Three-Component Model ; work experiences were found to have much
stronger relations, particularly with affective commitment ;
affective commitment correlates strongly with the various forms of
organizational justice (i.e., distributive, procedural, and
interactional) and with transformational leadership ; all three
forms of organizational commitment correlate negatively with
withdrawal cognition, turnover intention, and turnover ; Affective
commitment has the strongest positive correlation with these
desirable work behaviors, followed by normative commitment ;
affective commitment might have benefits for employees as well as
for organizations
need more research using experimental, quasi-experimental, or
longitudinal designs that are better suited to detecting causal
effects ; interactions among the components ; more systematic
cross-cultural research in which relations among the constructs are
examined in the context of existing theories of cultural
differences
scanning the PsychLit (1985–2000), PsycInfo (1985–2000), and
ProQuest Direct (1990–2000) ; searched the Social Sciences Citation
Index up to and including the year 2000 ; manual search was
conducted by contacting the authors of the published studies
The authors conducted meta-analyses to assess (a) relations among
affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the
organization and (b) relations between the three forms of
commitment and variables identified as their antecedents,
correlates, and consequences in Meyer and Allen’s (1991)
Three-Component Model. They found that the three forms of
commitment are related yet distinguishable from one another as well
as from job satisfaction, job involvement, and occupational
commitment. Affective and continuance commitment generally
correlated as expected with their hypothesized antecedent
variables;no unique antecedents of normative commitment were
identified. Also, as expected, all three forms of commitment
related negatively to withdrawal cognition and turnover, and
affective commitment had the strongest and most favorable
correlations with organization-relevant (attendance, performance,
and organizational citizenship behavior) and employee-relevant
(stress and work–family conflict) outcomes. Normative commitment
was also associated with desirable outcomes, albeit not as
strongly. Continuance commitment was unrelated, or related
negatively, to these outcomes. Comparisons of studies conducted
within and outside North America revealed considerable similarity
yet suggested that more systematic primary research concerning
cultural differences is warranted.
