Organizational commitment across different institutional settings: how perceived procedural constraints frustrate self-sacrifice
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020852320949629 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Organizational
commitment across
different institutional
settings: how perceived
procedural constraints
frustrate self-sacrifice
Abstract
The positive impact of public service motivation on several individual work outcomes of
public sector employees has been documented. Recent research into the ‘dark side’ of
such an individual trait, however, has led some scholars to suggest that organizational
conditions such as procedural constraints could affect one’s motivation, thus leading to
the resignation of other-oriented employees. This study explores the relationships
between one of the dimensions of public service motivation – namely, self-sacrifice –
procedural constraints and organizational commitment by expanding the job demands–
resources model of organizational commitment to different institutional settings.
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
!The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0020852320949629
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
2022, Vol. 88(3) 702–720
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Giorgio Giacomelli
Milena Vainieri
Rosita Garzi
Nereo Zamaro
Institute of Management and Department EMbeDS of
Sant’Anna School for Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy
Institute of Management and Department EMbeDS of
Sant’Anna School for Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy
Department of Philosophy, Social and Human Sciences and
Education, University of Perugia, Italy
Scuola Nazionale dell’Amministrazione (SNA) and Italian
Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) and LUISS Guido Carli University,
Italy
Corresponding author:
Giorgio Giacomelli, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Piazza Martiri della Libertà, 33 Pisa, 56127, Italy.
Email: g.giacomelli@santannapisa.it
The study employs a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative (structural
equation modelling) and qualitative (focus groups and in-depth interviews) data from
three industries in Italy (health, local public administration and non-profit organiza-
tions). Our findings show that self-sacrifice positively moderates the negative relation-
ship between procedural constraints and organizational commitment. The findings
also highlight some of the undesirable effects of self-sacrifice that organizations have
to deal with.
Points for practitioners
Selflessly motivated employees tend to be more sensitive to burdensome procedures,
and are hence likely to experience tougher effects of such conditions on their com-
mitment. Given the evidence of the public sector being a highly bureaucratic working
context, the sources and remedies for this issue deserve attention from both public
administration scholars and practitioners. The findings of the study support the devel-
opment of practices aimed at warding selflessly motivated employees from the risk of
entering a loss cycle of psychological impairment.
Keywords
job demands–resources model, mixed methods, procedural constraints, public service
motivation, self-sacrifice
Introduction
Employees’ organizational commitment is a major issue in the theory and prac-
tice of human resource management, particularly in the public sector (Battaglio,
2014; OECD, 2016). Employees who are committed to an organization contrib-
ute positively to organizational functioning and performance; however, as mem-
bers of an organization, individuals have personal expectations that may or may
not meet favourable or adverse organizational conditions. These conditions may
impact positively or negatively on their attitudes, depending on whether or not
their expectations are fulfilled (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005). The job demands–
resources (JD-R) theoretical model classifies these conditions into demands and
resources: job demands refer to those factors that take a physical and/or psy-
chological effort to deal with; whereas job resources help individuals to cope with
the demands, satisfy their psychological needs and achieve organizational goals
(Bakker and Demerouti, 2014). Drawing on the JD-R framework, this study
examines the relationships between self-sacrifice (Perry and Wise, 1990) – mean-
ing the concern for others and then sacrificing self-interest – procedural con-
straints and organizational commitment. Our underlying hypothesis is that a
selfless attitude and procedural constraints may have contrasting effects on
employees’ commitment.
703
Giacomelli et al.
To continue reading
Request your trial