Journal of Applied Psychology
1993, Vol. 78, No. 5, 774-780
Copyright 1993 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
0021-90IO/93/S3.00
Commitment and Employee Behavior: Comparison of Affective
Commitment and Continuance Commitment With Perceived
Organizational Support
Lynn McFarlane Shore and Sandy J. Wayne
The social exchange view of commitment (R. Eisenberger, R. Huntington, S. Hutchison, & D. Sowa,
1986) suggests that employees' perceptions of the organization's commitment to them (perceived
organizational support, or POS) creates feelings of obligation to the employer, which enhances employees' work behavior. The authors addressed the question of whether POS or the more traditional
commitment concepts of affective commitment (AC) and continuance commitment (CC) were better
predictors of employee behavior (organizational citizenship and impression management). Participants were 383 employees and their managers. Although results showed that both AC and POS were
positively related to organizational citizenship and that CC was negatively related to organizational
citizenship, POS was the best predictor. These findings support the social exchange view that POS
creates feelings of obligation that contribute to citizenship behaviors. In addition, CC was unrelated,
whereas AC and POS were positively correlated, with some impression management behaviors.
Much literature has examined the notion of organizational
commitment, and many conceptualizations and measures have
been proposed and tested (Meyer & Allen, 1991; Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982). Meyer and Allen have extensively researched two types of commitment, called affective commitment and continuance commitment (Allen & Meyer, 1990;
Meyer & Allen, 1984). Affective commitment is denned as "an
affective or emotional attachment to the organization such that
the strongly committed individual identifies with, is involved
in, and enjoys membership in, the organization" (Allen &
Meyer, 1990, p. 2). Continuance commitment is "a tendency to
'engage in consistent lines of activity' (Becker, 1960, p. 33) based
on the individual's recognition of the 'costs' (or lost side bets)
associated with discontinuing the activity" (Allen & Meyer,
1990, p. 3). Much evidence has been accrued on the distinctiveness of Meyer and Allen's (1984) Affective Commitment Scale
(ACS) and Continuance Commitment Scale (CCS; Allen &
Meyer, 1990; McGee & Ford, 1987; Meyer, Allen, & Gellatly,
1990) and on the differential relationships each has with antecedents and outcomes (Allen & Meyer, 1990; Meyer, Paunonen,
Gellatly, Goffin, & Jackson, 1989; Shore & Barksdale, 1991).
Although affective and continuance commitment represent
employee commitment to the organization, recent work by
Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, and Sowa (1986) has sug-
gested the value of studying the organization's commitment to
the employee. Eisenberger et al. suggested that employees' perceptions of the organization's commitment to them, referred to
as perceived organizational support (POS), are based on employees' global beliefs concerning the extent to which the organization values their contributions and cares about their wellbeing. Using a social exchange framework, Eisenberger and his
colleagues argued that employees who perceive a high level of
organizational support are more likely to feel an obligation to
"repay" the organization in terms of affective commitment
(Eisenberger et al., 1986) and work-related behavior (Blau,
1964; Eisenberger, Fasolo, & Davis-LaMastro, 1990; Eisenberger etal., 1986).
Although POS is a commitment concept, it represents a departure from the traditional approach of studying employee
commitment to the organization, raising the question of
whether employer commitment, or POS, provides a unique and
valuable contribution to the literature. A recent confirmatory
factor analysis by Shore and Tetrick (1991) indicated that the
ACS, the CCS, and the Survey of Perceived Organizational Support (Eisenberger et al., 1986) are distinct measures. However,
before the present study, research has not compared employee
commitment with employer commitment (i.e., POS) to determine the potentially unique explanation of behavior provided
by POS relative to the well-established concepts of affective
commitment and continuance commitment.
