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GIVING COMMITMENT: EMPLOYEE SUPPORT PROGRAMSAND THE PROSOCIAL SENSEMAKING PROCESS

ADAM M. GRANTUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

JANE E. DUTTONBRENT D. ROSSO

University of Michigan

Researchers have assumed that employee support programs cultivate affective organ-izational commitment by enabling employees to receive support. Using multimethoddata from a Fortune 500 retail company, we propose that these programs alsostrengthen commitment by enabling employees to give support. We find that givingstrengthens affective organizational commitment through a prosocial sensemakingprocess in which employees interpret personal and company actions and identities ascaring. We discuss theoretical implications for organizational programs, commitment,sensemaking and identity, and citizenship behaviors.

Changing employment landscapes have weak-ened employees physical, administrative, and tem-poral attachments to organizations (Cascio, 2003;Pfeffer & Baron, 1988). Employees are more mobile,more autonomous, and less dependent on their or-ganizations for employment than ever before. Toaddress these challenges, organizations are in-creasingly seeking to strengthen employees psy-chological attachments by cultivating affectivecommitmentan attitude of emotional dedica-tionto organizations (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990;

Meyer & Allen, 1991). Extensive research has dem-onstrated that affective commitment to organiza-tions is linked to important behavioral outcomesranging from decreased absenteeism and turnoverto increased job performance (Cooper-Hakim & Vi-swesvaran, 2005; Riketta, 2002; Somers, 1995). Ac-cordingly, scholars and practitioners continue toshare a deep interest in understanding how affec-tive commitment to organizations develops. Thispursuit is a foundational task for organizationalscholarship (Mowday & Sutton, 1993).

Searching for new ways to strengthen employeesaffective commitment, many organizations haveadopted employee support programs (Hartwell,Steele, French, Potter, Rodman, & Zarkin, 1996).Employee support programs are formalized prac-tices designed to improve employees experiencesat work by providing emotional, financial, and in-strumental assistance beyond the scope of standardHR pay, benefit, recognition, and training and de-velopment programs. These increasingly commonprograms, ranging from employee assistance pro-grams to work-family programs such as child careand elder care, provide employees with variousforms of help and aid (Cascio, 2003; Edwards &Rothbard, 2000; Goodstein, 1995). Scholars typi-cally assume that employee support programs cul-tivate commitment by enabling employees to re-ceive support (Johnson, 1986; Perry-Smith & Blum,2000; Trice & Beyer, 1984). When employees be-come aware of or utilize the services offered bysupport programs, they are more likely to feel thattheir work organizations value their well-being andthus reciprocate by developing affective commit-ment to these organizations. For example, the liter-ature on perceived organizational support suggeststhat when employees feel supported by their organ-izations, they develop beliefs that their organiza-tions care about their welfare, which further moti-vate them to strengthen their affective commitmentto their organizations (Rhoades & Eisenberger,2002). Scholars writing within this literature drawon social exchange theory (Blau, 1964; Emerson,1976; Homans, 1958) to propose that employeesform attachments to reciprocate what they have

For helpful feedback and suggestions, we are gratefulto Associate Editor Brad Kirkman, three anonymous re-viewers, Jeff Edwards, Nancy Rothbard, and Jim West-phal. For their assistance with data collection and cod-ing, we offer special thanks to our project liaisons (ThomBales, Sarah Baumann, Barbara Kinzer), research assis-tants (Alex Jaffe, Shanna Goldenberg, Brett Lavery,Heather Ross, Jana Bek, Katie Benedetto, Emily Feldman,Caroline Martin, Krista Wagner, Adrienne Waller), andsurvey and interview participants. We also thank BenRosen and members of the Relationships Reading Com-munity for their advice and encouragement.

Academy of Management Journal

2008, Vol. 51, No. 5, 898918.

898Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright holders express

written permission. Users may print, download or email articles for individual use only.


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received from organizations. However, researchershave noted that there are additional pathwaysthrough which commitment develops, calling for a

broader understanding of the underlying mecha-nisms (Fuller, Barnett, Hester, & Relyea, 2003). Inparticular, researchers have criticized social ex-change perspectives for relying on the assumption

of rational self-interest (Meglino & Korsgaard,2004): employee support programs are assumed tostrengthen commitment by fulfilling employeesself-interested motives toreceive. Researchers haveyet to explore the possibility that employee supportprograms may strengthen commitment by fulfillingemployees other-interested motives to give.

Our objective in this article is to fill this gap byoffering an expanded view of the other-interestedmechanisms through which employee support pro-grams cultivate affective organizational commit-ment. Although employee support programs wereinitially formed to allow employees to receive sup-port, it is increasingly common for these programsto allow employees to participate in giving as wellas receiving (Cascio, 2003; Pfeffer, 2006). For exam-ple, through support programs in the airline, auto,construction, and railroad industries, employeesare provided with opportunities to volunteer as ameans of supporting coworkers (Bacharach, Bam-

berger, & McKinney, 2000). At Southwest Airlinesand DaVita, employees are able to donate money toprograms supporting fellow employees facing med-ical and financial emergencies (Pfeffer, 2006). Sim-ilar programs exist at Dominos Pizza, The Limited,

Jackson Hospital, and First Energy Corporation,where employees can give financial and emotionalsupport to fellow employees in need. Our focus inthis article is on these types of internal employeesupport programs, which are structured so that em-ployees have the opportunity to give as well asreceive.

We propose that the act of giving to supportprograms strengthens employees affective commit-ment to their organization by enabling them to seethemselves and the organization in more prosocial,caring terms. We examined the specific processes

through which giving-based commitment unfolds,using a combination of qualitative and quantitativedata from a Fortune 500 retail organization thatmanages an employee support program providingfinancial, material, and educational assistance toemployees. In Study 1, we developed theory frominterview data to deepen knowledge about themechanisms through which giving builds commit-ment. In Study 2, we used quantitative survey datato conduct an exploratory test of these mechanismsas mediators of the relationship between giving

behavior and commitment. Our research offers a

novel framework for explaining how support pro-grams cultivate affective organizational commit-ment, introduces giving as a new antecedent ofaffective commitment, identifies two prosocialsensemaking mechanisms to account for this rela-tionship, and addresses calls to move beyond socialexchange theory as a means of understanding ante-

cedents of affective commitment.

