Consideration of the utility of organisational commitment measures using a two multi-dimensional conception

This study examines organisational commitment (OC), a multi-dimensional concept that promises benefits for both employees and organisations. Two issues that reduce the utility of multi-dimensional conceptions of OC are, primarily, the weakness of correlations between forms of commitment and organisationally important outcomes, and secondarily, the abundance of substantial correlations between forms of commitment. The latter suggest that the independence of forms of OC is not clearly established. A general model of OC comprised of two multi-dimensional axes is developed and used to examine and reconcile six forms of OC. Overlap between commitment forms and the confounding of commitment forms were identified as possible issues. Adaptation of the two multi-dimensional axes model to incorporate causal ordering is considered Future research with alternate commitment forms is discussed.