performances and this had led the organisations to gain information about
the factors or antecedents which ensure higher level of employee commitment. This is because
higher employee turnovers lead to loss of talented employees to other organisation. The
companies losing employees not only lose human capital but also the knowledge capital which
the resigning employees have. Multinational companies poach each other’s employees in order
to gain access to each other’s knowledge resources indirectly (by employing employees having
worked with competitor). The aim of the report would be exploring the factors or antecedents of
organisational commitment.
Analysis:
The employee commitment plays a very important role in the performance of the
organisations. Carlos Pinho, Paula Rodrigues and Dibb (2014) mention that employee
commitment depends on several antecedents. The antecedents of the employee job commitment
can be divided into three categories. The first categories of organisational commitment is related
to demographic factors age, gender, education and employee vintage. The second antecedent is
related to working environment while the third group of antecedents is dependent on availability
of alternative job opportunities in the market.

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ANTECEDENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
The first antecedent of job commitment is demographic in nature. Age is one of the
most important antecedents of organisational commitment since employees tend to lose their
sense of commitment towards their employers with age. However, it can also be argued that aged
and experienced employees show higher level of organisational commitment compared to the
younger employees. This is because as the age of the employees increases, they shift from lower
level executing jobs to job responsibilities which require these senior employees to guide and
control subordinate employees. This leads these senior employees to have stronger commitment
to the organisation compared to the lower level employees.
The second antecedent of organisational commitment among employees is culture.
This is because multinational companies due to their global operations operate in several
countries and employ their respective workforces. This leads to organisations acquire employees
from different cultural backgrounds. As De Baerdemaeker and Bruggeman (2015) mention that
while this employing of human resources from other countries have been highlighted as a
measurement towards diversity management, diverse employee culture with employees from
different cultural background may lead to employee conflicts. Thus, it is evident from this
discussion that though diversity management plays a very important role in ensuring continuous
innovations among the companies, it is also capable of causing conflict. The employee from the
company where the company resides may view this diversity of cultural background as a
challenge to their own position and may also view the company in a negative light. Thus, it can
be pointed out though diversity management is encouraged in business companies as a driver of
innovation, in reality it also leads to lowering of commitment of the existing employees which is
capable of effecting the business of the company badly.

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ANTECEDENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
The third antecedent of employee job commitment and retention is career
advancement. The employees are known to have shown higher commitment towards jobs which
are known to bring about career growth in their profession. These professional development and
career planning motivate the employees to continue working with the company. The companies
which are able to conduct higher level of career planning for employees are able to retain
employees for a longer time. This relationship between employee commitment of their jobs and
career growth are evident from their multinational companies. The multinational companies
around the world as a result plan the career of their employees and also prevent the other
competitors from poaching on their employees. The employees are motivated to deliver higher
standards when they receive employee recognitions and career growth both in terms of
promotions as well as respect within the company.
The fourth antecedent which has direct effect on the commitment level of employees
is level of job satisfaction. The employees which receive a higher level of job satisfaction are
likely to have higher level of employee commitment to the other employees. The factor of job
satisfaction is very subjective in nature. Job satisfaction is dependent on several organisational
factors like the commitment of the organisations to enable the employees bring about
development in the career of the employees. Positive organisational structure boosts job
satisfaction which enables the organisations retain their employees. Thus, it can be proved that
job satisfaction has a deep impact on the organisational commitment. It can also be pointed
factors like salary, conflict, managerial leadership and employee facilities have deep impacts on
the employee commitment to the organisations (Mesu, Sanders & Riemsdijk, 2015). For
example, employees receiving higher salaries are more motivated to participate in the operations
of the company compared to the employees receiving smaller amount of salaries.