EMPLOYEE SUPPORT PROGRAMSAND COMMITMENT

Commitment is a key concept for explaining re-lationships between individuals and organizations(Mathieu & Zajac, 1990; Mowday & Sutton, 1993).We focus on organizations as commitment targetsfor both theoretical and practical reasons. From atheoretical perspective, we seek to deepen existingknowledge about how organizational programs af-fect employees psychological attachments to theirwork organizations. From a practical perspective,organizational commitment is a strong predictor ofdecreased absenteeism and turnover (for a review,see Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, and Topolnytsky[2002]). Understanding how organizational com-mitment develops can assist organizations in ef-forts to increase employee retention, which is im-portant in industries in which organizationsstruggle to retain employees, such as the retail andservice industries (Cascio, 2003).

Recognizing that organizational commitment cantake multiple forms, we focus specifically on affec-

tive organizational commitment. Many organiza-tional commitment researchers distinguish amongthree commitment forms: affective, normative, andcontinuance (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Whereas nor-mative and continuance commitment often involvefeelings of obligation or pressure to be attached,affective commitment involves feelings of intrinsicmotivation and self-determination (Meyer, Becker,& Vandenberghe, 2004). As a result, affective com-mitment is likely to be more consistently associatedwith constructive attitudes and behaviors than con-tinuance and normative commitment. In a meta-

analysis of the organizational commitment litera-ture, Meyer et al. (2002) found that relative tonormative and continuance commitment, affectivecommitment is associated with the most favorableoutcomes for both employees and organizations,such as high job performance, attendance, and or-ganizational citizenship behavior, as well as lowturnover, stress, and work-family conflict. In lightof these benefits of affective organizational commit-ment, it is theoretically and practically importantto understand how employee support programsmay facilitate it.

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How Employee Support Programs CultivateAffective Organizational Commitment

The prevailing theoretical perspective for ex-plaining how employee support programs cultivateaffective organizational commitment is based onthe central tenet of social exchange theory: individ-uals reciprocate what they receive (Blau, 1964; Em-

erson, 1976; Homans, 1958). Researchers studyingperceived organizational support have drawn onthis theory to explain the development of affectivecommitment to organizations, proposing that in ex-change for receiving support from organizations,employees reciprocate with emotional dedication(Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). When organizationsoffer help and assistance through employee sup-port programs, employees are assured that the or-ganization is willing to meet their material andsocioemotional needs (Rhoades & Eisenberger,2002). Employees interpret this support as a signal

that the organization values and cares about theirwell-being, and following the norm of reciprocity,they are motivated to reciprocate by developing astronger emotional bond with the organization.Corroborating this hypothesis, cross-lagged longi-tudinal research indicates that earlier perceptionsof support from an organization predicted increasesin affective commitment to the organization, butnot vice versa (see Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002).This evidence suggests that when support pro-grams enable employees to receive support, theyare likely to respond with increased affective com-mitment to their organization.

From Receiving to Giving

We suggest that there is a second plausible path-way, which has not been previously examined,through which employee support programs maystrengthen commitment. The rise of support pro-grams designed to allow employees to give as wellas receive provides an opportunity for scholars tounderstand an other-interested process throughwhich support programs may strengthen commit-

ment. We propose that the act of giving has thepotential to strengthen employees affective com-mitment to an organization by changing the waythat employees see themselves and the organiza-tion. Previous research suggests that many employ-ees hold prosocial identitiesthey define them-selves as giving, caring individuals (Aquino &Reed, 2002)and often describe constructing andmaintaining these prosocial identities as one oftheir most important motives, values, and guidingprinciples in life (see Grant, 2007, 2008a).

Building on this evidence, we explore how the

act of giving to employee support programsstrengthens employees affective commitment totheir organization, over and above the gain in com-mitment that might derive from the experience ofreceiving support from these programs. Studies ofindividual helping suggest that the act of giving toa recipient can increase the givers commitment to

that recipient: individuals make sense of givingbehaviors by inferring that they like and value therecipient (Aronson, 1999; Flynn & Brockner, 2003).We draw on this tradition in our efforts to elaboratethe mechanisms through which giving to othersthrough organizational programs strengthens affec-tive organizational commitment. We also seek toinvestigate whether giving strengthens commit-ment when an organizational program manages thegiving process. To accomplish these goals and ad-dress this gap in knowledge about whether andhow giving to employee support programs in-creases affective organizational commitment, weconducted multimethod research at a Fortune 500retail corporation, which we have given the pseud-onym Big Retail.

Research Context

Big Retail manages an internal support program,which we have named the Employee SupportFoundation (ESF), and which operates as an inde-pendent not-for-profit arm of the company to sup-port employees in need. This charitable foundationserves employee needs beyond the scope of tradi-

tional employee assistance programs (EAPs), whichprovide informational and emotional assistance toemployees experiencing personal problems affect-ing their work (Johnson, 1986). The ESF is alsounlike many charitable foundations in that its mis-sion is to strengthen the Big Retail communitythrough internally focused programs that supportemployeesrather than external stakeholders or re-cipients. In particular, the ESF provides an outletfor Big Retail employees to help each other in timesof financial need.

The ESFs two primary initiatives are financial

grants and educational scholarships. Big Retail em-ployees are encouraged to contribute to the ESF tohelp fellow employees, and also to seek supportfrom the ESF when facing financial difficultiesthemselves. The potential tie between the em-ployee and the ESF begins when employees arefirst hired at Big Retail. During orientation, trainingsessions include the distribution of informationabout the ESF, as well as discussion of the ESF byorientation leaders. The policies surrounding in-volvement with the ESF leave considerable free-dom for whether and how employees can partici-

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pate. The company allows employees to seeksupport from the ESF by approaching their manag-ers directly, by visiting the ESF website, or by call-ing an ESF phone number. The company also al-lows employees to give support to other employeesvia the ESF by donating money from their pay-checks and organizing fundraisers. However, the

direct recipient of employees donations is the ESF,which disburses funds to qualified recipients.Thus, as is common in employee support programs,employees experiences of giving to the ESF in-volve interactions with the company rather thandirect interactions with recipients, who remainanonymous.