In a recent meta-analysis, Mathieu and Zajac (1990) presented evidence on the links between organizational commitment and a number of critical in-role behaviors, including performance, absence, lateness, and turnover. However, commitment may also be important in explaining behaviors that are
not formally rewarded or sanctioned by the organization, referred to as nonrole behaviors. As with in-role behaviors, nonrole behaviors can contribute to or detract from organizational
effectiveness (Borman & Motowidlo, in press), so that under-
Lynn McFarlane Shore, Department of Management and W. T.
Beebe Institute of Personnel and Employment Relations, Georgia State
University; Sandy J. Wayne, Department of Management, University of
Illinois at Chicago.
We gratefully acknowledge Kevin Barksdale for his assistance in data
collection and preparation and Rodger Griffeth, Tom Lee, K. M.
Kacmar, and Janet Szumal for their helpful reviews of earlier drafts of
the article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Lynn
McFarlane Shore, Department of Management, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 4014, Atlanta, Georgia 30302-4014.
774
COMMITMENT AND EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOR
standing how commitment relates to these types of behaviors
would be a valuable contribution to the literature. Furthermore, commitment may be particularly important in predicting nonrole behaviors (Scholl, 1981; Wiener, 1982), such as organizational citizenship and impression management. We chose
to include these two nonrole behaviors in our study because the
former has been viewed as enhancing organizational functioning (Organ, 1990) whereas the latter has been shown to detract
from organizational effectiveness by, for example, resulting in
lower job satisfaction (Gandz & Murray, 1980) or creating bias
in performance ratings (Wayne & Ferris, 1990).
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is extrarole behavior that is generally not considered a required duty of the job
or part of a traditional job description (Bateman & Organ,
1983; Organ, 1990). OCB includes behaviors that an individual
chooses to offer or withhold without concern for immediate formal rewards or sanctions. Several empirical studies have suggested that the relationship between commitment and OCB depends on the type of commitment examined. O'Reilly and
Chatman (1986) found that identification and internalization,
which are conceptually similar to affective commitment, were
positively related to OCB. However, Williams and Anderson
(1991) failed to replicate these findings; they found that internalization and identification were not significantly associated
with OCB. This inconsistency of results may be because
O'Reilly and Chatman used self-reports of OCB whereas Williams and Anderson gathered OCB information from managers.
Basically, these studies suggest that affective commitment will
be positively, but perhaps weakly, related to OCB.
Because prior empirical research has not examined the relationship between continuance commitment and nonrole behaviors, a question arises about whether or not this type of commitment should be linked with OCB. We did expect a relationship
between continuance commitment and OCB for two reasons.
First, as suggested by Meyer and Allen (1991), "Employees who
want to belong to the organization (affective commitment)
might be more likely than those who need to belong (continuance commitment). . . to exert effort on behalf of the organization" (pp. 73-74). Second, because in-role behaviors tend to
be correlated with OCB (Williams & Anderson, 1991) and continuance commitment has been found to result in lower job performance (Meyer et al., 1989), we expected that there would be
a negative relationship between continuance commitment and
OCB.
Eisenberger and his colleagues found that POS was related
to absenteeism (Eisenberger et al., 1986), conscientiousness in
carrying out conventional job responsibilities, and innovation
on behalf of the organization (Eisenberger et al., 1990). In addition, the social exchange framework that underlies POS suggests
that these perceptions create feelings of obligation that serve to
increase behaviors that support organizational goals. We therefore expected that POS would be positively associated with
OCB.
Hypothesis 1: Affective commitment and POS will be positively
associated with OCB, whereas continuance commitment will be
negatively associated with OCB.
