gender differential paper IJCRB

ijcrb.webs.com
JUNE 2011
INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS VOL 3, NO 2
study has been to examine what dimensions of Quality-of-work-life in university, can influence
on employees organizational commitment and what is the role of Quality-of-work-life changes in
this case. However, not all the hypotheses were confirmed, we found that, there is a significant
positive correlation between organizational commitment and Quality-of-work-life of Mashhad
universitys employees. In recent years, numerous studies in the field of Quality-of-work-life or
organizational commitment have been carried out. However, relatively few studies have
addressed the specific relationship between this two variable in university.
Literature review
Commitment and Organizational Commitment
Many factors influence employee’s commitment. These include commitment to the manager,
occupation, profession, or career (Meyer & Allen, 1997). Organizational commitment focuses on
employees’ commitment to the organization. In explaining the significance of organizational
commitment, Meyer & Allen (1997) refer to Morrow & McElroy's (1993) statement that
organizational commitment is the most maturely developed of all the work commitment
constructs. As part of their research, Meyer & Allen (1991) developed a framework that was
designed to measure three different types of organizational commitment: (a) Affective
commitment refers to employees’ emotional attachment, identification with, and involvement in
the organization. Employees with a strong affective commitment stay with the organization
because they want to. (b) Continuance commitment refers to employees’ assessment of whether
the costs of leaving the organization are greater than the costs of staying. Employees who
perceive that the costs of leaving the organization are greater than the costs of staying remain
because they need to. (c) Normative commitment refers to employees’ feelings of obligation to
the organization. Employees with high levels of normative commitment stay with the
organization because they feel they ought to. In arguing for their framework, Meyer & Allen
(1991) contended that affective, continuance, and normative commitment were components
rather than types because employees could have varying degrees of all three. “For example, one
employee might feel both a strong attachment to an organization and a sense of obligation to
remain. A second employee might enjoy working for the organization but also recognize that
leaving would be very difficult from an economic standpoint. Finally, a third employee might
experience a considerable degree of desire, need, and obligation to remain with the current
employer” (Meyer & Allen, 1997, p. 13). Even though the authors present this argument, they do
not imply that there is a rationale for summing all the scales to obtain an overall score for
organizational commitment. Consequently, for this research, the different scales will be referred
to as types rather than components. Studies have linked organizational commitment to measures
of effectiveness that are similar to those found when investigating the outcomes of relationsoriented
and task-oriented leadership behaviors. Loui (1995), for instance, found that
commitment was significantly related to trust, job involvement, and job satisfaction. Angle &
Perry (1981) uncovered a relationship between commitment and turnover. Wiener & Vardi
(1980) reported positive correlations between commitment and job performance.Research has
also linked organizational commitment to leadership behaviors that are relations-oriented and
task-oriented. Jermier & Berkes (1979) discovered that employees who were allowed to
participate in decision-making had higher levels of commitment to the organization. DeCotiis &
Summers (1987) found that when employees were treated with consideration, they displayed
greater levels of commitment. Bycio, Hackett, & Allen (1995) reported positive correlations
between the leadership behaviors of charisma, intellectual stimulation, individualized
consideration, and contingent reward and affective, continuance, and normative commitment.
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