Overview of Research

We collected qualitative and quantitative data atBig Retails ESF to build and test theory about the

mechanisms through which giving to a supportprogram enhances employees affective commit-ment to the organization. In Study 1, we used qual-itative data from 40 interviews with Big Retail man-agers and associates to identify two prosocialsensemaking mechanisms through which givingcultivates commitment by enabling employees tosee themselves and the company in more caringterms. In Study 2, we utilized quantitative surveydata from 249 Big Retail employees to provide aninitial test of the giving-commitment relationship,as mediated by the two prosocial sensemakingmechanisms identified in the qualitative data. The

theoretical model that we developed and testedsuggests that after giving to a support program,employees interpret their actions and the compa-nys actions as caring, which reinforces both theirpersonal prosocial identities as caring individualsand the companys prosocial identity as a caringorganization. As a result of feeling gratitude to thecompany for reinforcing their personal prosocialidentities and pride in the company for holding acollective prosocial identity, employees developstronger affective commitment to the company.

STUDY 1 METHODS

Sample

We conducted 40 semistructured interviews atBig Retail in February and March 2006. We chose toconduct interviews so that we could gather quali-tative data, which are particularly appropriate forconstructing and elaborating theory (Lee, Mitchell,& Sablynski, 1999). Participants were 20 store man-agers and 20 store associates (16 male, 24 female) at20 Big Retail stores across the United States. At

each of the 20 stores, we interviewed two employ-ees by telephone: one manager and one associate.Managers were responsible for overseeing store op-erations, coordinating and delegating tasks, super-vising associates, communicating with regionalsupervisors, and administering the store budget.Associates were responsible for product sales, cus-

tomer service, merchandising, inventory process-ing, and distribution.With the help of the human resources depart-

ment, we strategically sampled from Big Retailstores to achieve proportional representation of thecompanys geographic locations, store types, andstore contributions to the ESF. In terms of geogra-phy, we interviewed employees from stores in 23states across the United States. In terms of storetypes, 14 were large free-standing buildings, and 6were smaller mall stores; this distribution was pro-portional to the representation of these store typesin the corporation. In terms of store contributionsto the ESF, we selected the 10 highest-contributingstores and the 10 lowest-contributing stores in thecompany, basing these clarifications on the per-centage of employees donating to the ESF fromtheir paychecks. We expected that the variations ingeographic location and store type would increasethe generalizability of our sample, and that thevariations in store contributions would provide avaluable contrast between employees who were fre-quently engaged versus infrequently engaged ingiving through the ESF.

Data Collection

Our interviews focused on understanding em-ployees relationships with the ESF and Big Retail.We introduced the interviews by explaining thatwe were conducting a needs assessment for the ESFand were also interested in learning about how theESF affected employees feelings about the com-pany. We collected employees accounts (Orbuch,1997), or explanations, of how they thought, felt,and acted in their encounters and relationshipswith the ESF and the company. We focused partic-

ular attention on two interrelated types of accounts:accounts of exchange, in which employees de-scribed giving to and receiving from the ESF, andaccounts of organizational commitment, in whichemployees described their feelings of dedicationand attachment to Big Retail. The interviews weredivided into three core phases. In the first phase ofthe interviews, we opened with an icebreaker ques-tion about employees responsibilities and typicalworkdays. In the second phase, we inquired aboutemployees relationships with the company. Weasked employees to describe why they work for the



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company, how attached they feel to the company,what the companys mission and values are, andhow their identities relate to the companys iden-tity. In the third phase, we explored employeesexperiences with the ESF, asking them to discusswhat they know about the ESFs activities, whatinvolvement they have had with it, how importantit is, what impacts it has had, and whether theyhave benefited from or contributed to it. The inter-views lasted between 25 and 70 minutes, and we

tape-recorded and transcribed them for dataanalysis.

Data Analysis

We identified themes by utilizing an inductiveapproach in which we iteratively traveled back andforth between the interview transcripts and ouremerging theoretical understandings (Glaser &Strauss, 1967). All three authors began by readingthrough all of the transcripts and generating initiallists of categories for classifying participants re-

sponses. We integrated our lists with a codingscheme specifying that statements would be classi-fied as receiving when employees described theESF in terms of receiving help and support, and asgivingwhen employees described the ESF in termsof giving help and support. Using this codingscheme, two independent raters blind to the re-search questions coded all of the interview tran-scripts for mentions of receiving and giving. Theoverall agreement rate between the two coders was81.94 percent, and discrepancies were resolved bya third coder.

With these codes, we sought to address our re-search question about how employees explain whygiving to an employee support program cultivatesaffective organizational commitment. The key datafor this analysis consisted of a set of passagesculled by the two independent raters in which em-ployees mentioned giving. The first author readthrough these passages to generate first-order infor-mant codes, or open codes, which comprisedwords used by employees to describe why they

were committed to the company. We then met as agroup to revise the first-order codes and generateaggregate codes to encapsulate the first-order codesunder key themes. Through discussions, we ab-stracted these aggregate codes into core theoreticalcategories, which are displayed in Figure 1.

