Employee Commitment and Organizational Policies (formerly, Policy Commitment: Shifting Targets of Loyalty in Organizations)
Reviewer AN
Reviewer Comment
1.
Practical applications – are implications for
practitioners clearly drawn out?
To some extent.
2.
Research applications – does the article suggest areas
for further research?
Yes.
3.
Clarity and readability – is attention paid to clarity of
expression and readability?
The article is well written.
4.
Originality – does it add to the subject area / body of
knowledge in any way?
This is a main issue of concern. The theoretical foundation
for the main variable of this study, i.e. – Policy
Commitment (PC) is relatively weak. The readers are told
that a more universal target of employee loyalty that
transcends organizational, occupational, union and other
boundaries is needed (p. 5) but no solid theoretical grounds
are offered to support this argument nor, to support PC as
an innovative variable. It is not clear, why and in what
way PC offers a solution for the problem raised by the
authors. This is also evident in the research questions,
which do not differentiate between policy commitment and
organizational commitment. This ambiguity is even
intensified as the reader is told (p. 16) that “this study was
conducted in the context of a single policy”, suggesting
that PC is a mutli-dimensional construct. Why then the
whole study focuses on a single dimension – team based
structure? All these arguments suggest that the article
needs some theoretical refinement.
5.
Analytical rigor – does the article demonstrate
soundness in the way in which it has been researched
and/or argued?
We are told that the PC scale is comprised of 3 different
subscales taken from three different sources and that it
contains 17 items (p. 9). Then we are told (on p. 18) that
there were problems with the scale and that only 10 items
were eventually used. However, the authors provide no
explanation as to why these sub scales represent PC. It is
not clear how these scales relate to the operational
definition presented for PC on p. 6. Moreover, since a new
scale was created, the results of a Factor Analysis must be
presented.
6.
Internationality – will the article be of interest to an
international audience?
Yes, provided that a more solid theoretical grounds will be
offered for PC.
Response to Reviewer Comment
Our revised manuscript includes a section with the heading “Implications for practitioners”, in which we detail
implications of our research for organizational managers who want to increase the likelihood that the policies they put
in place will be successful. This section can be found on page 19 of the revised manuscript.
We have retained our suggestions for further research, with revisions, and included them in a section with the heading
“Implications for researchers” that begins on page 19 of the revised manuscript.
We appreciate your positive assessment of our writing style. We feel confident that our revised manuscript maintains
the same quality of writing as the original one, and trust you will find it equally well written.
You are correct that the original manuscript was lacking in theoretical development and somewhat confusing in places.
We have made extensive revisions in an effort to provide a more coherent and thorough theoretical context to our the
notion of policy commitment. In making those revisions, the statements you note from pages 5 and 16 of the original
manuscript were deleted. More importantly, we have positioned the revised manuscript within the context of Lewin’s
(1951) field theory, in which the proximity and salience of environmental elements play a substantial role in
determining individuals’ reactions to their environments. In sociology, field theory is described as a conceptual
framework within which the psychological forces that impact social actors at any point in time can be better understood.
In his article on field theory and rational choice, Diamond (1992) notes that expectations of which [public] policies will
succeed are dependent on understanding people’s motivations, or, the positive and negative (as determined by their
values) psychological forces that affect their behavior relative to those policies. Similarly, we believe management’s
expectations of which organizational policies will succeed is likely to be dependent on understanding the positive and
negative psychological forces acting on their employees with regard to those policies. Furthermore, we incorporate
field theory in our explanations of the relationships among constructs in the study: attitude, role clarity, role conflict,
policy commitment, and the conscientiousness and civic virtue dimensions of citizenship behavior. Finally, we have
deleted the references to organizational commitment in our discussion of the study variables and in the hypotheses.
Our findings indicate that policy commitment is a unidimensional construct, as shown in Table II on page 24 and
discussed on page 14 of the revised manuscript.
