The Influence of Cultural Values on Antecedents of Organisational Commitment

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, 2003,

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(4), 533

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International Association for Applied Psychology, 2003. Published by Blackwell Publishing,9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Blackwell Publishing LtdOxford, UKAPPSApplied Psychology: an International Review0269-994X International Association for Applied Psychology, 2003October 20035241000Original ArticleANTECEDENTS OF ORGANISATIONAL COMMITMENTWasti

The Inuence of Cultural Values on Antecedents of Organisational Commitment:

An Individual-Level Analysis

S. Arzu Wasti*

Sabanc University,

stanbul, Turkey

On sest demand dans cette recherche si les valeurs culturelles que sontlindividualisme et le collectivisme values au niveau individuel avaient unimpact sur le poids des diffrents facteurs de limplication organisationnelle.Il est apparu que la satisfaction due au travail et lavancement tait ledterminant primaire de limplication affective et normative des salaris quiadhrent lindividualisme. Pour ceux qui sorientent ver des valeurs collec-tivistes, tre satisfait du suprieur tait le facteur essentiel de limplication,devant la satisfaction relative au travail et la

promotion. Des rsultatsanalogues ont t obtenus pour limplication long terme. Bien que certainsdes antcdents de limplication organisationnelle soient commun aux deuxgroupes, lorientation vers la tche ou vers les relations varie avec les individusrelevant dorientations culturelles diffrentes.

This study investigated whether cultural values of individualism and collec-tivism measured at the individual level inuence the salience of differentantecedents of organisational commitment. The ndings indicated that satis-faction with work and promotion are the primary determinants of affectiveand normative commitment for employees who endorse individualist values.For employees with collectivist values, satisfaction with supervisor was foundto be an important commitment antecedent over and above satisfactionwith work and promotion. Similar results were obtained for continuancecommitment. The results indicate that although some antecedents of organ-isational commitment are common across the two groups, the emphasis placedon task versus relationships differs across individuals with varying culturalorientations.

* Address for correspondence: S. Arzu Wasti, Sabanc University, The Graduate School ofManagement, Orhanl 34956 Tuzla,

I

stanbul, Turkey. Email: [email protected] data collection for this study was greatly facilitated by the travel grants of Institute

of Labor and Industrial Relations and the Ofce of International Studies, University ofIllinois, Urbana-Champaign. The author also wishes to thank Chris Robert for his helpfulcomments.

An earlier draft of this manuscript was presented at the Sixth International Western Academyof Management Conference, Shizuoka, Japan, 2000.

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International Association for Applied Psychology, 2003.

INTRODUCTION

There has been a growing interest in cross-cultural organisational commit-ment in recent decades. In this stream of research, several studies haveprimarily sought to test the generalisability of the measures, antecedents,and outcomes of commitment identied in the North American context (e.g.Ko, Price, & Muller, 1997; Luthans, McCaul, & Dodd, 1985; Vandenberghe,1996). Other studies have investigated the inuence of culture more explicitlyand have proposed culture-specic (emic) antecedents as well as culturallysalient antecedents of commitment (e.g. Boyacigiller & Adler, 1991; Palich,Hom, & Griffeth, 1995; Redding, Norman, & Schlander, 1994). In one ofthe empirical studies in the latter group, Palich et al. (1995) investigatedwhether culture moderated the relationship between affective commitmentand a number of well-documented antecedents, namely, role clarity, jobscope, participative management, and extrinsic rewards. Their resultsshowed that not only were the antecedents strong predictors of affectivecommitment for each cultural group, but also there were no signicantcultural moderation effects. While the authors concluded that Americantheories and practices might not be as culture-bound as cultural relativistsclaim them to be, they pointed out a number of limitations with their inves-tigation. For one thing, the authors used a unidimensional operationalisa-tion of the commitment construct (affective commitment). Perhaps moreimportantly, Palich et al. (1995) noted that their data were analysed at thenational level and suggested that future validations might use individualscores as it has been shown that individuals cultural values differ withinnational cultures (Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988).