STUDY 1 FINDINGS

Our findings suggest that giving initiates a pro-cess of prosocial sensemaking, in which givingleads employees to judge personal and company

actions and identities as caring, and therebystrengthens their affective commitment to the com-pany. Figure 1 depicts our findings in the form ofan emergent conceptual model, which draws on thefollowing tenets of theoretical perspectives on sen-semaking (Weick, 1995) and self-perception (Bem,1972): (1) Actions trigger efforts to interpret andexplain the actions, (2) employees generalize theseinterpretations to form inferences about the identi-ties of the actors, and (3) identities provide a basisfor forming and changing attitudes toward the ac-tors. As revealed in this context, our findings sug-

FIGURE 1Study 1 Prosocial Sensemaking Model of Giving-Based Commitment



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gest that giving behavior triggers a particular formof sensemakingprosocial sensemakingaboutoneself and ones company, that changes an em-ployees feelings toward the company. We unpackour findings with illustrative quotations that indi-cate the presence of prosocial sensemaking and theprocess through which it links giving to affective

commitment.1

As a preview, our findings suggest that the act ofgiving to the ESF cultivated affective organizationalcommitment by strengthening employees percep-tions of both personal and companyprosocial iden-titiesimages of the self and the organization ashelpful, caring, and benevolent (Grant, 2007; seealso Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). First, at apersonal level, when employees gave to the ESF,they engaged in prosocial sensemaking about theself: they interpreted their contributions as caring,and then generalized this interpretation to theirself-concepts, reinforcing their prosocial identitiesas caring individuals. As a result of gratitude to thecompany for the opportunity to affirm a valuedaspect of their identities, they developed strongeraffective commitment to the company. Second, at acompany level, when employees gave to the ESF,they engaged in prosocial sensemaking about thecompany: they judged the companys contributionsas caring, and then generalized this interpretationto their views of the company, reinforcing the com-panys prosocial identity as a caring organization.As a result of pride in the company as a humaneorganization, they developed stronger affective

commitment to the company. In the following sec-tions, we present testable hypotheses that elaboratehow this prosocial sensemaking process unfolds tolink giving and commitment through both personaland company pathways.

Prosocial Sensemaking about the Self

Our data suggest that giving to the ESF strength-ened affective organizational commitment by trig-gering prosocial sensemaking about the selfa pro-cess through which employees interpreted their

personal actions and identities in more caringterms. In contrast to the dominant construction of

corporate life as self-interested (Miller, 1999), giv-ing to the ESF provided employees with an oppor-tunity to interpret their actions as caring. The com-pany legitimated concern for others by formalizingand institutionalizing an employee support pro-gram, signaling that helping, giving, and contribut-ing behaviors are valid, acceptable, and encour-

aged. As one manager explained, Donating myself[helps me to see that] business can make you veryfocused on [making] money, and this kind of re-leases you from that, to think about other people, toreach out to others in need (manager 7). An asso-ciate elaborated, I have money taken out everypaycheck to help with the ESF . . . it benefits a lot ofpeople that really are in need. . . . I feel real goodthat its available. I feel good that it can be taken outof my paycheck (associate 16).

Employees discussed how they had often feltmotivated to help coworkers and give their timeand energy to the company, but lacked an appro-priate means for doing so, as well as a compellingexplanation for why they would do so. They feltthat the ESF provided them with both a means anda rationale: they were able to give money to the ESFas part of regular donation campaigns and payrolldeductions, and they were able to explain this giv-ing behavior as part of a legitimate standard prac-tice. Employees were also able to give time to theESF as part of their roles as concerned managersand associates. For example, a manager describedhow the ESF provided her with the ability to helpan employee in need:

I have an employee . . . she was a young singlemother. . . . During the pregnancy, she switchedfrom full-time to part-time, and in the process losther insurance because she didnt read the packetcompletely. . . . When we found out, I grabbed theESF paperwork and started calling the ESF, and itwas just the ability to help her through her preg-nancy. . . . It was good that there was somebodythere that I could call and say, Hey, this is what Ivegot, and can I help? and to know that I was going to

be able to help my employee. . . . Because of thehelp that theyve been to the employees . . . I feelgood, because I know that theres somebody out

there that its helping. (manager 11)

As a result of judging their contributions as car-ing, employees were able to generalize these inter-pretations to reinforce their prosocial identities.They made sense of who they were through whatthey did (Bem, 1972; Weick, 1995), coming to seethemselves as caring, helpful individuals. Employ-ees discussed how the act of giving time and moneyto the ESF reinforced their prosocial identities byenabling them to contribute more than they couldhave on their own. They appreciated the steps that

1 Although our theory-building efforts drew heavily onboth manager and associate interviews, our quotationsfocus primarily on managers because, compared to asso-ciates, they tended to have more experience with givingto the ESF, and thus offered richer responses for illus-trating the themes that inform our hypotheses. We bal-ance this limitation in Study 2, where our sample iscomprised of over 80 percent associates and we measurejob level (manager vs. associate) as a control variable.



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the company took to match and extend their finan-cial contributions in order to help others in need.For example, one manager spoke about how givingto the ESF reinforced her prosocial identity as acaring person by expanding the impact of her do-nations on coworkers in New Orleans affected byHurricane Katrina in August 2005:

Im a pretty caring person . . . its important for me toget involved in my staffs lives. . . . During the Hur-ricane Katrina relief, my partner and I discussed itand decided that, you know, that would be some-thing we did, because then . . . people we knew weregonna be helped. . . . Feeling that I could give myhundred dollars to the ESF, they turned it into twohundred dollars, and then they helped fellow em-ployees. You know, they got them jobs elsewhere.They . . . helped them get back into their homes.They were able to do small things that meant a lot tothose people . . . its better than I couldve donemyself. I wasnt gonna be able to go down there and

help, so thats how I contribute. I wanted to helpout . . . my money essentially was doubled. . . . Ifeel like Ive done something good. . . . Ive spent mymoney in a smart way, knowing that its gonna bematched. You know, I think thats really an impor-tant thing, not just that the ESF collects everyoneelses money, but also that theres the matching fac-tor in there, so it makes me feel like what I donatecan go further. And, you know, that its adminis-tered in such a way that theyre not gonna be takenadvantage of, and that theyre gonna be very goodhelp to someone at a very specific time. I always feelgood when I do it. . . . Any time I do stop to give itsome thought, I think things like . . . Its a goodthing that Im a part of this, and, you know, Thisreally is a good thing that my company has.(manager 4)

Another manager described how giving led himto include caring actions as part of his role on thejob, which affirmed his identity as someone whohelped others:

