Why Are You Committed to Your Job?
Wanting to stay, needing to stay, and feeling you ought to stay are three different things
"Committed to your job" can mean three very different things, and organizational research has measured them separately for decades. You can stay because you genuinely like the place, because leaving would cost you too much, or because you feel you owe it to people there. Two employees can report the same commitment on a simple survey question while one is quietly job-hunting and the other is not - the difference is which of the three is doing the work.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Answer about your current job. If you are between jobs, answer about your most recent one.
What it measures
The three components of Allen and Meyer's model: affective commitment (you want to stay because you identify with the place), continuance commitment (you feel you need to stay because leaving would cost you) and normative commitment (you feel you ought to stay out of obligation). This is about attachment to the organization itself, not the practical ties measured by our job-embeddedness test.
Based on: Three-Component Model of organizational commitment (Allen & Meyer, 1990)
Possible results
Affective
Wanting to stay because you identify with the place.
Continuance
Feeling you need to stay because leaving would cost you.
Normative
Feeling you ought to stay out of obligation.
Common questions
Is high organizational commitment always a good thing?
It depends which kind. Affective commitment is consistently linked to better performance and wellbeing. Continuance commitment - feeling trapped by the cost of leaving - is linked to worse outcomes than the other two. So the honest answer is that a high total score can describe either someone who loves their job or someone who feels stuck in it, and only the breakdown tells you which.
Can commitment change over time?
Yes, and the three components tend to move for different reasons. Affective commitment rises and falls with how the organization treats you day to day. Continuance commitment usually only grows, since it tracks sunk costs like tenure and pension. Normative commitment tends to shift with major events - being helped through a hard time, or being let down at one.
How is this different from job embeddedness?
Commitment is about your attitude toward the organization - do you like it, need it, or feel you owe it. Job embeddedness, measured by our other test, is about the practical web of fit, links and sacrifice that would make leaving disruptive - your house, your colleagues, your community - regardless of how you feel about the organization itself. You can be embedded in a job you are not committed to, and committed to one you are not especially embedded in.
Sources
- Allen, N. J., & Meyer, J. P. (1990). The measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization. Journal of Occupational Psychology. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8325.1990.tb00506.x
- Meyer, J. P., Stanley, D. J., Herscovitch, L., & Topolnytsky, L. (2002). Affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the organization: A meta-analysis of antecedents, correlates, and consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior. doi:10.1006/jvbe.2001.1842
An honest note The items here are Quinthea's own wording, adapted from the ideas behind Allen and Meyer's Three-Component Model - your scores are not comparable to published norms. The three components are correlated with each other in practice, so a real profile is rarely as clean as one high bar and two low ones. This is a workplace attitude, not a mental health measure, and it says nothing about whether staying or leaving is the right decision for your situation.
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