Again, we agree that our original discussions of the policy commitment scale were confusing. The research reported in
this manuscript was part of a substantially larger study, and our original version did not articulate the policy
commitment scale used in this portion of the research very well. We have rewritten the discussion of the policy
commitment scale and its development and use in the present research (page 12). In addition, we provide the results of
exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses for the policy commitment scale on page 14 and in Table II on page 24.
We believe our article will be of great interest to an international audience, and appreciate your assessment of its interest
as well. As discussed in our response to item 4 above, we believe our revised manuscript provides a coherent,
comprehensive theoretical background for our research.
Employee Commitment and Organizational Policies (formerly, Policy Commitment: Shifting Targets of Loyalty in Organizations)
Reviewer TT
Reviewer Comment
1.
Practical applications – are implications for
practitioners clearly drawn out?
Somewhat.
2.
Research applications – does the article suggest areas
for further research?
Yes.
3.
Clarity and readability – is attention paid to clarity of
expression and readability?
Yes.
4.
Originality – does it add to the subject area / body of
knowledge in any way?
Yes.
5.
Analytical rigor – does the article demonstrate
soundness in the way in which it has been researched
and/or argued?
No.
6.
Internationality – will the article be of interest to an
international audience?
Yes.
8.
Please specify other revision criteria.
The authors have provided an innovative, interesting, and
exciting idea for the organizational commitment literature –
policy commitment. In the wake of downsizing,
reengineering, and corporate mergers and acquisitions, it
appears that the authors have offered some fresh ideas in
dealing with permanent employees and contingent workers
in organizations. It is an important, critical, and timely
topic for research. This paper was well written and easy to
follow. I have enjoyed reading this paper. The following
comments are offered with the intention of helping the
author(s) maximize the value-added contributions of this
paper to the management literature. I will mention my
major concerns first.
8.1.
My first major concern is related to the construct and the
measurement of your construct: “policy commitment”. The
first question a scientific investigator must ask is not “How
can I measure it?” but rather, “What is it” (Locke,
1969:334)?
8.2.
I am not completely clear and would like to ask the same
question: What is policy commitment? For example, p. 6.
2nd paragraph. You offered a brief definition regarding the
policy commitment construct. This is a good and general
statement. However, it appears to me that the word
“policy” may cover a very wide range of issues, values, and
procedures. A policy may reflect a set of guidelines that
will allow managers and employees of an organization to
Response to Reviewer Comment
Our revised manuscript includes a section with the heading “Implications for practitioners”, in which we detail several
implications of our research for organizational managers who want to increase the likelihood that the policies they put
in place will be successful. This section can be found on page 19 of the revised manuscript.
We have retained our suggestions for further research, with revisions, and included them in a section with the heading
“Implications for researchers” that begins on page 19 of the revised manuscript.
We appreciate your positive assessment of our writing style. We feel confident that our revised manuscript maintains
the same quality of writing as the original one, and trust you will find it equally well written.
We believe policy commitment may be a very important construct in commitment research in years to come, and we are
very pleased that you think our research adds to the body of knowledge in this area.
Please see our detailed responses to items 8.1. through 8.17. below, in which we discuss at length the extensive
revisions we have made regarding the analytical rigor of our research, as well as other issues.
We believe our article will be of great interest to an international audience, and appreciate your assessment of its interest
as well.
Thank you for your positive comments regarding our research and our writing style. We are grateful for your
suggestions as well, as they have been extremely helpful in our efforts to revise and improve the manuscript. We offer
detailed discussions of our extensive revisions in our responses to the individual items listed below.
We define policy commitment on page 3, and discuss the construct in more detail on pages 4 – 6. In addition, we
discuss the expected factor structure of policy commitment on page 10, and our findings of factor analyses for the policy
commitment scale are presented in Table II on page 24 and discussed on page 14 of the revised manuscript.
Again, we define policy commitment on page 3, and discuss it in more detail on pages 4 – 6. We agree that the word
“policy” can apply to a wide range of issues. We provide examples of the kinds of policies we are referring to in this
study on pages 5 and 6, and consistent with the discussion of proxy variables provided by Rao & Miller (1971), we use
the implementation of a team-based structure as a proxy for policy commitment.
establish certain parameters for making important business
decisions.