Its my job, too, to raise the awareness . . . that wehave this great ESF. I think thats my role now. . . . Iam involved as a company spokesperson on mystore, being a leader, letting people know that itsavailable. . . . I have a payroll deduction and then Ialso did the extra one for the Katrina Fund. I alsohave bought some items that they have sold, T-shirtsto give to the staff, that I know a percentage of theproceeds went to the ESF. So those are ways that Ican think of that Ive helped. . . . I think its good togive. (manager 12)

Our understanding of the process of prosocialsensemaking about the self is based on theories ofself-affirmation and self-verification, which suggestthat employees are motivated to reinforce and au-thenticate valued aspects of their identities

(Shamir, 1990; Swann, Polzer, Seyle, & Ko, 2004).As we illustrate below, employees felt grateful tothe company for providing an opportunity to rein-force their prosocial identities through giving, andthis gratitude to the company strengthened theiraffective commitment to the company. In the lan-guage of attribution theory (Weiner, 1985), employ-

ees attributed the opportunity to reinforce theirprosocial identities to the company, and becamemore committed to the company as a result. Forexample, an associate explained how the companystrengthened her attachment by providing her witha way to donate to Katrina victims through the ESF,reinforcing her prosocial identity as a giving per-son: We raised money and raised money with theKatrina disaster. . . . It makes you feel good to tryand help other people. . . . I didnt even have tothink about it. People needed help; they were of-fering a way to help send money and do somethingto help them . . . its good for morale, for the waypeople feel about the company that they work for(associate 10).

Thus, giving to the ESF enabled employees tojudge their actions and identities in more prosocial,caring terms. By providing the opportunity to en-gage in giving behavior, the ESF qualified other-interested behavior as normal and accepted andprovided employees with means and rationales forgiving. Employees experienced the opportunity togive as a psychological benefit provided by thecompany. As predicted in social exchange theory(Blau, 1964), employees reciprocated by strength-

ening their affective commitment to the company.Our qualitative data thereby uncover a process ofprosocial sensemaking about the self that helps toexplain the giving-commitment relationship. Wecapture this process in the following set ofhypotheses:

Hypothesis 1a. The higher an employees levelof giving to a support program, the greater theemployees interpretations of personal actionsas caring.

Hypothesis 1b. The greater an employees in-

terpretations of personal actions as caring, thestronger the employees personal prosocialidentity.

Hypothesis 1c. The stronger an employees per-sonal prosocial identity, the higher the employ-ees level of affective commitment to thecompany.

Hypothesis 1d. Prosocial sensemaking aboutthe self (judging personal actions and identi-ties as caring) partially mediates the associa-tion between giving and affective commitment.



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sense of pride in the company. . . . I think its goodto give and, you know, it definitely makes me feel. . . that Im working for a company that shares insome of my sensibilities and cares about people.(manager 12)

Its fundamental purpose is to help any employee ofBig Retail to alleviate the difficulties that they face

when theyre in a catastrophic situation. . . . I thinkits important because I think it really reflects a kindof set of core values that the company has . . . ifyoure trying to put something concrete on whatmakes Big Retail a compassionate company, or acaring company . . . the ESF is something concretethat really reflects that. . . . I believe that Big Retailreally sets the bar for what a good company is towork for . . . thats the fundamental [basis] of mystrong attachment to Big Retail. (manager 1)

Thus, giving to the ESF enabled employees tojudge the companys actions and identity in moreprosocial, caring terms. By exposing employees to

the companys efforts to do good, giving counter-acted common skepticism about the companys in-tentions and motives, strengthening employees affec-tive commitment to the company by cultivatingfeelings of pride in the company. We capture theprocess through which prosocial sensemaking aboutthe company explains the giving-commitment rela-tionship in the following set of hypotheses:

Hypothesis 2a. The higher an employees levelof giving to a support program, the greater theemployees interpretations of company actionsas caring.

Hypothesis 2b. The greater an employees in-terpretations of a companys actions as caring,the stronger the companys prosocial identity.

Hypothesis 2c. The stronger a companysprosocial identity, the higher an employeeslevel of affective commitment to the company.

Hypothesis 2d. Prosocial sensemaking about acompany (judging company actions and iden-tities as caring) partially mediates the associa-tion between giving and affective commitment.

STUDY 1 DISCUSSION

Our emergent model suggests that giving to BigRetails ESF strengthens affective commitment tothe company by triggering prosocial sensemakingabout the self and the company. Giving enablesemployees to see personal and company actionsand identities in more caring terms, resulting inincreased affective commitment to the company.Having used qualitative data to identify theseprosocial sensemaking processes, we sought to con-

duct an exploratory quantitative investigation oftheir ability to explain the relationship betweengiving and commitment.

STUDY 2 METHODS

We collected survey data from Big Retail employ-

ees that allowed us to provisionally test the modeldepicted in Figure 1. Our objective was to lendfurther grounded support, using a different sampleand quantitative rather than qualitative data, to ourStudy 1 hypotheses.

Sample

We collected surveys from 249 employees at BigRetail in July 2006. Sixty-eight percent of the respon-dents were female; their mean age was 29.08 years(s.d. 2.50 years), and their mean tenure at the com-pany was 5.52 months (s.d. 3.83 months). Thecompany operated several hundred retail storesthroughout the United States, and 3,000 participantswere asked to volunteer to complete an anonymousweb survey about the ESF and their feelings about thecompany. As an incentive to participate, participantswere offered entry into a drawing to win a $1,000 giftcertificate redeemable at any Disney resort, park, orstore. Potential respondents were selected by a com-puter generator that randomly drew employeeidentification numbers.

