What Causes Someone to Remain Committed to His or Her Organization

Introduction

Over the last thirty years, a variety of definitions for loyalty have appeared in the organizational literature. Some descriptions can be traced to earlier work on the relationship between companies and their employees, who emphasized the devotion of workers to their organizations as reflected in their compliance with instructions from supervisors. Other definitions have emerged more recently from research on organizational commitment and related variables (Bhappu, 2000), in which loyalty has sometimes been used as a synonym for one or more forms of commitment.

Today, definitions of loyalty range from specific to broad, and capture attitudes and behaviors involving focus on many different issues. As the set of definitions continues to expand, it becomes increasingly difficult to determine exactly what is meant by "loyalty" and what causes it within employees. This leads to contradictory findings about the presence or absence of loyalty in organizations and makes it more difficult to identify loyalty's antecedents and outcomes.

Thirty years ago, loyalty was viewed broadly as an employee's feeling of attachment to an organization (Buchanan, 1974). This attachment was later connected to more specific behaviors such as supporting an organization and the individuals within it and practicing good citizenship (Rusbult et al., 1988). Such attachment was also thought to be evident when an employee passed on an attractive position with another organization (Logan, 1984) or simply remained with one organization for some length of time.

In recent years, definitions of loyalty have centered on employees not harming their colleagues or the company that employs them. For example, Dooley and Fryxell's description of loyalty as "a disinclination toward opportunism" (1999: 394) resembles Butler's definition, "an implicit promise not to bring harm to the other" (1991: 646). Such conceptualizations hint at the importance of ethical behavior and trust in discussions of loyalty.

Some recent determinants of loyalty can be more directly connected to current definitions. For example, included measures related to whether employees show pride in their organization or defend it against criticism. Each of these notions can be found in existing definitions of loyalty (Butler, 1991; Butler and Cantrell, 1984). Similarly, Stroh and Reilly (1997) use items related to employees feeling pride in their organization and expressing a willingness to remain with their present company. The latter can be tied to Reichheld's (1996) conceptualization of loyalty.

While many might argue that employee loyalty and employee commitment are two very different things, it is a fact that the two concepts have very much in common. The concept of commitment, described as the psychological attachment of workers to their organizations has therefore received significant attention too (Becker et al., 1996). Much of the work can be traced to Kelman (1961), who suggested that commitment involved one or more of three distinct processes: compliance, identification and internalization, these three processes being most relevant to the discussion of loyalty outlined here.

The process of internalization is said to lead to a particular kind of commitment, labeled normative commitment, which represents feelings of obligation to remain with one's organization, which represents an employee’s loyalty for his/her company.

A review of the literature suggests a number of testable hypotheses surrounding potential factors that might influence whether individuals eventually show loyalty for their company. These center on three areas: (1) personal characteristics of the individual, (2) group and organizational efforts to influence the individual, and (3) characteristics of other community members (especially other employees of the company).

First, a number of studies have shown that individuals' personal characteristics shape their work attitudes and behaviors. We would therefore expect that the actions of loyal individuals would be affected by personality traits including one's propensity to be loyal. This propensity is likely associated with self-efficacy (Jones, 1986), self-confidence (Lee et al., 1992) and cognitive moral development.

Second, the decision to show loyalty can be shaped by socialization and training practices, especially within work groups. For example, exposure to a firm's values through training about an ethics code allows employees to recognize standards that are to be used in resolving difficult dilemmas (Paine, 1994). Socialization within smaller work groups may be even more important, since these communities often shape members' interpretation of information passed on from other parts of the organization.

Finally, it seems loyalty is more likely to develop in companies where members have a relatively high level of integrity, trustworthiness and cognitive moral development.

Some of all these factors mentioned above are still very important in causing loyalty for the company in employees nowadays as well, and some of the factors are more obsolete, and identifying which is which represents the purpose behind the interviews taken on six different people from six different organizations.

The Hypothesis

The idea that leads to the construction of our hypothesis is that the most important factors that can influence the commitment are mainly related to the personal characteristics of the individual and to the organizational efforts that impact on the employee. The commitment of employees with an organization is determined by the organization’s ability to respond to the esteem needs and self-actualization needs, as well as it is determined by the organization’s ability to create a secure environment for its employees.

The importance of the esteem needs and the self-actualization needs can be found in the questions that refer to likes and dislikes about the current jobs of the respondents, as well in the question that refers to event that made employees proud of their organizations. The organization’s ability to create a secure environment for its employees refer to the transparency, friendly environment, and an equilibrated performance management applied to employees, fairness in offering promotion opportunities.

Here the dependant variable is the commitment of employees and the independent variables refer to the organization response to the esteem needs and self-actualization needs, and the secure environment if the organization.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INTERVIEWEES

1. Alexandru Popovici

Alexandru Popovici is the sales manager of the prepaid phone cards branch of NobelTel, Ltd., an American telecommunication company which has a subsidiary in Bucharest, Romania. He is the perfect example of the loyal employee who has been shaped by the company into the person he is today.