As you mentioned on p. 6, 2nd para.: “Examples of
personnel policies would include zero tolerance drug and
alcohol initiatives, compensation and promotion policies,
and employee welfare efforts such as on-site educational
programs and daycare facilities”. There are so many
different policies in an organization.
Again, we agree that the word “policy” can apply to a wide range of issues. Consistent with the discussion of proxy
variables provided by Rao & Miller (1971), we use the implementation of a team-based structure as a proxy for policy
commitment.
p. 6, 3rd paragraph. You now turned your attention to
“team-based structures” in your discussion. p. 7, 1 st para.
Last sentence: You stated: “It is in this context that we seek
to develop support for the uniqueness of the policy
commitment construct by examining hypothesized
relationships among study variables”.
As noted in the previous two paragraphs, we turn to employees’ commitment to team-based structures as a proxy for
policy commitment. The statement you quote was confusing and has been deleted in our revised manuscript.
At this point, I assume your policy commitment may be
directly or indirectly related to the team-based
environment. However, I have not read any specific
statement that explicitly expressed the intentions of your
study.
We agree that the relationship between policy commitment and the team-based environment was not clear in our
original manuscript. The two are related in that employees’ commitment to the implementation of a team-based
structure serves as a proxy for policy commitment in our study, as discussed on page 6 of the revised manuscript. In
addition, the purpose of our study is stated in the third paragraph of the introduction on page 3 in the revised
manuscript.
My major question here is: “What is it” (Locke:
1969:334)? What are the elements of policy commitment?
Using the terminology of factor analysis, what are the
factors of policy commitment? As I mentioned: A policy
may reflect a set of guidelines that will allow managers and
employees of an organization to establish certain
parameters for making important business decisions. How
does policy commitment allow managers and employees to
make important business decisions, or, “exert high levels of
effort” (p. 6, 2nd para.)? For example, you may want to
specify the general idea of the policy, the intended
purposes of this policy, the decision-making rules and
procedures of the policy, the implementation of the policy,
and the positive or negative impacts of this policy as
related to many different stakeholders of this organization
(e.g., supplier, employees, managers, customers, the
general public). You need to articulate fully on these
points.
We define policy commitment on page 3, and discuss the construct in more detail on pages 4 – 6. In addition, we
discuss the expected factor structure of policy commitment on pages 10-11, and our findings of factor analyses for the
policy commitment scale are presented in Table II on page 24 and discussed on page 14 of the revised manuscript.
More specifically, are you proposing employees’
commitment toward organizational policy, in general, or
specific personnel policies, in particular? Moreover, is it
related to the policy of team-based environment, or, team
commitment (see p. 9, 1st para.)? I did not have a clue
(policy commitment) until p. 9. The construct needs to be
identified in the Introduction. See my comment no. 8
below.
In our revised manuscript, we define policy commitment on page 3 in the introduction as “belief in and proactive
endorsement of specific major organizational initiatives, or courses of action, based on perceived congruence between
personal values and organizational values as they are expressed through organizational policies.”
We briefly address the values embedded in team-based structures and the likely responses of employees to
implementation of a team-based structure on page 6. While the discussion of decision-making rules and procedures
associated with team-based structures, the process of implementing a team-based structure, and the positive or negative
impacts of team-based structures on suppliers, customers, and the general public would no doubt be interesting and
informative, we believe that discussion is outside the scope of this article and may serve to distract readers from our
purpose, which is to examine relationships among attitude, role clarity, role conflict, policy commitment, and
citizenship behavior.
2
8.3.
8.4.
p. 8, Method, 1st para. Line 3. You stated: “The actual
survey is included in this paper as Appendix A”.