Company policies prohibited the use of manystandard response facilitation approaches, includ-

ing prenotifying, publicizing, sending remindernotes, providing multiple response formats, moni-toring survey response, and fostering survey com-mitment (Rogelberg & Stanton, 2007). Employeeswere not given time to complete the survey at work,and because many of the stores were undergoingchanges in physical layout, HR managers informedus that it was likely that a substantial proportion ofthe 3,000 mailings had failed to reach potential re-spondents. Nevertheless, since the response rate of8.3 percent was quite low, we undertook several stepsrecommended by Rogelberg and Stanton (2007) to

assess nonresponse biases. First, we conducted anarchival analysis comparing respondents with the to-tal Big Retail employee population on available de-mographic data. Proportions of respondents werequite similar to the population in terms of job level,gender, tenure, and age (see Table 1). The distributionof respondents also matched the total employee pop-ulation in terms of geographic locations. Thus, thesample appeared to be representative on demo-graphic dimensions. In addition, the proportion ofBig Retails population that had donated to the ESF(56.0%) nearly perfectly matched the proportion of



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our respondents that had donated to the ESF (56.1%).This evidence minimizes the concern that employeeswho gave to the ESF would have been more likely torespond to the survey, suggesting that we have suffi-cient (and representative) variance on our indepen-dent variable of giving behavior.2

Second, we conducted a wave analysis compar-

ing early to late respondents, finding no significant

differences between early and late respondents onthe measured variables (see Table 1). This findingdoes not conclusively rule out the possibility ofresponse bias, but it decreases its likelihood bysuggesting that responsiveness was not influenced

by the variables being investigated (Rogelberg &Stanton, 2007). Together, although these steps can

only reduce but not eliminate concerns about re-sponse biases, they suggest that the sample is suf-ficiently representative of the population on keydemographic and ESF dimensionsand that thereis sufficient variance in the variables of interesttowarrant an exploratory test of our model.

Measures

Unless otherwise indicated, all items used a seven-point Likert-type response scale anchored at 1 dis-agree strongly, to 7, agree strongly.

2 We were also concerned that employees who werefamiliar with the ESF may have been more likely to re-spond. To assess this concern, two independent codersrated participants responses to an open-ended question atthe start of the survey: To the best of your knowledge, whatservices does the ESF provide? The two coders demon-strated 100 percent agreement, and the resulting data indi-cated that 18.5 percent of respondents had never heard ofthe ESF. This suggests that we received a reasonable re-sponse from employees who were unfamiliar with the ESF.

TABLE 1Study 2 Nonresponse Bias Impact Assessment

(a) Archival Analysis

Category Big Retail Population Respondent Sample

Job level: Manager 19.6% 19.4%Job level: Associate 82.8 80.6

Gender: Male 41.0 33.5Gender: Female 59.0 66.5Tenure: 01 years 35.8 25.4Tenure: 13 years 24.2 24.2Tenure: 35 years 12.4 16.5Tenure: 5 years 28.5 33.9Age: 2534 25.4 25.2Age: 3544 17.2 24.0Age: 4554 12.5 12.4Age: 5564 7.4 11.2Giving behavior: Has donated to the ESF 56.0 56.1Giving behavior: Has not donated to the ESF 44.0 43.9

(b) Wave Analysisa

Variable Day 13 (23%) Day 46 (30%) Day 79 (21%) Day 10 (26%)

ESF giving behavior 2.42 (1.32) 2.13 (1.46) 1.97 (1.40) 2.28 (1.27)Interpretations of personal ESF

contributions as caring0.34 (0.48) 0.32 (0.45) 0.33 (0.53) 0.41 (0.53)

Interpretations of company ESFcontributions as caring

0.64 (0.75) 0.55 (0.64) 0.48 (0.61) 0.41 (0.64)

Personal prosocial identity 5.99 (0.80) 5.95 (0.84) 6.11 (0.61) 5.81 (0.86)Company prosocial identity 4.12 (1.57) 4.24 (1.74) 4.59 (1.66) 4.10 (1.60)Affective company commitment 4.70 (1.59) 4.61 (1.71) 4.62 (1.55) 4.44 (1.44)Job satisfaction 5.22 (1.46) 5.14 (1.69) 5.69 (1.25) 5.27 (1.54)Anticipation of receiving ESF support 1.01 (0.77) 0.94 (0.76) 0.91 (0.74) 0.94 (0.77)Past ESF support received 0.11 (0.36) 0.11 (0.31) 0.02 (0.14) 0.14 (0.39)Age 38.64 (13.24) 36.25 (13.32) 36.22 (12.78) 35.47 (14.00)Company tenure 5.36 (5.25) 4.44 (4.75) 3.94 (4.38) 5.30 (5.20)Job level 0.14 (0.35) 0.15 (0.36) 0.21 (0.41) 0.28 (0.45)

a The wave analysis shows variable means by response category, with standard deviations in parentheses. Scheffes multiple compar-ison test showed no statistically significant differences between any of the day categories on any of the measured variables.



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Affective commitment to the company (self-re-port). We measured affective commitment to thecompany with five of the six items from the affec-tive commitment scale reported by Meyer, Smith,and Allen (1993), which includes items such as Ireally feel as if this companys problems are myown and This organization has a great deal of

personal meaning for me (

.94). We excludedthe item I would be very happy to spend the rest ofmy career with this organization because this itemreflects turnover intentions rather than the atti-tude or feeling of affective commitment to the or-ganization (Pittinsky & Shih, 2004).

ESF giving behavior (self-report).We measuredESF giving behavior with two items developed incollaboration with ESF managers. The first itemasked employees if they had ever donated fromtheir paycheck to the ESF and if they had evervolunteered for ESF fundraising campaigns (0,neither; 1, yes to one; 2, yes to both). Thesecond item asked them to indicate their agreementwith the statement, I donate to the ESF on a reg-ular basis ( .74).