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ANTECEDENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
The fifth antecedent of commitment of employees to the organisations employing them is
the feeling of insecurity. Insecurity have detrimental effect on the morality and motivation of the
employees. The employees feeling insecure may resent and try to create obstruction in the
decision making and execution of the business strategies. The employees with lower
performance level usually fall in this category. These employees are not skilful and as a result
are always suffering from insecurity and nervousness about losing their jobs. Further, it can also
be organisational changes like the need to embrace technology and change the method of
operations to a more digital platform based participation of managers from the geographically
have known to create insecurity among employees having limited technological knowledge
It can be pointed out that just like antecedents like age and cultural factors,
employee job commitment is also antecedent to five dependent variables or outcomes. The
first outcome of employee job commitment is high level of motivation. Employees feeling
relatedness to their employer organisations deliver higher levels of performances. The second
variable outcome of the organisational commitment is high retention of employees and alignment
of them with the organisational business requirements. The third outcome of this alignment of
employees with business requirements is that employees get opportunities to showcase and apply
their skills. The employees are also able to inculcate new skills and knowledge while performing
in the market. This boosting of knowledge and experience is the fourth outcome of the
employee job commitment. The fifth outcome or variable of organisational commitment is
appraisal and promotion to higher designations. This is because employees with higher level of
skills and knowledge about market gained while serving the companies are in better positions to
take strategic decisions which are more aligned to the organisational needs as well as
organisational culture of the organisations concerned. It can also be pointed that enhanced

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ANTECEDENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
employee commitment towards the organisations enables organisations retain and derive long
term benefits from the knowledge and skills of employees. The above analysis clearly shows that
employee commitments to business organisations have emerged as the very base of the
performance of organisations. The business organisations should take steps to boost
organisational commitment among employees and in order to curb employee turnover. The apex
management body of the organisation should hold meetings with the departmental heads to gain
information about employee performances and their training needs. The apex managers should
then form an employee development strategy (Colquitt et al., 2011).
Conclusion:
The above discussion clearly points out that age is an important factor which effects the
organisational commitment. However, the perception of age draw conflicts some authors claim
that age lower organisational commitment while others calim that age boosts organisational
commitment owing to prolonged involvement with the company. The managers should identify
the scope in diversity management in their respective departments and should eduicate their
subordinates about the importance of diversity management. This would enable workers to
develop mutual respect and cooperation which ultimately boost the productivity of the
organisations. A very important area which business organisations are facing is change
management. The reason s responsible for change management are beyond the control of the
organisations like technological; advancements. These changes in the external environment often
require organisations to embrace change. The managers must ensure that they mentor and
educate their subordinate about the need to adopt their change instead of making them feel
insure. This lowering enfeebling of insecurity would lead to more commitment of employees to
the operations of the company. Thus employee commitment ultimately boosts the operations of

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ANTECEDENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
the company. Thus, it can also be pointed out from the discussion that employers in order to
relation their employees for a longer span of time must provide long benefits like work from
home and flexible timing facilities. The management of the companies must streamline their
human resource management strategies to ensure alignment of the employees to the business
requirements.

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ANTECEDENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
Employee organisational commitment
Age
Culture
Job satisfaction
Career development
Insecurity
High level of
motivation
Retention of employees
and alignment to
business
Opportunities to use skill
and knowledge
Sharpening of decision
making skills
Appraisal and
promotions
Appendix: Conceptual model:

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ANTECEDENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
References:
Carlos Pinho, J., Paula Rodrigues, A., & Dibb, S. (2014). The role of corporate culture, market
orientation and organisational commitment in organisational performance: the case of
non-profit organisations. Journal of Management Development, 33(4), 374-398.
De Baerdemaeker, J., & Bruggeman, W. (2015). The impact of participation in strategic planning
on managers’ creation of budgetary slack: The mediating role of autonomous motivation
and affective organisational commitment. Management Accounting Research, 29, 1-12.
Geldenhuys, M., Laba, K., & Venter, C. M. (2014). Meaningful work, work engagement and
organisational commitment. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 40(1), 01-10.
Mesu, J., Sanders, K., & Riemsdijk, M. V. (2015). Transformational leadership and
organisational commitment in manufacturing and service small to medium-sized
enterprises: The moderating effects of directive and participative leadership. Personnel
Review, 44(6), 970-990.
Colquitt, J., Lepine, J. A., Wesson, M. J., & Gellatly, I. R. (2011). Organizational behavior:
Improving performance and commitment in the workplace. McGraw-Hill Irwin.