The purpose of the present investigation is to contribute to a betterunderstanding of the inuence of culture on the antecedents of organisationcommitment. First, the current study investigates the relative importance ofvarious sources of commitment in predicting organisational commitmentfor individualistic and collectivistic individuals. Earley and Mosakowski(1995) argued that individual-level analysis has the advantage of directlyconnecting the hypothesised aspect of culture to other constructs in thenomological network as it measures the relative degree of value endorse-ment (extent of sharedness) rather than aggregation according to nationality,which presumes that all cultural members are sharing a given perspectiveequally and identically. The present individual-level study was conducted ina single country, namely Turkey. Turkey, poised between Europe and theMiddle East with a population of 65 million, can best be characterised as intransition from a rural, agricultural, patriarchal society to an increasinglyurbanised, industrialised, egalitarian one. However, these dramatic changesare not experienced equally momentously in every segment of the societyor in every aspect of social functioning and it is common to nd a duality

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of both traditional and modern values and attitudes within and amongindividuals.

Second, in this study organisational commitment is treated as a multi-dimensional construct and in addition to affective commitment, normativeand continuance commitment are also investigated. Although affectivecommitment is the most investigated and undisputed form of commitment,recent studies have validated other forms of commitment (e.g. Allen &Meyer, 1990; Mayer & Schoorman, 1992; OReilly & Chatman, 1986). Forexample, in one of the more comprehensive and recent conceptualisationsof organisational commitment, Allen and Meyer (1990) have proposed athree-component model of organisational commitment. The affectivecomponent of organisational commitment refers to employees emotionalattachment to, identication with, and involvement in the organisation.Employees with a strong affective commitment continue employment withthe organisation because they want to do so. The continuance componentrefers to commitment based on the costs that employees associate withleaving the organisation. Employees whose primary link to the organisationis based on continuance commitment remain because they need to do so.Finally, the normative component refers to employees feelings of obligationto remain with the organisation. Employees with a high level of normativecommitment feel they ought to remain with the organisation. Meyer andAllen (1991) argued that it is more appropriate to consider affective, con-tinuance, and normative commitment to be components, rather than types,of commitment as an employees relationship with an organisation mightreect varying degrees of all three. Thus, one of the aims of this study is toexplore the inuence of cultural values on these other types of commitmentas well. Although the Palich et al. (1995) study investigated all four culturaldimensions proposed by Hofstede (1980), the current study will test onlyhypotheses regarding the effect of individualism and collectivism. Indeed,this dimension has been considered to be most relevant to organisationalcommitment (Allen, Miller, & Nath, 1988; Hofstede, 1980; Redding et al.,1994). In the following section, these cultural dimensions are presentedbriey and the hypotheses of the study are presented.

INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM: IMPLICATIONS FOR ANTECEDENTS OF ORGANISATIONAL COMMITMENT

Of Hofstedes four dimensions, individualism and collectivism are un-doubtedly the most investigated cultural syndromes (see Triandis, 1995).The essential difference between individualism and collectivism is withrespect to the concept of self. In individualist cultures, the denition of theself is independent whereas in collectivist cultures, the denition of the self isinterdependent (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1995). What follows

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is that, in collectivist societies, personal and ingroup goals are usuallyclosely aligned. In individualistic cultures, on the other hand, the pursuit ofindividual goals may or may not be consistent with ingroup goals, and incases of incompatibility, personal goals have priority (Triandis et al., 1988).Individuals will often drop out of groups if membership becomes a burdenor inhibits the attainment of individual goals.