Interpretations of personal and company ESFcontributions as caring (independent coders). Tomeasure employees interpretations of personaland company ESF contributions as caring, we en-listed two independent coders. The coders ratedemployees qualitative responses to four open-ended questions in the survey: In a few sentences,please describe what the ESF means to you, In afew sentences, please describe what you think the

ESF means to the company, [for those who donate]What are the reasons that you donate to the ESF?and What do you see as the strengths of the ESF?The two coders rated whether or not each responsefrom employees mentioned (1) their own contribu-tions to the ESF as caring and/or (2) the companyscontributions to the ESF as caring. Statements werecoded as caring when they described personal orcompany actions as generous, benevolent,good, humane, concerned, compassionate,having heart, or intending to help. Table 2displays sample statements for each of the two cat-

egories. We summed the ratings for each coder intoan overall score for each employee, representing acount of the number of times (04) that each em-ployee mentioned interpreting personal and com-pany contributions, respectively, as caring. Thesescores provided us with measures from a differentsource, using a different rating method than theself-report data. The coders demonstrated strongagreement. Using a two-way mixed model withconsistency agreement, the intraclass correlationcoefficients (ICCs) for personal ESF contributionswere .62 (p .001) for single-measure reliability

and .77 (p .001) for average-measure reliability,and the ICCs for company ESF contributions were.61 (p .001) for single-measure reliability and .76(p .001) for average-measure reliability.

Personal prosocial identity and companyprosocial identity (self-report). Drawing on com-monly used phrases in our interview data, we de-

veloped three items each to measure employeesperceptions of their own prosocial identities andthe companys prosocial identity. The items forpersonal prosocial identity were I see myself ascaring, I see myself as generous, and I regu-larly go out of my way to help others ( .84).The items for company prosocial identity were Isee this company as caring, I think that thiscompany is generous, and I see this companyas being genuinely concerned about its employ-ees ( .94).

Control variable 1: Job satisfaction (self-

report).Because job satisfaction is strongly relatedto affective organizational commitment (Harrison,Newman, & Roth, 2006; Mathieu & Zajac, 1990),and also because common method and source bi-ases were potential concerns, we measured job sat-isfaction as a control variable. Job satisfaction re-flects general positive attitudes toward ones workand thereby serves as a filter through which otherwork judgments are made (Brief & Weiss, 2002). Wethus expected that controlling for job satisfactionwould allow us to more rigorously assess the rela-tionships among the constructs by adjusting these

relationships for general positive attitudes (Podsa-koff, MacKenzie, & Lee, 2003). We used the jobsatisfaction scale developed by Quinn and Shepard(1974), which includes items such as All in all, Iam very satisfied with my current job ( .92).

Control variable 2: Anticipation of receivingESF support (independent coders). Because antic-ipating support from the ESF might influence affec-tive organizational commitment, we again enlistedtwo independent coders to rate employees re-sponses to the four open-ended questions about theESF listed above. The two coders rated whether ornot each response from employees mentioned thatthe ESF might provide them with support in thefuture; Table 2 provides sample statements. Wesummed the ratings for each coder into an overallscore for each employee, representing a count ofthe number of times (04) that each employee men-tioned the possibility of receiving support from theESF in the future. The coders once again demon-strated strong agreement. In a two-way mixedmodel with consistency agreement, the ICCs were.52 (p .001) for single-measure reliability and .68(p .001) for average-measure reliability.



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Control variable 3: Past ESF support received(self-report). Because having received supportfrom the ESF in the past could also influence affec-tive organizational commitment, we asked employ-

ees to report whether they had ever received assis-tance from the ESF (0, never; 1, once; 2,twice).

Control variables 4 6: Demographic charac-teristics. In their seminal meta-analysis, Mathieuand Zajac (1990) examined a number of demo-graphic correlates of organizational commitment,finding that the three strongest demographic corre-lates were age, organizational tenure, and job level.Accordingly, we asked employees to report theirage (years), company tenure (years), and job level(1, managerial role; 0, associate).

STUDY 2 RESULTS

Because the sample was sufficient in size andrespondent-to-item ratio, we analyzed the datawith structural equation modeling (SEM), using

EQS software (version 6.1) with maximum likeli-hood estimation procedures. Missing data was nota significant problem, as all items had less than 3percent of cases missing. Following recommenda-tions from Anderson and Gerbing (1988), we began

by conducting a confirmatory factor analysis spec-ifying a 12-factor solution, which displayed excel-lent fit with the data according to the rules ofthumb in the literature (Hu & Bentler, 1999) (2

[237] 345.83, NNFI .96, CFI .97, RMSEA .04, RMSEA confidence interval .03, .05). Factor

TABLE 2Study 2 Sample Statements for Coding Categories

Interpretations of Personal ESF

Contributions as Caring

Interpretations of Company ESF

Contributions as Caring Anticipation of Receiving ESF Support

I feel a sense of goodness by doing so.I donate what I can . . . I care about creating a

sense of community and looking out for

others. So I give what I am able to.It makes me feel good knowing that I am able

to help a fellow employee get back on theirfeet.

I donate as a way to help others who might beless fortunate than I.

I like to know that I had a small part ofhelping someone else out when needed.

I donate because I want to be a blessing toothers.

I donate because every dollar makes adifference. Its a good cause.

I like helping employees who are in need.In order for the ESF to continue to help others

there must be people that can contribute. Ifeel that I am a person who will give asmuch as I can.

I appreciate the opportunity to contributethrough my paycheck to those fellowemployees in need.

I like helping others.Its nice to feel that we can contribute.Helps those employees who donate feel good

about themselves/feel they are doingsomething useful.

Employee contributions give us a feeling ofbeing directly involved in helping eachother.

It makes people feel good to donate.Its nice to feel that Im contributing to

something.

Gives employees an opportunity to think ofand help each other.

Helping someone in need makes people feelgood. It makes people feel as thoughsomething they did matters.

Its a great way to show my employees thatnot only do I care about them, but theircompany cares about them. When Big

Retail helps one of my employees itreminds me that I work for a greatcompany.

It helps to build a community for BigRetail employees and shows that thecompany cares about its employees.

Im proud to work for a company that hastaken the time and resources to form anESF to help people in need.

I think it means it cares for employees.What this program does demonstratesthe value the company states it feels foremployees.

It gives the employees a better outlooktoward the company. It seems like morethan a cold business.

It shows that the company cares about its

employees.Its a way to show the human side of

business. Its an extra arm that can reachout and give comfort when people needit most.