Unfortunately, I can not find “Appendix A” in this
manuscript. Therefore, I can not determine the exact items
used to measure policy commitment, the intentions of this
study, and the quality of this research project. Please make
sure that you attach your Appendix A in your revision.
p. 7, 2nd paragraph. Prior Attitudes. It is plausible that
your data may support Hypothesis 1.
Your discussion of prior attitudes suffered the same kind of
problems that I identified in my aforementioned comments
(no. 2 and 3) above. What is your definition of prior
attitudes construct? What kind of prior attitudes are you
talking about? Are they related to the prior attitudes of
zero tolerance drug policy, daycare facilities, etc.? Again,
without all the information in your Appendix A, I can not
tell what was being measured. Please be very specific.
Moreover, you need to develop your theory more
extensively and fully in this section.
You are correct that we inadvertently omitted Appendix A from the original manuscript. The items used to measure
attitude are contained in the text of the revised manuscript on page 12. The complete scales are included in Appendix A
on pages 30-31 of the revised manuscript.
We agree that the discussion of prior attitudes was somewhat weak in the original manuscript. We have dropped the
word “prior”, and our revised manuscript includes a more theoretical discussion of attitude and its relationship to policy
commitment on pages 7 and 8. We note that attitude has been defined as a psychological tendency to evaluate a
particular target either favorably or disfavorably (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993), and that the evaluations one makes then
become a part of the ‘psychological past’ that constitutes an important force acting upon that person in the present
moment of time (Lewin, 1951). Thus, an employee’s prior experiences with a given policy form the basis for the
employee’s present beliefs about the value and efficacy of that policy. The two items that were used to measure attitude
are provided on page 12 in the Measures section and are included here as well (“How do you feel about your prior work
experience with self-directed work teams?” and “How did you feel about self-directed work teams before you became
involved with them at your current employer?”). Statistical information regarding the attitude measure is provided in
Table III on page 24 of the revised manuscript.
3
8.5.
The combination of my comments 2 and 4 may lead to the
following: My major concern of your paper is that you
have not provided a strong theory in your MS.
A complete theory must have the following elements:
What, How, Why, and Who, Where, and When (Whetten,
1989). Further, parts of an article that are not theory may
include: references, data, list of variables and constructs,
diagrams, and hypotheses (or predictions) (Sutton & Staw,
1995). A good paper with a strong theory should have (1)
all these aforementioned elements and (2) a clear logic that
will explain why one variable provokes the second
variable. These elements are missing. More specifically,
you need to define and explain policy commitment (the
“what” aspect of your research). You need to provide the
“how” and “why” aspects of the theory and provide a
strong rationale for the relationship between prior attitudes
and policy commitment, for example. Further, people in
these three locations (union vs. non-union, city vs. rural,
young vs. old plants, different stage of team-based
implementation process) may provide additional challenges
regarding “who, where, and when”. These comments may
be applicable to all the Hypotheses presented in the paper.
8.6.
You are correct that the original manuscript was lacking in theoretical development. We have made extensive revisions
in an effort to provide a more coherent and thorough theoretical context to our the notion of policy commitment. We
have positioned the revised manuscript within the context of Lewin’s (1951) field theory, in which the proximity and
salience of environmental elements play a substantial role in determining individuals’ reactions to their environments.
In sociology, field theory is described as a conceptual framework within which the psychological forces that impact
social actors at any point in time can be better understood. In his article on field theory and rational choice, Diamond
(1992) notes that expectations of which [public] policies will succeed are dependent on understanding people’s
motivations, or, the positive and negative (as determined by their values) psychological forces that affect their behavior
relative to those policies. Similarly, we believe management’s expectations of which organizational policies will
succeed is likely to be dependent on understanding the positive and negative psychological forces acting on their
employees with regard to those policies. Furthermore, we incorporate field theory in our explanations of the
relationships among constructs in the study: attitude, role clarity, role conflict, policy commitment, and the
conscientiousness and civic virtue dimensions of citizenship behavior.
Due to space limitations (i.e., keeping the length of the article within desired parameters), we have chosen not to include
discussions of differences among the three plants, and have therefore used only the data from the largest of the three
plants in our analyses.
