Organisational commitment

There are some words with similar meanings in Hungarian, referring to certain types of commitment. These are “elkötelezettség”, “elköteleződés”, and “kötődés”; however, the word „elkötelezettség” should be used in this context. Similar differences can be found in the meaning of the words „commitment”, „engagement”, and „attachment” in English, but it is “commitment” which should be used here too. (Nevertheless, it is also interesting that the French use the word “engagement” for the same phenomenon.)

What kind of principles and factors determine one’s commitment to an organisation? How does such commitment emerge? What consequences are there? Is it possible to develop or strengthen an individual’s organisational commitment? There are questions of such kind which researchers have been interested to answer.

It is also worth watching the video under the link below which shows how the new player Gareth Bale, the most expensive transfer for the club, was presented to Real Madrid supporters. The way he was introduced to his fans also included several gestures, elements, movements reflecting how the club supports him, which strengthened the new footballer’s emotional commitment to his new club too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mMKxU98fWA

Forgas (1994) proposed a strong correlation between group cohesion and commitment: the members of a group neither have the same interests in the team nor they are equally committed to the same. The degree of group cohesion depends on how committed members are towards the norms and goals shared by a team, and what kind of positive feelings they have towards each other and the community. Such positive feelings have a strong impact on the performance of a group according to Forgas (1994).

Research conducted by Aronson and Mills (1981) demonstrated that mental effort is also an important factor in the emergence of commitment: the more challenging it is for individuals to become members of a group, the more committed they become. Forgas illustrated the same effect in the following way: “interestingly, we really respect as well as are committed to those groups which we manage to join by making sacrifices or special effort.” (Forgas, 1994:325) Strict training and the shared experience of combat bind members of military groups together, and these individuals are more satisfied with and attracted to these groups than to other groups in their private lives. The players of sports teams might feel similarly: they have to face physically demanding trainings and fight trough matches again and again just like soldiers do. On the basis of this, it can be assumed that the members of sports teams are attracted to their group much more than to other groups in their private lives.

Kiestler (1971) and Kanter (1972) had the same conclusions in their studies (see János, 2005) which focused on the commitment of the members of distinct sects. They established that the often painful and demanding secret initiation rituals for new members generate extremely strong commitment in people (which, in certain cases, might lead to mass suicide). Members seem to be motivated to become committed in order to reduce their cognitive dissonance (which means that they make stronger attempts to like something they suffered a lot for). Initiation rituals are not unknown to athletes, who have to undertake a wide variety of tasks when joining a new team.

The studies conducted by Stouffer et al. (1949) on the battlefield showed that soldier do not fight and risk their lives because they believe in their final success, but they do so as they are committed to the unit they fight in and identify with it (Forgas, 1994). Being a member of a group helps an individual to survive life-threatening situations by ensuring emotional security and strengthening one’s commitment.

Siebold (2007) also studied how military forces work and found that commitment within such units is based on social factors such as trust and cooperation.