Work commitment across cultures

1. Work commitment across cultures Ron Fischer Psyc338

2. Overview • Components of commitment • Culture and commitment – Theoretical approaches • Research on affective commitment • Different foci of commitment

3. Components of commitment to the organization • Continuance commitment • Side-bet theory (Becker) • Affective commitment • Identification and affective involvement • Porter, Mowday, Steers • Normative commitment • Normative pressures and socialization • Allen & Meyer

4. Affective Commitment and Culture • Japan versus the West (US) • Cole (1979); Lincoln & Kalleberg (1985, 1990); Near (1989); Luthans et al. (1985) • Lower attitudinal commitment but higher behavioural commitment

5. Commitment and culture (cont’) • Application of cultural values (e.g., Hofstede, 1980): e.g., Randall (1993); Cohen (2003) • Individualism-Collectivism • Affective ties • Power Distance • Decentralisation effects • Uncertainty Avoidance • Reduction of uncertainty • Masculinity-Femininity • Nurturance versus Assertiveness

6. Alternative explanations • Besser (1993): Neglect of political, economic and social context • Response sets (see Smith, 2004)

7. Goal of study • Explaining affective commitment levels • Artefact (measurement, response sets) • Industry, job and employee characteristics • Economic indicators • Cultural indicators • Relationship to turnover intentions • Relationship to behaviour (intentions)

8. Meta-analysis • Literature search (PsycINFO from 1990 to 2004, published meta-analyses & reviews, reference lists) • Effect sizes: • Means standardized to common metric (0 < x < 1) • Mean X = Σ xj /n • SE m = sdx / ٧n • After deleting 12 outliers: 352 samples with 105,335 employees, 49 countries • Mean: X = .6542; se = .000318 • Heterogeneity: Q = 38911.09, df = 351, p < .001

10. Explaining mean levels • Measurement and artefacts • Commitment scale used, number of items, number of response options, response sets [Smith, 2004; Smith et al., 2002] • Industry, employee and job • Industry post-hoc coding scheme, 12 dummies comparing particular clusters of industries and jobs with representative samples • Blue and white collar, mean age, mean tenure • Economic • GNI per Capita; GDP per Capita growth (World Bank, 2004) • Culture (Hofstede, 2001)

11. Analysis strategy • Mixed effects model (level 1: random effect sizes; level 2: fixed study effects) • Allows generalization of results beyond the particular studies involved in the present study • Variance-known random coefficient regression model using HLM2 (Raudenbush et al., 2002; Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002)

12. Unstandardized Coefficient Standard Error Intercept (m ean) .6105 .0541 Number of items .0048 .0058 Number of response options - .0039 .0071 Response bias estimate .0044 .0035 a ACS - .0247 .0139 a O’Reilly & Chatman - .0060 .0288 a Cook & Wall .0794* .0314 a Other scales .0197 .0202 b Public sector .0441 .0430 b Education .0161 .0438 b Health .0717 .0431 b Service Industry .0915* .0455 b Finance .0659 .0445 b Manufacturing .0554 .0422 b Students .0362 .0472 b Police & Security .0234 .0463 b IT & High Tech .0512 .0503 b Part - timers .0162 .0593 b Pr ofessionals .0559 .0502 b Sales .1017* .0464 b Single other .0971 .0618 b Multiple other .0519 .0391 b Various other .0633 .0403 Blue Collar - .0142 .0160 White Collar .0050 .0129 Age .0075 .0113 Tenure No unexplained Variance left: χ2 (319)= 187.97, n.s. - .0023 .0111 Power distance .0006 .0004 Un certainty Avoidance .0000 .0002 Masculinity - .0006 .0004 Individualism - Collectivism .0005† .0003 GNIpC - .000002* .000001 GDPGpC - .0067* .0027

13. Other commitment forms? • Abrams et al. (1998): normative pressures versus identification

14. What are we committed to???The importance of foci of commitment • Organization • Work team • Supervisors • Family and important groups (clan, religion, etc.) • Occupation • Union

15. Discussion • Controlling for response sets, measurement artefacts, industry, job and employee characteristics: • Commitment higher in poorer economies with slow (negative) economic growth • Availability of job alternatives is crucial • National culture less important • Commitment higher in individualistic cultures • Commitment-turnover intention relationship stronger in individualistic cultures • In collectivist cultures: affective commitment (identification) less important, normative factors might be more important

16. Practical Implications • Organizational interventions more important in richer countries and when economic growth is high • Economic incentives as a way of inducing higher commitment • Identification with organization is linked to intention to stay, especially in individualistic cultures • Other forms of commitment might be important in collectivistic cultures (normative commitment, commitment to supervisor or work team)

17. Theoretical Implications • Affective commitment and Identification with organization is tied to the economic situation • Relationship between affective and continuance commitment (Meyer et al., 2002: r = .02 vs .13) • Affective ties weaker in more collectivistic cultures: • Conceptualisation of commitment culturally appropriate? • Different commitment foci? • Normative pressures (but not identification)? • Exploitation of employees in more collectivistic cultures?