Antecedents of Organizational Commitment in public organizations: an analysis of organizational and personal variables

Research on the antecedents of organizational commitment has largely overlooked employees in public organizations, despite the significant qualitative and quantitative weight of this sector. This study aims to assess whether a broad range of variables identified in the literature effectively function as antecedents of organizational commitment in public institutions. First, the antecedents were grouped into five categories: (1) organizational profile (e.g., size); (2) organizational management (e.g., internal social responsibility practices); (3) employees’ emotional and perceptual factors (e.g., job satisfaction); (4) employees’ work relationship (e.g., type of task); and (5) employees’ socio-cultural profile (e.g., educational level). Second, the research employed an empirical study on a statistically representative sample of public employees residing in Uruguay. For each category, selected antecedents were transformed into indicators that operationalized the constructs. Organizational commitment was measured using a shortened version of the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ), originally designed and validated by Professor Lyman W. Porter and colleagues in 1974. All indicators were included in a survey distributed via Facebook. Findings revealed that variables linked to organizational profile, work relationship, and socio-cultural profile showed no association with organizational commitment, or only a weak one. In contrast, internal social responsibility practices (organizational management) and job satisfaction (emotional factor) demonstrated strong individual positive relationships with organizational commitment. Moreover, the results uncovered a combined effect of both. These findings enrich research in this field and provide relevant insights for directors and human resource managers working in the public sector.