Role Clarity and Organizational Commitment in Food Manufacturing and Distribution Firms: The Mediating Role of Creativity

Purpose - Although ensuring that all the organizational members know their roles exactly is an important part of managerial work, few studies address the role clarity in food manufacturing and distribution firms. Role clarity refers to the extent to which individuals clearly understand the tasks, duties, responsibilities, and expectations of their work roles (Hinkin & Schriesheim, 2008). The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the role clarity on organizational commitment and the mediating role of creativity in the role clarity-organizational commitment relationship. Research design, data, and methodology - Data were collected from 297 employees in food manufacturing and distribution firms of Korea by self-evaluations questionnaires. The unit of the analysis for testing is an individual. We proposed four hypotheses: (1) <Hypothesis 1> is about the relationship between role clarity and organizational commitment, (2) <Hypothesis 2> is about the relationship between role clarity and creativity, (3) <Hypothesis 3> is about the relationship between creativity and organizational commitment, and (4) <Hypothesis 4> is about the mediating role of creativity. We conducted the hierarchical regression analysis for testing the main and mediating effects. Results - The results of the study indicated that the role clarity was positively associated with organizational commitment and creativity. Results also indicated that the creativity was positively associated with organizational commitment. Especially, the impact of the role clarity on organizational commitment was mediated by creativity. Conclusions - An important contribution of this study is extending prior theory on the relationship between role clarity and organizational commitment by shedding new light on assumptions regarding the mediating effect of creativity. The results demonstrate that the role clarity has an indirect effect as well as a direct effects on organizational commitment. Our research sugges