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Contents
- Abstract
- The Three-Component Model of Organizational Commitment
- Commitment to Change: Application of a General Model of Workplace Commitment
- Defining Commitment
- The Behavioral Consequences of Commitment
- Commitment to Multiple Foci
- The Combined Influence of Commitment Components
- The Present Research
- Study 1
- Method
- Design and Participants
- Measures
- Commitment to change
- Results
- Study 2
- Method
- Participants and Procedure
- Measures
- Commitment to change
- Behavioral support for the change
- Organizational commitment
- Control variables
- Results
- Hypothesis 1
- Hypothesis 2
- Hypothesis 3
- Hypothesis 4
- Hypothesis 5
- Study 3
- Method
- Participants and Procedure
- Measures
- Results
- Hypothesis 1
- Hypothesis 3
- Hypothesis 5
- General Discussion
- Implications for Change Management and Research
- Implications for Commitment Theory and Research
- Limitations and Future Research
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Abstract
Three studies were conducted to test the application of a three-component model of workplace commitment (J. P. Meyer & N. J. Allen, 1991; J. P. Meyer & L. Herscovitch, 2001) in the context of employee commitment to organizational change. Study 1, conducted with 224 university students, provided preliminary evidence for the validity of newly developed Affective, Continuance, and Normative Commitment to Change Scales. Studies 2 and 3, conducted with hospital nurses (N = 157 and 108, respectively), provided further support for the validity of the three Commitment to Change Scales, and demonstrated that (a) commitment to a change is a better predictor of behavioral support for a change than is organizational commitment, (b) affective and normative commitment to a change are associated with higher levels of support than is continuance commitment, and (c) the components of commitment combine to predict behavior.
The 21st century has been hailed as a time of tremendous change in the world of work (Cascio, 1995; Howard, 1995). Given the accelerated rate and complexity of changes in the workplace, it is not surprising that there is a large and growing literature on the causes, consequences, and strategies of organizational change (for reviews, see Armenakis & Bedeian, 1999; Porras & Robertson, 1992). What is surprising, however, is the paucity of research on employee reactions to change. Judge, Thoreson, Pucik, and Welbourne...