Antecedents of Organizational Commitment: A Review of Personal and Organizational Factors

Abstract

Organizational commitment has been a subject of interest to scholars and human resource practitioners over many decades. However, organizations seem to struggle to have employees who will be dedicated to their organizations. In an attempt to comprehend the concept better, this paper endeavors to analyze the antecedents of organizational commitment by categorizing them so as to foster academic research in this area and help organizations in their quest to increase the commitment of their workforce. This review focused more on affective commitment over the last five years. It was found that the antecedents of organizational commitment are broad but they have been analyzed from narrow perspectives and less attention has been given to environmental or external factors. It suggested a more classification of the antecedents of organizational commitment. Practical implications and future research directions were suggested.