For the next step, you need to provide a set of propositions
(using constructs) or hypotheses (using variables)
regarding your theory so that management scholars and
managers will understand the relationships among these
constructs (unobservable) or variables (observable).
Again, diagrams, hypotheses (or predictions) are not
theory. You then, provide the operational definition of
these constructs, develop variables (Methods section) and
provide specific hypotheses to test your theory
(hypotheses: variables ←→ variables).
We have rewritten the hypotheses in the revised manuscript and incorporated the tenets of field theory in our
discussions of expected relationships. We believe we have written them in a way that will be useful to both researchers
and practitioners.
In your case, it will be highly appropriate to provide a
diagram (figure) for all the variables examined in your
study. You may want to use SEM to examine all these
variables in one analysis. It appears that all your
hypotheses will examine only a small part of the whole
picture individually/separately. SEM will allow
researchers to examine all variables simultaneously.
We appreciate your suggestion to use SEM to examine the study variables, and we have done so in our revised
manuscript. We believe this has substantially enhanced the quality of our research. Our original and final models are
presented in Figures 1 and 2 (page 23), respectively, and our findings are presented in the Results section on pages 1416 and in Tables I – V on pages 24 and 25 of the revised manuscript.
I am sure that you are aware of the literature on this issue.
The following papers may be helpful in strengthening your
paper in your future research.
p. 8, Hypothesis 5. Please specify and define your
“independent variables”. What are your independent
variables? I did not know this until I reached p. 22.
Thank you for suggesting these excellent references for our future research.
We agree that this statement was confusing in the original manuscript. The statement to which you refer, and the
section it was contained in, have been deleted from the revised manuscript.
4
8.7.
8.8
8.9.
8.10.
8.11.
8-note
8.12.
8.13.
8.14.
On the basis of your hypotheses (1, 2, 3, and 4), I can
second guess your ideas using the figure below. (figure not
included in response to reviewer in view of space
considerations)
It appears that you have examined OCB as one of your
major dependent variables. You need to review the
literature on OCB.
p. 8, Method. Last sentence. I am not sure that job
commitment is the same as occupational/professional
commitment. People perform their jobs within an
organization. Thus, your job commitment will be highly
related to organizational commitment. P. 10, last para.
Your results seem to support my argument.
As noted above, our original and final models are presented in Figures 1 and 2 (page 23), respectively, and our findings
are presented in the Results section on pages 14-16 and in Tables I – V on pages 24 and 25 of the revised manuscript.
Please note that when you change the wording of a survey,
you may have changed the whole construct and created a
new measurement scale. This is, in fact, the way that you
created policy commitment scale (using twelve items from
the OCQ, see p. 9. Line 1-2 in this study). Please refer to
my comment no. 2 above, also.
p. 11. 3rd para. Last sentence. You introduced a new
variable: policy tenure here. This variable was not defined
and discussed in your introduction at all.
p. 4, 1st para. You have introduced many constructs in
your first paragraph (e.g., the Protestant Work Ethic,
career, job itself, job involvement, job orientation, job
attachment, and attitudes toward union) without showing
the relevance of these constructs. Please show the
relationships between (among) these constructs and the
focus of your present research. Strong theoretical glue is
needed to integrate all these constructs and ideas and direct
readers attention to your intended research.
Other minor concerns are listed below:
p. 9. 3rd para. You have a one sentence paragraph here. If
you check the references, you will find that in each
reference, there are three periods. There are, in fact, three
sentences in a reference. You need to have about three
sentences in a paragraph.
p. 10. 1st para. Please specify usable questionnaires
collected from each of these three plants.
p. 10, 1st para. Your three plants may have experienced
different phase of the team-based structure implementation
process when you collected your data. It will be interesting
to show the possible differences in policy commitment
across these three plants. Please do a one-way ANOVA
and present your results here.