Though most work has been cross-cultural, there is considerable evidenceto suggest that a distinction between collectivists and individualists mayexist within cultures in the form of an individual difference (Hui & Triandis,1986; Triandis, 1995; Wagner, 1995) and that the above outlined deningattributes of individualism and collectivism exist at the individual level(Triandis, Chan, Bhawuk, Iwao, & Sinha, 1995). At the individual level,individualism and collectivism are manifest in the degree to which indi-viduals endorse values, attitudes, or norms consistent with notions such asindependence and uniqueness versus those suggestive of interdependenceand subservience to the wishes of the group. When individualism andcollectivism are measured at the individual level, they are called allocentrismand idiocentrism, respectively (Triandis, Leung, Villareal, & Clack, 1985;Smith & Bond, 1999). Hence, cultures which are labeled collectivist orindividualistic are simply cultures in which the majority of individualshave the corresponding collectivistic or individualistic difference (Hui &Triandis, 1986). This suggests that even though overall trends may existwithin cultures towards one dimension or the other, there still may bevariance within a culture, which could predict changes in dependent variablesof interest.

The differing emphasis on self versus group goals manifested in the cul-tural syndromes of individualism and collectivism arguably has implicationsfor the nature of the employee attachment to the organisation. In fact,Hofstede (1980) proposed that whereas members of collectivist cultures arepeople-oriented in organisational settings, individualists are task-oriented.Hofstede further argued that in individualist cultures, employees mightestablish an exchange or a calculative relationship with their organisationwhile people in collectivist societies might view their relationship to havemoral elements. Along the same lines, Boyacigiller and Adler (1991) post-ulated that employees from collectivist cultures commit to rms due to theirties with colleagues or supervisors whereas employees from individualistcultures may be attracted to the job content or the promotion plan. More-over, since members of individualist societies value competition and rely onmaterial gains to track personal success (Triandis et al., 1988), Palich et al.(1995) argued that extrinsic personal rewards will generate more commit-ment in employees who embrace individualist values to a greater extent.Similar arguments were set forth by Pelled and Xin (1997) who proposedthat collectivist employees would differ from individualist employees in their


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greater desire to associate with coworkers as well as their lesser concernabout personal progress.

The commitment antecedents of interest to the present investigation werethe well-documented job satisfaction antecedents. As the reviews by Allenand Meyer (1996) and Meyer and Allen (1997) show, several studies haveconrmed the relationship between positive work experiences and affectivecommitment. Yet, as the previous discussion implies, different aspects of jobsatisfaction may be more salient for individuals who hold different culturalvalues. In other words, differences in the cultural values of individualismand collectivism can be argued to inuence the relative importance ofvarious facets of job satisfaction in predicting organisational commitment.Specically, the following hypotheses were proposed:

H1: For idiocentrics, satisfaction with work itself, pay, and promotion oppor-tunities will be better predictors of affective commitment than satisfactionwith coworkers and supervisor.H2: For allocentrics, satisfaction with coworkers and supervisor will be betterpredictors of affective commitment than satisfaction with work itself, pay, andpromotion opportunities.

As mentioned previously, another purpose of the current investigationwas to explore the implications of cultural values for other forms ofcommitment. Previous cross-cultural studies have typically operationalisedorganisational commitment as affective commitment and consequently,the antecedents of interest have been shown to be associated primarilywith affective commitment across cultural contexts (e.g. Near, 1989). However,the salient antecedents of affective commitment may also have implicationsfor other components of commitment for different cultural groups. Forinstance, the previous discussion on collectivism alluded to the fact thatpeople with collectivist values tend to behave according to the norms oftheir ingroup, and the obligations and duties that are designed to maintainsocial harmony among the members of the ingroup. In other words, theymaintain normative or obligatory relationships. It has been argued that thisrelationship orientation may also be reected in the employeremployeebond, and that collectivists might feel a normative attachment to theirorganisation (Meyer & Allen, 1997; Redding et al., 1994). Thus, it can behypothesised that for collectivists the salient antecedents of affectivecommitment will also reect in higher levels of normative commitment. Itshould be noted that although normative commitment is theorised todevelop from distinct antecedents such as personal norms, previous studieshave documented a positive relationship between affective commitmentantecedents and normative commitment (Allen & Meyer, 1996). In line withthe arguments regarding affective commitment and the emphasis on strongsocial ties and obligations for individuals who hold collectivist values, it is

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expected that satisfaction with coworkers and supervisor will also be theprimary sources of normative commitment for allocentrics.

