Antecedents, mediators, and consequences of affective, normative, and continuance commitment: Empirical tests of commitment effects in federal agencies

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2007

Publication Title

Review of Public Personnel Administration

Volume

27

Issue

3

Abstract

This study examines the constructs and the effects of three subdimensions of federal employees' organizational commitment—affective, normative, and continuance. Using the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) 2000 survey instrument and employing an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, multivariate regression, and a structural equation model, the authors empirically test and measure (a) the dimensionality of the three commitment constructs, (b) how and to what extent antecedent variables would affect the three different commitment variables—affective, normative, and continuance— and (c) how these three commitment values differently influence several outcome variables. The authors confirm that there are three distinctive constructs of commitment to stay in federal agencies and that transformation-oriented leadership (TOL), empowerment, goal clarity, public service—oriented motivation (PSOM), procedural equity perceptions, and objective appraisal systems have direct and indirect effects on the commitment variables. Affective commitment is most significantly and positively associated with these antecedents, and higher affective commitment also has the most significant effect on organizational consequences.

Keywords

Civil service; Corporate culture; Employees – Attitudes; Employee motivation; Job satisfaction

Disciplines

Human Resources Management | Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Other Social and Behavioral Sciences | Public Administration

Language

English

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or use interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the article. Publisher copyright policy allows author to archive post-print (author’s final manuscript). When post-print is available or publisher policy changes, the article will be deposited

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