Impression management (IM) consists of behaviors that employees may use to influence others' attributions for their be-
775
havior and, thus, the impressions that others form of them
(Jones & Pittman, 1982). IM may consist of behaviors whereby
the employee alters or manipulates information given to the supervisor for his or her performance to be viewed more positively
than it should be (e.g., Caldwell & O'Reilly, 1982) or may consist of doing favors or complimenting the supervisor (e.g., Wortman & Linsenmeier, 1977). A common theme in the literature
is that the use of IM is influenced by a need to defend or promote oneself to avoid punishment or to receive a desirable reward (Liden & Mitchell, 1988). We predicted that employees
with a strong affective commitment would have less of a need to
promote themselves because their emotional attachment to the
organization is, by itself, useful for creating and maintaining a
positive impression on others. Similarly, employees with high
levels of POS may have less of a need to use IM because they are
already receiving desirable rewards in terms of support from
the organization. Therefore, we predicted that employees with
a strong affective commitment and high levels of POS would be
less likely to use IM. On the other hand, Meyer and Allen (1991)
have suggested that, when an employee's primary tie to the organization is need based (continuance commitment), the employee engages in behaviors that would help guarantee continued employment; nonetheless, such an employee is not likely to
exert extra effort on behalf of the organization. Thus, in an
effort to protect their job security, employees with high continuance commitment may engage in IM behaviors to appear as
though they are supportive of the organization. This suggests
that there would be a positive relationship between continuance
commitment and IM.
Hypothesis 2: Affective commitment and POS will be negatively
associated with IM, whereas continuance commitment will be positively associated with IM.
A number of views have been put forth in the literature that
are relevant for comparing affective commitment and continuance commitment with POS in terms of the ability to predict
employee behavior. On the one hand, Eisenberger et al. (1990)
found that POS was positively related to expressed affective and
calculative involvements in the organization. This raises the
question about whether POS may be necessary for understanding employee behavior, because affective and continuance commitment may be outcomes of organizational support and thus
may be more closely linked to employee behavior. However, this
perspective assumes that the influence of organizational support on employee behavior is solely through affective and continuance commitment. Theoretical and empirical research does
not seem to support this proposition (Shore & Tetrick, 1991).
Thus, although POS is likely to be related to affective and continuance commitment, these forms of commitment are not redundant with POS. From a theoretical perspective, the relationship between POS and work behavior, unlike the conceptualizations for affective commitment and continuance commitment,
is based on a social exchange framework. That is, although perceptions of organizational support obligate employees to support organizational goals as repayment, affective and continuance commitment do not generate these same feelings of obligation. Rather, affective commitment may increase OCB and
decrease IM because it is the right and moral way to behave
(Wiener, 1982), whereas continuance commitment reflects feel-
776
LYNN McFARLANE SHORE AND SANDY J. WAYNE
ings of being stuck (Shore & Barksdale, 1991), leading to lower
OCB and greater IM. Given the vastly different conceptualizations linking these three constructs and employee behavior, we
expected that POS would provide additional explanation of
work behavior beyond that provided by affective and continuance commitment.
Hypothesis 3: POS will explain additional variance in OCB and
IM beyond the explanation provided by affective commitment and
continuance commitment.
Method
Subjects
Participants were 276 pairs of employees and their direct supervisors
working in a large multinational firm headquartered in the southeastern
United States. Three hundred eighty-three employees (305 men and
78 women) and 231 supervisors (198 men and 33 women) completed
surveys. Although some supervisors rated more than 1 employee (18%),
very few supervisors (6.5%) rated more than 2 employees. The average
age of the employees was 43.62 years, and the average age of the supervisors was 48.42 years. The participants held a variety of job positions,
such as mechanic, secretary, and accountant.
Measures
Employees reported their levels of affective commitment, continuance commitment, and POS. Supervisors described their employees'
OCB and IM behavior.
Affective and continuance commitment. Affective commitment and
continuance commitment were assessed with 16 items developed by
Meyer and Allen (1984). The Cronbach alpha estimates were .88 for
affective commitment and .82 for continuance commitment. Scale anchors ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
POS. Weuseda 17-itemscaledevelopedbyEisenbergeretal.(1986)
to measure POS. The Cronbach alpha estimate was .95. Scale anchors
ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
OCB. We assessed OCB with a 16-item scale developed by Smith,
Organ, and Near (1983). The scale measures two dimensions of OCB:
altruism (7 items) and compliance (9 items). The Cronbach alpha estimates were .88 for altruism and .87 for compliance. Scale anchors
ranged from 1 (disagree completely) to 5 (agree completely).