Whereas relationships have a normative or a moral component incollectivist cultures, social behavior in individualist cultures is guided byattitudes, personal needs, principles of exchange, rights, and contracts(Triandis, 1995). Thus, it is not likely that satisfaction with the variousaspects of the job will result in feelings of obligation for idiocentrics. How-ever, the satisfactory aspects of the job can be argued to increase levels ofcontinuance commitment for idiocentrics, as they perceive their relation-ship to be primarily a calculative attachment. Based on these arguments, thefollowing hypotheses were advanced:

H3: For allocentrics, satisfaction with coworkers and supervisor will be betterpredictors of normative commitment than satisfaction with work itself, pay,and promotion.H4: For idiocentrics, satisfaction with work itself, pay, and promotion oppor-tunities will be better predictors of continuance commitment than satisfactionwith coworkers and supervisor.

METHOD

Participants and Procedure

Twelve hundred questionnaires were distributed and 914 usable surveysfrom 46 organisations located in four major cities in Turkey were returned.The sample comprised 404 females (45.3%) and 487 males (54.7%). Themodal age category was 2529 years; 72 per cent of the sample was betweenthe ages 20 to 34. The respondents were also quite educated: 57.1 per centof the respondents had at least a Bachelor degree, 11.1 per cent had receiveddegrees from vocational colleges or had completed two years of college,and 26 per cent of the respondents were high school graduates. Only5.8 per cent had education below high school. Almost half of the respondentswere single (47.3%), and the other half were married (49.8%); 3 per cent weredivorced or separated. The respondents held a variety of occupations. Mostof them were ofce workers (32.5%). Blue-collar workers constituted only8.5 per cent of the sample; 10.6 per cent of the respondents were technicians,19.5 per cent were supervisors, 14.8 per cent were professionals, and nally14.1 per cent were managers. The modal tenure category was 15 years (44.7).

Measurement

Data were collected through a questionnaire in Turkish. The author trans-lated the English questionnaires into Turkish and two bilingual academiciansback-translated the instruments. The items that had discrepancies were


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corrected and back-translated once again. The nal versions, which werereviewed by all translators, were in substantial agreement.

Organisational Commitment.

The three components of organisationalcommitment were measured with the six-item scales by Meyer, Allen, andSmith (1993) as well as the emic (culture-specic) items. The emic items werechosen from an item pool that was generated through in-depth interviewswith 83 Turkish employees from various organisations and pilot tested witha sample of 351 Turkish public sector employees. Affective commitment iscomposed of items that refer to the emotional attachment of the individualto his/her organisation (e.g. This organisation has a great deal of personalmeaning for me). Continuance commitment items, on the other hand,reect a need to stay with the organisation due to costs associated withleaving (e.g. If I decided to leave this organisation, too much of my lifewould be disrupted). The normative commitment scale consists of items thattap into feelings of obligation to sustain membership (e.g. Even if it wereto my advantage, I do not feel it would be right to leave my organisation).

Job Satisfaction.

