“They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse!” Organizational commitment in a non-Western context
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EBHRM-09-2016-0022 |
| Pages | 77-93 |
| Date | 03 April 2018 |
| Published date | 03 April 2018 |
| Author | Alexandre Anatolievich Bachkirov |
“They made me an
offer I couldn’t refuse!”
Organizational commitment in a
non-Western context
Alexandre Anatolievich Bachkirov
Department of Management, CEPS, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between external monetary incentives
(EMI) and affective commitment (AC), normative commitment (NC), and continuance commitment (CC).
Design/methodology/approach –Data were obtained from a sample of 880 employees of different
education and job levels, industries, sectors, and salary grades.
Findings –An increase in EMI value is linked to a weakening of AC. In a non-Western context, specific
employee characteristics –salary grade, educational level, industry type, and employment in the private vs
public sector –are associated with different levels of CC. At the same time, employees at different job levels
(top managers, middle managers, supervisor, and operative-level employees) are differently predisposed
toward AC and NC. Job level emerged as a moderating variable between EMI and AC.
Practical implications –Understanding of the ways in which EMI are related to organizational
commitment will inform organizational decision makers about how to be more successful in retaining
valuable employees.
Originality/value –The study offers a systematic exploratory examination of the relationship between
commitment components (AC, NC, and CC) and the amount of salary offered by an alternative employer.
Keywords Organizational commitment, Non-Western context, External monetary incentives
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Organizational commitment (OC), despite being an advanced research area, continues to
stimulate scholarly interest around the globe (Kuok and Taormina, 2015; Linz et al., 2013;
Nguyen et al., 2014; Peluso et al., 2017; van Dierendonck, 2015). Currently, OC research has
expanded internationally to include the Arabian Gulf (Bailey et al., 2016; Behery et al., 2016),
China (Nazir et al., 2016), Brazil (Silva et al., 2015), Russia (Lovakov, 2016), and India
(Dhar, 2015). This expansion has been an important development aimed at overcoming the
limitations of the OC theories constructed by Western social scientists (Hofstede, 2001).
A major finding of cross-cultural research has been that non-Westerners tend to experience
commitment differently from North Americans (Bergman, 2006).
Empirical and theoretical efforts in OC research to date have focused on three major
domains: correlations with related constructs, behavioral consequences, and antecedents of
OC (Meyer et al., 2002). It was demonstrated that OC correlates with various work attitude
measures such as job satisfaction (Hackett et al., 1994), job involvement (Blau, et al., 1993),
work outcomes including turnover intentions, turnover, and absenteeism (Somers, 1995), and
organizational citizenship behavior (Shore and Wayne, 1993). Antecedents of OC are of
particular relevance to this study because external monetary incentives (EMI) –the amount
of salary offered by an alternative employer –haveso far been neglected in the OC literature.
Why is it expected that EMI may be consequential for OC? On the one hand, the world of
employment has become fast and fluid both within and across industries (Forstenlechner
and Baruch, 2013). On the other hand, the job market is as tight as ever. These
characteristics of the labor market suggest that OC may be vulnerable to EMI. Previous
studies found that employees who are dissatisfied with their current pay tend to consider
Evidence-based HRM: a Global
Forum for Empirical Scholarship
Vol. 6 No. 1, 2018
pp. 77-93
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2049-3983
DOI 10.1108/EBHRM-09-2016-0022
Received 27 September 2016
Revised 9 February 2017
5 June 2017
Accepted 12 June 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2049-3983.htm
77
OC in a non-
Western
context
exiting the organization (Clark, 2011). Within this environment, employers need to know
whether and how the commitment of their workers is resistant to offers from the
competition. This knowledge is particularly critical for the rapidly developing and highly
competitive region of the Arabian Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) –Bahrain, Kuwait,
Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. These oil-rich and affluent
countries share a common Arabic Islamic heritage and a comparable approach to economic
development (Khalifa, 2012). This paper focuses on Oman because this country is a typical
representative of a modern progressive state in the GCC region (Peterson, 2004).
As organizational dynamics in this part of the world are changing, it is important to
understand what factors encourage and what factors neutralize employees’commitment
to their organizations. Therefore, identifying the OC components that are vulnerable to and
can be eroded by EMI is critical and requires urgent empirical attention.
This study aims to answer three questions. First, which OC components, if any, are
neutralized by a higher salary offer from an alternative employer? Second, do employees’
personal characteristics –salary range, education, job level, industry, and sector ( public
or private) –constitute antecedents of OC in the Arabian Gulf region? Finally, do employees’
personal characteristics moderate the effects of EMI on commitment components?
The present study contributes to the OC literature in three major ways. First, it
demonstrates that a higher salary offer from an alternative employer neutralizes workers’
affective commitment (AC). Second, it documents that in the context of Arab Islamic
organizations, a set of worker’s personal characteristics influence the level of OC. Finally,
it reveals the moderating effects of employees’personal characteristics on the relationship
between EMI and commitment components.
2. Background for the study
2.1 OC research
OC can be described as a mindset or a global psychological state that bonds employees to
their employers and reduces the probability of voluntary exit from the organization
(Allen and Meyer, 1990). The seminal study of Becker (1960) was one of the first systematic
attempts to conceptualize OC. The original proposed theory explained OC by employees’
reluctance to lose tangible benefits (e.g. pensions) accrued over the period of employment as
a result of non-portable investments (i.e. sidebets; Becker, 1960) would have to be
relinquished at resignation. Subsequent research (Mowday et al., 1979) re-theorized OC as a
psychological attachment (Porter et al., 1974).
Challenging the unidimensional approach, seve ral research programs advanced
multidimensional frameworks (Angle and Perry, 1981). However, the three component
model (TCM) of OC developed by Allen and Meyer (Allen and Meyer, 1990, 1996) has
ultimately become the dominant research tool in the field. According to this model,
employees develop attachment to and maintain membership in their organizations in three
ways. If they experience AC, their bond with the company is emotion-driven and is based on
the desire to be a member of the enterprise, i.e. they “want to”; this form of OC denotes
“identification with, involvement in, and emotional attachment to the organization”
(Allen and Meyer, 1996, p. 253). If workers are driven by normative organizational
commitment (NC), then their sense of moral obligation motivates them to remain with their
current employer, i.e. they feel they “ought to.”If continuance organizational commitment
(CC) causes employees to stay, they do so to avoid the inevitable costs entailed in exiting the
organization, i.e. they believe they “have to.”Although it is theorized that AC, NC, and CC
are experienced concomitantly, due to their conceptual differentiation, these commitment
components have different antecedents and consequences (Meyer and Allen, 1991).
An important feature of the TCM is that each component of the commitment construct
has different antecedents (Meyer and Allen, 1991). AC is activated by work experiences,
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