IM behavior. We modified the 24-item Wayne and Ferris (1990) Impression Management Scale, which was developed for employee selfreports of IM behavior, to measure supervisory reports of IM behavior.
Supervisors reported how often their subordinates had engaged in a particular IM behavior on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always).
Procedure
The measures used in this study were included in a larger organizational survey. A random stratified sample (by age and tenure) of 1,071
employees were contacted by mail and asked to participate in a longitudinal study of employee attitudes that involved completing four surveys
over a 2-year period. Forty-one percent of the employees contacted
agreed to participate and were thus sent surveys. The data used in the
present study came from the second and third survey administrations.
The return rate for employees who agreed to participate was 90%, and
the return rate for their supervisors was 73%. The employee data we
used were collected 6 months before the supervisor data (note that the
surveys administered at these two times were virtually identical, so that
predictor and criterion data were collected at both survey administrations). (Hereinafter, the first survey, employee data, is referred to as Sur-
vey 1 and the second survey, manager data, is referred to as Survey 2.)
The surveys were mailed to participants along with a cover letter, computer answer sheets, and a preaddressed return envelope.
Results
Before testing the hypotheses, we conducted a series of principal-component factor analyses using varimax rotation for the
IM and OCB scales. An initial analysis with two factors designated a priori included all IM and OCB items for both Survey
1 and Survey 2 (separately). Results showed that 12 of the IM
items were loading on a factor with OCB items. When these 12
items were eliminated, subsequent analyses indicated that the
remaining 12 items loaded on a separate factor from the OCB
items. OCB items were factor analyzed separately from IM
items, with two factors designated a priori. This factor structure
was quite similar to the Compliance and Altruism subscales
generated by Smith et al. (1983), although 2 items that did not
load clearly on either factor in the Smith et al. study did so in
the present sample (1 item loaded on the altruism factor and the
other item loaded on the compliance factor). Thus, in our study,
the Altruism scale consisted of 7 items and the Compliance
scale consisted of 9 items.
An exploratory principal-component analysis with varimax
rotation for the 12 IM items yielded three factors (for both Surveys 1 and 2), producing three IM scales (see Table 1). The first
scale was called manipulation because items reflected direct attempts by the employee to manipulate the manager's perception of his or her work quality and effort. The second scale was
called supervisory awareness because these items reflected employee attempts to communicate and display efforts and accomplishments to the manager. The third scale, called supervisory
favors, contained items that described employees doing favors
for the supervisor. The Cronbach alpha estimates for the three
scales were .89, .68, and .71, respectively. The factor structure
of the scale measuring supervisor reports of employee IM behavior was replicated with a separate sample of 193 supervisors
working in a large firm located in the southwestern United
States.
Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations among the
variables are shown in Table 2. The pattern of correlations for
OCB provided support for Hypothesis 1. As we predicted,
affective commitment and POS were positively correlated with
both compliance and altruism, whereas continuance commitment was negatively correlated with these same scales.
Hypothesis 2 was not supported by our results. We expected
that affective commitment and POS would be negatively related
to IM behaviors whereas continuance commitment would show
a positive relationship with IM behaviors. Continuance commitment was not significantly related to any of the IM behaviors. In addition, none of the commitment measures predicted
manipulation behaviors. Furthermore, supervisory favor was
positively correlated with both affective commitment and POS,
and supervisory awareness was positively correlated with POS.