Job satisfaction was measured by the abbreviated(9-item) Work, Supervisor, Coworker, Pay, and Promotion satisfactionscales of the Job Description Index (JDI; Smith, Kendall, & Hulin, 1969) asrevised by Roznowski (1989). The JDI presents statements or adjectives thatrefer to the various aspects of the work itself (e.g. challenging), supervisor(e.g. bad), coworker (e.g. lazy), pay (e.g. fair), and promotion opportunities(e.g. merit-based) and uses a response scale composed of three options (Yes,?, No). Higher scores on each scale reect higher satisfaction. The Satisfactionwith Work, Supervisor, and Coworker scales had been subjected to a rigoroustest of measurement equivalence in previous research and were foundto display very satisfactory psychometric properties in Turkish (Wasti,Bergman, Glomb, & Drasgow, 2000). The Satisfaction with Pay andPromotion scales that were administered in Turkish for the rst time wereinitially pilot tested, and item-scale analysis and conrmatory factor analysisconducted on both pilot data as well as nal administration were found tobe satisfactory.

AllocentrismIdiocentrism.

INDCOL (Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk, &Gelfand, 1995) was used to measure allocentrism and idiocentrism. INDCOLis composed of 32 items that constitute four 8-item subscales, namely HorizontalIndividualism (HI), Vertical Individualism (VI), Horizontal Collectivism(HC), and Vertical Collectivism (VC). Triandis and Gelfand (1998) haveshown that the individualism and collectivism constructs can be categorisedas horizontal (emphasising equality) or vertical (emphasising hierarchy).Vertical collectivism reects subordination of personal interests to the

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interests of the ingroup; this construct parallels a more recent conceptual-isation by Ka

g

tba

s

(1997) who has labeled this aspect of collectivismas normative collectivism. Vertical individualism, on the other hand, ischaracterised by the acceptance of competition and the pursuit of indi-vidual goals. The horizontal collectivism and individualism scales measureinterdependence versus independence, or relatedness versus separateness(Ka

g

tba

s

, 1997).Most items were identical to those in the original scale; however, based

on pilot test results some items were rewritten in order to make them easierto translate. For example, as there is no exact translation for the wordprivacy in Turkish, the original item I like my privacy was rewritten tomean I enjoy being by myself. Similarly, instead of the original itemWhen I succeed it is because of my abilities, a new item I prefer to makemy own decisions rather than consulting others was included. Also, addi-tional items were borrowed from another version of the INDCOL used inprevious research to increase reliability.

RESULTS

Item and Scale Analyses

Before proceeding with testing the hypotheses, the psychometric propertiesof the emic-etic commitment scales as well as the INDCOL were examined indetail. Initially, reliability analysis was carried out on each scale and any itemthat had negative inter-item correlations with other items on that subscaleor a low (less than .25) corrected item-total correlation was dropped. As asecond step, correlations between each item and other subscale scores wereobtained. Only the items that had a higher corrected item-total correlation withtheir own subscale than with the other subscales were retained. Item and scaleanalyses conducted on the INDCOL revealed that a number of items hadnegative inter-item correlations or low corrected item-total correlations.These items were items from the original scale which were the most difcultto translate into Turkish, and it is possible that suboptimal translations createdthe problem. Accordingly, these items were eliminated from further analyses.The new Horizontal Individualism items had high corrected item-totalcorrelations.

Confirmatory Factor Analyses

Next, for the scales created or revised for this study conrmatory factoranalyses were conducted using LISREL 8 (Jreskog & Srbom, 1993).In particular, to address the debate regarding the dimensionality of continu-ance commitment (Dunham, Grube, & Castaneda, 1994; Hackett, Bycio,


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& Hausdorf, 1994; McGee & Ford, 1987), the t of a three-factor model(affective commitment, normative commitment, continuance commitment)was compared with the t of a four-factor model where continuancecommitment was broken down into two factors, namely high perceived costsassociated with leaving (HPC) and perceived lack of alternatives (PLA).As presented in Table 1, the results of the conrmatory analysis indicatedthat the four-factor model t the data best (

2

/df ratio

=

2.83, GFI

=

.97,AGFI

=

.96, NNFI

=

.97, SRMSR

=

.027), and the improvement in tover the three-factor model was signicant (

2

(3,

N

=

865)

=

119.76,

p

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The Influence of Cultural Values on Antecedents of Organisational Commitment