Antecedents of organizational commitment: The role of perception of equity

Abstract

The concept of organizational commitment has recently impacted the participative budgeting and employee performance streams of accounting research. Specifically, a series of studies by Nouri, Nouri and Parker have shown that an individual's level of organizational commitment negatively impacts budgetary slack and positively impacts employee performance (Nouri, 1994; Nouri & Parker, 1996a, Nouri & Parker, 1996b, Nouri & Parker, 1998). A related issue, which has seen little attention in accounting research, is the notion of what causes antecedes an individual's level of organizational commitment. The current study attempts to address this issue by investigating the relationship between an individual's perception of equity and organizational commitment. Using a cross-organizational design, measures of perceptions of pay and workload equity, organizational commitment, and self-rated performance were gathered from a sample of 105 employees from 15 organizations. In accordance with the study's hypotheses, results reveal that a significant portion of an individual's organizational commitment can be explained by his/her perception of pay equity and workload equity. Additional analysis reveals that perception of equity has a significant, direct effect on performance, but this effect is fully-mediated by organizational commitment.

Citation

Quirin, J.J., Donnelly, D.P. and O'Bryan, D. (2001), "Antecedents of organizational commitment: The role of perception of equity", Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research (Advances in Accounting Behavioural Research, Vol. 4), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 261-280. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-7979(01)04076-5