Results of hierarchical regression analyses are shown in Table
3. Results pertaining to OCB strongly supported Hypothesis 3.
POS accounted for a significant portion of unique variance in
OCB beyond that provided by affective commitment (for altruism, AJ?2 = .043, p < .01; for compliance, A/?2 = .032, p < .01)
COMMITMENT AND EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOR
777
Table 1
Factor Analysis of Impression Management Items
Survey 2 factors
Survey 1 factors
1
2
3
1
2
3
.90
.08
.11
.88
.09
.09
.89
.05
.04
.84
.11
.08
.83
.11
.12
.85
.08
.15
.78
.08
.04
.77
.16
.08
.74
.31
.12
.73
.29
.16
.78
.09
.04
.80
.13
.25
.73
-.04
.36
.50
.24
.16
.60
-.05
.22
.70
-.18
-.01
.42
.08
.57
.57
.12
.31
.20
.88
.01
.46
.09
.54
.51
.13
.36
.22
.85
.17
4.46
37.2
37.2
.06
1.89
15.8
52.9
.86
1.40
.27
4.81
40.1
40.1
.09
1.58
13.2
53.3
.81
1.23
10.2
63.5
To what extent does the employee:
1 . Play up the value of a positive event that he or she has
taken credit for to you.
2. Try to take responsibility for positive events, even
when he or she is not solely responsible.
3. Try to make a positive event that he or she is
responsible for appear better than it actually is.
4. Try to make a negative event that he or she is
responsible for not appear as severe as it actually is to
you.
5. Try to let you think that he or she is responsible for
the positive events that occur in your work group.
6. Work hard when he or she knows the results will be
seen by you.
7. Let you know that he or she tries to do a good job in
his or her work.
8. Create the impression that he or she is a "good"
person to you.
9. Work later than the regular hours in order to make a
good impression.
1 0. Make you aware of his or her accomplishments.
11. Do personal favors for you.
12. Offer to do something for you which he or she is not
required to do; that is, he or she did it as a personal
favor for you.
Eigenvalue
% variance explained
Cumulative % variance explained
-.08
11.7
64.6
Note. Factor 1 represents the manipulation scale; Factor 2 represents the supervisory awareness scale; Factor 3 represents the supervisory favors
scale. Item 10 was retained despite loading on two factors because the reliability of the supervisory awareness scale dropped significantly and because
this item appeared to be conceptually consistent with the other items in this scale. Boldfaced values indicate factors with the strongest loadings.
and continuance commitment (for altruism, A/?2 = .081, p <
.01; for compliance, A/?2 = .046, p < .01). However, for IM, we
found mixed support for Hypothesis 3. POS did not account
for unique variance in IM beyond that provided by aifective
commitment. In contrast, POS did account for unique variance
beyond continuance commitment in two of the IM scales (for
supervisory awareness, A/{2 = .021, p < .05; for supervisory
favors, Atf2 = .028, p < .01).
Discussion
As predicted, affective commitment and POS were positively
related to both compliance and altruism whereas continuance
Table 2
Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations Among
the Attitudes and Employee Behaviors
Variable
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
M
SD
Survey 1
1.
Affective commitment
2. Continuance commitment
3. Perceived organizational support
.10 .64*
— -.08
—
.22* .14* .02
.04
-.20* -.20*
.30* .23* -.02
.09
-.04
.15*
.17* 3.89 0.71
.07 3.40 0.74
.16* 3.40 0.68
Survey 2
4. Altruism
5. Compliance
6. Manipulation
7 Awareness
8. Favors
*p<.05.