In the revised manuscript, we have rewritten the discussion of the policy commitment scale and its development and use
in the present research (page 12). In addition, we provide the results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses for
the policy commitment scale on page 14 and in Table II on page 24.
On pages 9 and 10 of the revised manuscript, we highlight a few of the major findings in organizational citizenship
behavior and relate it to our discussion on field theory. In addition, we provide our rationale for including only the
conscientiousness and civic virtue dimensions of citizenship behavior in this study.
As mentioned previously, the present manuscript was originally part of a larger study. References to job commitment
have been deleted from the revised manuscript.
Again, the policy tenure variable was part of the larger study to which we have referred in earlier comments. References
to policy tenure have been deleted from the revised manuscript.
We agree that the introduction of the constructs to which you refer was confusing and distracted from the present study.
All discussion of these constructs has been deleted from the revised manuscript.
We agree that a one-sentence paragraph is inappropriate, and we have rewritten this section accordingly.
As noted above, due to space limitations we have eliminated all references to multiple plants and have used only the
data from the largest of the three plants in our analyses.
See our comments to item 8.13 above.
5
8.15.
8.16.
8.17.
8.18.
8.
Final
p. 10-11. You stated that one correlation was stronger than
the others. Please use Fisher’s z transformation, convert
correlations to z scores, check the difference of the two
correlations using a (z) formula, and present the
significance level of your results.
You developed the policy commitment scale for this study.
I would expect to see the psychometric properties of this
policy commitment scale. You may use the randomlyselected first half of the sample and conduct one
exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and establish a
measurement model (i.e., items and factors) based on these
results. Then, test the model using confirmatory factor
analysis (CFA) based on the data from the second half of
your sample. If the scale is well established, then, you can
test the relationships among variables and your model. It
will be a good idea to present a measurement model for all
the scales used in this study. See my comments below.
All measures were collected from one source at one point
in time. You need to provide research findings to show
that all your findings are not caused by the common
method variance. The following references may be helpful.
(references not included in response to reviewer in view of
space considerations)
p. 21, 22, 23, and 24. You have done very complicated
data analyses for many variables. Many of these variables
were not mentioned in your literature review (e.g.,
organization tenure, team tenure, job tenure, policy tenure,
choice, job commitment, job satisfaction, justice
judgments, etc.). You may want to select some of these
key variables and articulate the relationships among them
clearly and explicitly.
It appears that you have many interesting ideas, constructs,
and variables. Conceptual issues regarding these
constructs, definition of constructs, measurement scales of
these constructs (variables) as well as theoretical
relationships among these variables might be addressed in
a revision. It is not necessary that you agree with all of my
suggestions. If you disagree with a point, please explain
why you disagree and why your idea or another is better or
more appropriate than the one presented here. I hope that
my comments and suggestions are specific, helpful, and
constructive and that you will be able to revise your paper
successfully, polish your diamond in the rough, and bring
your exciting and timely ideas to life. Thank you very
much for allowing me to review your work. Good luck
with your research.
The statement to which you refer has been deleted as part of the revision process.
In the revised manuscript, we have rewritten the discussion of the policy commitment scale and its development and use
in the present research (page 12). In addition, we provide the results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses for
the policy commitment scale on page 14 and in Table II on page 24.
We did collect all of the measures from one source at one point in time, as you point out. However, as we discuss on
page 15 of the revised manuscript, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis on all items in the study, and the
unrotated factor solution indicated the presence of seven factors which explained 23.66%, 9.05%, 7.54%, 6.44%,
5.69%, 5.16%, and 4.61% of the variance respectively. Since no single factor accounted for the majority of the 62.16%
of the covariance explained in the analysis, it is believed that common method variance is not the main determinant of
the findings.
We agree that the “extra variables” to which you refer were confusing and distracted from the present study. All
references to these variables have been deleted from the revised manuscript.
We sincerely appreciate the suggestions you have made, and we feel very strongly that our manuscript is greatly
improved as a result of your helpful comments. We look forward to continuing our work in this area through future
studies of the policy commitment construct. Thank you for your help.
6