Análisis de las relaciones lineales y no lineales entre el compromiso organizativo y la intención de permanecer en la organización, el comportamiento ciudadano organizativo, y los comportamientos contraproducentes en el trabajo

Resumen

Since the beginning of the 70's, the concept of organizational commitment has grown in popularity in the literatures of organizational psychology and organizational behavior (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990), and has received a great deal of empirical and theoretical study. Although some researchers suggested that this concept is losing relevance (Baruch, 1998), it has been proven that organizational commitment is more important than ever, for both individuals and organizations (Mowday, 1998). From a larger perspective, a society as a whole tends to benefit from employees' organizational commitment, in terms of lower rates of job movement and perhaps higher national productivity and work quality (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990). Moreover, due to its high impact upon organizations, organizational commitment has acquired increased salience (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990), which is reflected as well in a growing proliferation of studies focused on its antecedents, correlates, consequences and definitions. Far from closing this paradigm, researchers suggested new avenues for future research (Bergman, 2006; Luchak & Gellatly, 2007), and new propositions (Solinger, van Olffen, & Roe, 2008) that assure an extensive future research agenda. An interesting avenue for future research was presented by Luchak and Gellatly (2007), who opened a new path in the understanding of the relationships between the organizational commitment construct and its consequences (e.g. job performance, intention to leave, absenteeism, organizational citizenship behavior, or the counterproductive work behaviors). Luchak and Gellatly (2007) suggested that the form of the relationships between organizational commitment and its consequences might be nonlinear rather than linear. Furthermore, some researchers (Solinger, Olffen y Roe, 2008) considered that the three-component model of organizational commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1991), which has been the dominant model in organizational commitment research, is inconsistent, as it combines different attitudinal phenomena. To date, the three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment (encompassing affective, continuance and normative components) can be regarded as the dominant model in organizational commitment research (Bentein, Vandenberg, Vandenberg, & Stinglhamber, 2005; Cohen, 2003; Greenberg & Baron, 2003). Nevertheless, diverse studies have shown that the model is not fully consistent with empirical findings (Allen & Meyer, 1996; Ko, Price, & Mueller, 1997; McGee & Ford, 1987; Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002). To overcome these limitations, a revision of scales (Meyer, Allen, & Smith, 1993; Powell & Meyer, 2004) together with new conceptual explanations of the model have been proposed (Luchak & Gellatly, 2007; Meyer, Becker, & Vandenberghe, 2004; Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001). This study draws on the dominant research avenue in the area and is aimed at examining one of the research lines proposed by Luchak y Gellatly (2007). More specifically, the objective of this research is to analyze the form of relationships (i.e. linear and / or nonlinear) between the distinct dimensions of organizational commitment and three commonly studied work outcomes: on the one hand, the intention to stay in the organization (focal behavior) and on the other, the organizational citizenship behavior (on its two dimensions organizational and individual) and the two dimensions (organizational and individual) of counterproductive work behavior (discretionary behaviors). In contrast to Luchak y Gellatly (2007), this research takes into consideration the normative dimension of organizational commitment, apart from the affective and the continuance dimensions, and uses the last version of Powell y Meyer (2004)'s scales, which divide continuance commitment into two sub-dimensions. Hence, this study pretends to corroborate Luchak y Gellatly (2007)'s results using the three-component model of organizational commitment on its totality in relation to two discretionary behaviors, barely researched to date: organizational citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behaviors; and a focal behavior: the intention to stay in the organization. To do so, this study provides empirical testing for the two scales of the continuance commitment sub-dimensions (Powell & Meyer, 2004), that have been barely employed, to date, in this type of research. The rest of the measures used in this study were based on scales that have been empirically validated by the extant literature. More specifically, organizational commitment was assessed using Meyer, Allen and Smith (1993)'s scales and taking into consideration the modifications suggested by Powell and Meyer (2004). Organizational outcomes were measured using the scales developed by Colarelli (1984) (the intention to stay in the organization), Williams and Anderson (1991) (organizational citizenship behavior), and Bennett and Robinson (2000) (counterproductive work behaviors). The data of this study were gathered from 452 currently employed students, and the sample was found to be representative for the wage-earning, currently studying population. Subsequently, given the empirical and cross-sectional nature of this research, the reliability of the scales and the validity of the constructs were analyzed, with the aim of comparing the results with previous research findings. The methodology was based on hierarchical regression analysis for examining and comparing the research findings with Luchak y Gellatly (2007)'s reported results, and for testing the hypotheses proposing lineal and nonlinear relationships between organizational commitment and various work outcomes. Once having analyzed the research results, we concluded by asserting that in contrast to Luchak y Gellatly (2007)'s findings, the form of the relationships between organizational commitment dimensions and their outcomes is linear rather than non-linear. Moreover, our research findings are consistent with Meyer and Herscovitch (2001)'s previous research, asserting that the model better adjusts when the dependent variable is a focal behavior. By dividing the continuance commitment into two components, it was noticed that the sub-dimension associated to commitment based on few existing employment alternatives is significantly, negatively and linearly related to the intention to stay and organizational citizenship behavior. With regard to the other dimensions, our research findings were similar to those examined by Meyer et al. (2002)'s meta-analysis. More specifically, we found that affective commitment is positively related with the intention to stay and the two dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior, and negatively with organizational counterproductive behavior, and the relationships are linear. The continuance commitment sub-dimension reflecting high personal sacrifice, which according to Powell y Meyer (2004) substitutes or improves the continuance commitment scale proposed by Meyer, Allen y Smith (1993), presented a linear and positive relationship with the intention to stay. Consistent with previous research findings (Meyer et al., 2002), this continuance commitment sub-dimension did not reveal any significant relationship with organizational citizenship behavior, yet a positive relationship with the organizational counterproductive behavior. Normative commitment did not presented any statistically significant relationship with none of the outcomes, albeit its high correlation with affective commitment that raised the question of their distinguishability, as recently remarked in the literature (Bergman, 2006). Finally, our research results revealed that the individual counterproductive work behaviors cannot be explained in terms of organizational commitment. In other words, experiencing organizational commitment, to a greater or lesser extent, does not explain an employee's counterproductive behaviors towards other members of the organization. Our research findings, some of them unexpected at the beginning of the study, reinforce Solinger, Olffen y Roe (2008)'s assertions, which considered that the three component model of organizational commitment suffers from a conceptual inconsistency and a lack of unequivocal empirical support. In response to McGee and Ford (1987) criticism, Meyer et al. (2002), and Powell y Meyer (2004) proposed to modify the Continuance Commitment Scale and retain only the items reflecting personal sacrifice associated with leaving the organization. Nevertheless, although this study drew on those new scales, it continues raising the same problems and even adding new ones. On the one hand, the continuance commitment sub-dimension based on the lack of alternatives presented negative relationships with the outcomes that consistently had a positive relationship with organizational commitment dimensions. On the other hand, the results associated with continuance commitment based on high perceived sacrifice were consistent with previous research based on Meyer, Allen and Smith (1993)'s six-items scale. Hence, the construct validity continues being in doubt. In addition, a new inconsistency was raised, related not only to the high correlation between normative and affective components, but also among the affective and the continuance dimensions. Therefore, the doubts related to the discriminant validity were added to those associated with the convergent validity. To summarize, contrary to our initial expectations, our research findings do not support Luchak y Gellatly (2007)'s suggestions for future research and in accordance with Solinger, Olffen y Roe (2008) this study suggests that the three-component model of organizational commitment is both conceptually inconsistent and lacks unequivocal empirical support. References Allen, N. J., & Meyer, J. P. (1996). 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