.63* -.14*
-.37*
—
.10
.29*
-.06
-.00
.48* .32*
.36*
—
3.62 0.90
3.9? 0.88
1.90 0.72
2.74 0.69
1.96 0.78
778
LYNN McFARLANE SHORE AND SANDY J. WAYNE
Table 3
Results of Regression Analyses
Citizenship
Altruism
Step &
variable
2
ft
R
Impression management
Compliance
2
AR
2
AF
R
AR
2
Manipulation
2
0
AF
R
2
AR
Awareness
AF
0
2
R
AR
2
Favors
AF
0
2.43
.013 3.58
.11
.09
fl
2
AF
Model 1
1. AC
2. POS
.05
.048
.27** .091 .043
1. POS
2. AC
Overall F
.27"
.05
13.77"
12.74"
-.01
.23"
.020
.052 .032
.090
26.76**
.091 .001 0.41"
13.55"
.23"
-.01
.052
14.81"
.052 .000 0.00
7.38"
5.58*
9.01"
.000
.002
.05
-.06
0.07
.002 0.52
.00 .009
.15 .022
.028
.033
7.91"
.005 1.37
Model 2
-.06 .000
0.15
.05 .002 .002 0.44
0.29
.15 .022
6.06* .09
.00 .022 .000 0.00 .11
3.02
.026
7.25**
.033 .007 2.01
4.65*
Model 3
1. CC
2. POS
-.18** .040
11.33"
.29" .121 .081 24.84"
-.18"
.21"
.038
10.72"
.084 .046 13.29"
1. POS
2. CC
Overall F
.29"
-.18"
.21"
-.18"
.052
14.81"
.084 .032 9.24"
12.25"
.04 .002
0.47 -.02 .001
0.33
-.02 .002 .000 0.11 .15 .022 .021 5.84*
.08
.17"
.004
1.17
.032 .028 7.82"
.17"
.08
.026
7.25"
.032 .006 1.74
4.51*
Model 4
.090
26.76"
.121 .031 9.57"
18.59"
F(3, 267)
F(3, 268)
Variable
-.02 .000
0.15 .15 .022
6.06*
.04 .002 .002 0.43 -.02 .022 .000 0.15
0.29
3.09*
F(3, 268)
F(3,268)
F(3. 268)
Model 5
AC
CC
POS
Overall F
.03
-.18"
.26"
-.02
-.18"
.23"
.122
12.42"
.06
.04
-.06
.084
8.16"
-.00
-.02
.15
.004
0.36
.12
.09
.09 .041
.022
2.05
3.78*
Note. AC = affective commitment; POS = perceived organizational support; CC = continuance commitment. Models I through 4 utilized hierarchical regression, and
one variable was entered on each step; Model 5—which displays the results of simultaneous entry of AC, CC, and POS—was not directly relevant to the hypotheses, but
was provided for potentially interested readers. For all AF tests, dfe = 1 and 270—with the exception of compliance, where dfs = 1 and 269. For models 1 -4, dfo = 2 and
269 for the overall Ftests—with the exception of compliance, where dfs = 2 and 268.
*p<.05. **/><.01.
commitment was negatively related to these same constructs.
Furthermore, the regression results suggest that POS may be a
better predictor of employee citizenship behaviors than either
affective commitment or continuance commitment. This is
quite consistent with Organ's (1990) perspective that social exchange theory provides a stronger conceptual framework for understanding OCB than does organizational commitment. Thus,
employees who feel that they are supported by the organization
may, over time, reciprocate and reduce the imbalance in the
relationship by engaging in citizenship behaviors. In contrast,
affective commitment, which is based on emotional attachment
and identification with the goals of the organization, may be
inadequate for sustaining employees' citizenship behaviors.
Over time, affectively committed employees who engage in
OCB may perceive the overall exchange as unfair if the organization does not reciprocate by providing support. Therefore,
the present results suggest that employee behavior that goes beyond role requirements is most likely to be elicited when the
employee feels obligated to repay the organization for support
received.
Our pattern of results may also help to explain a previous
inconsistency in the literature (O'Reilly & Chatman, 1986; Wil-
liams & Anderson, 1991) linking affective commitment and
OCB. POS has been found to predict both affective commitment (Eisenberger et al., 1986) and OCB, so that when a significant correlation is found between affective commitment and
OCB this may reflect a common cause (i.e., POS) rather than a
causal link. Indirect support for this contention was shown in
Williams and Anderson's study, in which they found that OCB
was not influenced by affective commitment but was influenced
by the fairness of overall organizational treatment. However, because neither O'Reilly and Chatman nor Williams and Anderson included POS in their study designs, it was not possible to
determine conclusively whether POS influenced the differential
results. Clearly, additional research is needed to determine
whether the present pattern of relationships exists across other
settings and also to examine the notion of common cause.
