The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between self-aspects,
sources of workplace satisfaction and types of organisational commitment. This study
tested three expectations. The first was that employees with strongly developed
relational self-aspects who find satisfaction in workplace relationships with their direct
managers and colleagues were likely to experience affective committed towards their
organisation. The second was that employees with strongly developed individual selfaspects
who find satisfaction in the job itself were likely to experience continuance
commitment towards their organisation. The third was that employees with strongly
developed collective self-aspects who find satisfaction in the organisation as well as its
senior management were likely to experience normative committed towards their
organisation. To test these hypotheses, three empirical studies were conducted.
In Study 1 respondents (N = 140) were drawn from a large aged care nursing
facility. Using separate regression analyses, support was found for the expectation that
relational self-aspects would predict satisfaction with colleague relationships and that
satisfaction with colleague and manager relationships would predict affective
commitment. Support was also found for the expectation that collective self-aspects
would predict satisfaction with the organisation and its senior management, however
only satisfaction with the organisation was found to predict normative commitment. The
expected relationship between individual self-aspects, job satisfaction and continuance
commitment was not supported. It was argued that the strong relational nature of the
sample and the high percentage (87%) of females within the sample may have
influenced the results.
Study 2 was designed to reconfirm the expected relationship between sources of
workplace satisfaction and types of organisational commitment using a broader sample.
Respondents (N = 146; females =86, males = 60) were drawn from four sources; a
credit co-op, an adventure based training organisation, a commercial cleaning
organisation, and a Graduate School of Business. As expected, satisfaction with
colleague relationships was a significant predictor of affective commitment, while a
non-significant trend was observed for satisfaction with manager relationships. Some
support was found for the expectation that job satisfaction would be a significant
predictor of continuance commitment through an observed non-significant trend.
Satisfaction with the organisation was a significant predictor of normative commitment,
while satisfaction with senior management was not. The influence of gender on these
results were also examined and discussed.
The purpose of Study 3 was to introduce a newly developed work specific selfaspects
scale and test the integrated model that examined the relationship between three
types of self-aspects, three sources of workplace satisfaction on three types of
organisational commitment. The influence of gender was also examined and discussed.
Respondents (N= 119) were drawn from an Australian financial institution. Using
standard regression analysis to test the model, it was found that collective work selfaspects
together with satisfaction with colleague and manager relationships were the
only predictors of affective commitment, while collective work self-aspects together
with satisfaction with the organisation were the only predictors of normative
commitment. No support was found for the expectation that individual self-aspects
together with job satisfaction would significantly predict continuous commitment.
The results of this research provided some support for the view that the strength
of an employee's self-aspects may determine the type of workplace experiences they are
likely to find satisfying. Furthermore, these sources of workplace satisfaction are likely
to lead to different forms of organisational commitment. It was argued that the results
observed across the three studies may have been influenced by organisational context.
It was suggested that further research should sample a broader range of organisations in
order to test the validity of the integrated model.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/216634 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Cahill, Francis Joseph, n/a |
| Publisher | Swinburne University of Technology. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.swin.edu.au/), Copyright Francis Joseph Cahill |
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