JOB SATISFACTION AND ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT AS TWO PATHWAYS TO ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT - TEST OF AN EXCHANGE THEORY MODEL

JOB SATISFACTION AND ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT AS TWO PATHWAYS TO ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT

  This paper elaborates and tests an exchange model of organizational commitment. Incorporating findings of the contemporary research programs into the traditional exchange theory models of commitment, this study postulates that organizational support and job satisfaction are the two key mediating constructs for organizational commitment. An assumption guiding this postulation is that individual employees do not react directly to each specific organizational and job benefits one on one, but they react to the general beliefs and feelings developed from everyday exchange processes in their workplace. In the elaborated model, job satisfaction is proposed to be one of such general feelings and organizational support is to be one of such beliefs. Specifically, the elaborated model proposes that various exchange outcomes in the workplace are reflected in individual employees" global job satisfaction and perceived organizational support that in turn determine their levels of organizational commitment. The model in this study was estimated with the sample drawn from two large organizations in Korea (N=2443). Overall, the results support the model. With a few exceptions, most direct effects of the exogenous exchange-related variables on organizational commitment turn out to be spurious and are instead mediated by job satisfaction and organizational support. Implications for these findings are discussed in more detail.