The results of our study indicate the importance of POS as a
determinant of employee behavior. Thus, a critical issue is what
influences employees' perceptions of organizational support.
Eisenberger et al. (1986) suggested that perceived support is influenced by various aspects of an employee's treatment by the
organization, such as the organization's likely reactions to, for
example, the employee's mistakes, performance, suggestions,
779
COMMITMENT AND EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOR
and illnesses. However, the relative importance of these factors
has not been explored. Consequently, additional research is
needed to explore the individual and situational factors that
may influence perceptions of organizational support.
Another interesting finding was that continuance commitment provided additional explanation of OCB over and above
that provided by POS. Furthermore, consistent with prior research on job performance (Meyer et al., 1989), our results
showed that continuance commitment was associated with
lower levels of OCB. These results suggest that employees who
feel bound to their employing organization because of an accumulation of side bets are less inclined to engage in extrarole
behaviors that support organizational goals. This result was particularly interesting given that both side bet theory (Becker,
1960) and social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) are based on the
notion of exchange. This pattern of results suggests that employees who are bound by economic exchanges (i.e., side bet
theory) are least likely to be good citizens whereas those who
are bound by social exchanges are most likely to be good citizens. That is, employees operating under an economic exchange
would engage in OCB only if the behavior was directly rewarded, whereas employees operating under a social exchange
would engage in OCB despite no immediate reward.
It is important to note that employees who perceived high
levels of organizational support were more likely to engage in
supervisory awareness behavior. This pattern implies that communicating accomplishments may not represent employee attempts to manage impressions for self-serving purposes, but
may, in fact, be viewed by supervisors as an appropriate work
behavior. In addition, both affective commitment and POS were
positively associated with supervisory favors, and this form of
IM was positively related to altruism (r = .29). Altruism and
supervisory favors have some conceptual similarity in that they
may both involve some degree of self-sacrifice. Whereas altruism involves prosocial gestures toward others in the organization (e.g., new employees, co-workers, or supervisor; Borman
& Motowidlo, in press), supervisory favors represent prosocial
behaviors that specifically benefit the supervisor. Thus, doing
favors for the supervisor may be less of an attempt to impress
the supervisor than a consequence of having positive feelings
about the organization. An implication of these results is that it
is important to examine various forms of IM because managerial perceptions of these tactics may vary.
One limitation of our results was the rather low correlations
between employee attitudes and managerial reports of IM and
OCB. Although these results were fairly typical of studies linking employee attitudes and behaviors, they do suggest the need
for including additional variables, such as employee ideology
(Eisenberger et al., 1986), to help better explain employee behavior. Another limitation was the fairly low occurrence of IM
behaviors. This may explain the somewhat small amounts of
variance accounted for in these behaviors by the three commitment measures. Another possible explanation for these results
may be that some forms of IM may have less to do with feelings
about the employing organization than with feelings about the
manager. Future research should replicate the present study and
should also include information on employee perceptions of the
manager to further explore these relationships.
Although there are limitations of this study, there are also
a number of strengths. In particular, this study extended prior
research by focusing on two outcomes rarely examined in relationship to commitment: OCB and IM. In addition, we studied
the relationship between the outcome variables and three
different forms of commitment. This approach allows for a
greater understanding of the underlying reason for the relationship between commitment and behavior. Furthermore, the
hypotheses of interest were tested longitudinally and included
responses from both employees and supervisors.
One of our most important conclusions is that POS explained
a significant proportion of the variance in OCB beyond affective
commitment and that these perceptions appear to better predict
OCB than does affective commitment. This suggests that feelings of obligation, rather than emotional attachment, may be
the basis for citizenship behaviors. Future research should further explore the role that social exchange plays in the development of commitment and extrarole behaviors. Finally, additional studies that compare perceptions of organizational support with more extensively researched commitment constructs,
such as affective and continuance commitment, are clearly warranted.
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Received May 28, 1992
Revision received January 11, 1993
Accepted January 15, 1993 •
1994 APA Convention "Call for Programs"
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