It strengthens employee loyalty. Ithumanizes the public image of the

corporation.I think it shows that Big Retail cares and

looks out for its employees.The ESF represents a commitment of

caring and concern toward allemployees.

It is a way for the company to show its

concern for its employees.It puts a more human face on a

corporation. It means the company cares.Helping employees through difficult times

shows that a large company has a heart.It makes you feel good to work for a

company who helps its employeesthrough tough times.

I know if I need financial assistance due toa life changing event, the ESF may beable to help me.

I feel secure they are there. If I ever needassistance, I know they are a steppingstone for me to go to for help.

Its nice to know in a worst case scenariothat its therea safety net for some ofthe things benefits doesnt cover.

Having been a recipient several years ago, Ican honestly say the ESF means there

may be help available. Its kind of like afriend . . . its nice to know theyre here.

It means that if something were to happento me such as a death in the immediatefamily, I can ask for help. Also may helpwith college expenses.

The ESF gives us all the assurance thatshould something arise with a

significant financial impact that we areunable to handle on our own, we willhave a partner in the company to dealwith the situation . . . the company iswilling to invest in our lives.

If I need financial assistance, I can applyfor a grant.

I have heard the ESF would provide

financial aid for school. I . . . would liketo take advantage [of this] in the future.

If I am ever in need of its assistance I willtake advantage of it.

A service that issues grants to Big Retailemployees who truly are in need [is] onethat I may need to take advantage of

someday.I hope to benefit from it with a scholarship

stipend for my children in the future.



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correlations, along with means and standard devi-ations, are displayed in Table 3.

To examine whether this was the most parsimo-nious solution, we compared this 12-factor modelwith two plausible alternative models. The corre-

lations in Table 3 indicate four high correlations:ESF giving behavior and interpretations of personalESF contributions as caring (F1 and F2; r .60),company prosocial identity and affective commit-ment (F5 and F6;r .69), prosocial company iden-tity and job satisfaction (F5 and F7; r .67), andaffective commitment and job satisfaction (F6 andF7;r .62). These correlations suggest two plausi-

ble alternative models. The first, an 11-factor modelwith ESF giving behavior and interpretations ofpersonal ESF contributions as caring loading on thesame factor, displayed poorer fit on all indices (2

[248]

444.30, NNFI

.93, CFI

.95, RMSEA

.06, RMSEA confidence interval .05, .07). A chi-square difference test showed that the fit of the12-factor model was significantly superior to that ofthis alternative model (2[11] 98.47, p .001).The second, a ten-factor model with prosocial com-pany identity, affective commitment, and job satis-faction loading on a single factor, displayed verypoor fit on all indices (2[258] 1062.91, NNFI .72, CFI .78, RMSEA .12, RMSEA confidenceinterval .11, .12). A chi-square difference testshowed that the fit of the 12-factor model was sig-

nificantly superior to that of this alternative model(2[19] 717.08, p .001). Thus, the 12-factormodel displayed significantly better fit than both ofthe plausible alternative models.

Structural models.We then tested full structural

models both with and without control variables.The model without control variables (Figure 2)demonstrated excellent fit with the data accordingto Hu and Bentlers (1999) cut-off values (2[111] 169.42, NNFI .97, CFI .98, RMSEA .05,RMSEA confidence interval .03, .06).3 As de-picted in Figure 3, the model still displayed goodfit after we added the control variables as exoge-

3 To examine the possibility of reverse causality, wetested an alternative model in which affective commit-

ment led to giving behavior, which led to interpretationsof personal and company ESF contributions as caring,which in turn led to personal and company prosocialidentity. This model involved moving affective commit-ment from its position as the final dependent variable toa position as the only exogenous independent variable.On all indices, the model displayed poorer fit and failedto achieve Hu and Bentlers (1999) cutoff values: 2

(112) 288.11, NNFI .92, CFI .94, RMSEA .08,RMSEA confidence interval .07, .09. A chi-square dif-ference test demonstrated that our initial model dis-played significantly superior fit to this alternative model:2(1) 118.69,p .001.

TABLE 3Study 2 Means, Standard Deviations, and Disattenuated Correlations at the Index Levela

Index Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

1. ESF giving behavior 2.20 1.37 (.74)2. Interpretations of personal

ESF contributions ascaring

0.35 0.50 .60*** (.77)

3. Interpretations ofcompany ESFcontributions as caring

0.52 0.66 .32** .25** (.76)

4. Personal prosocialidentity

5.96 0.79 .21* .14 .11 (.84)

5. Company prosocialidentity

4.25 1.65 .20* .13 .32** .31** (.94)

6. Affective companycommitment

4.59 1.58 . 26** .16* .28** .37** .69*** (.94)

7. Job satisfaction 5.31 1.52 .11 .06 .15 .40*** .67*** .62*** (.92)8. Anticipation of receiving

ESF support0.95 0.76 .36** .16* .40*** .22* .25** .23* .12

9. Past ESF support received 0.10 0.32 .20* .06 .06 .03 .03 .10 .00 .17*10. Age 36.59 13.35 .13 .02 .06 .00 .04 .05 .06 .04 .09

11. Company tenure 4.77 4.92 .25** .17* .10

.01

.07 .03

.02 .05 .12 .42***12. Job level 0.19 0.40 .24** .21* .20 .05 .12 .13 .02 .14 .04 .12 .31**

a Internal consistency statistics (Cronbachs alphas) for each index are displayed in parentheses on the diagonal.*p .05

**p .01***p .001



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nous influences on affective commitment (2

[270] 548.86, NNFI .91, CFI .92, RMSEA .07, RMSEA confidence interval .06, .08). In

both models, supporting our hypotheses, therewere statistically significant paths from ESF giv-ing behavior to interpretations of personal ESFcontributions as caring (Hypothesis 1a) to per-sonal prosocial identity (Hypothesis 1b) to affec-tive commitment (Hypothesis 1c), and from ESFgiving behavior to interpretations of companyESF contributions as caring (Hypothesis 2a) tocompany prosocial identity (Hypothesis 2b) toaffective commitment (Hypothesis 2c).4

Mediation analysis. The previous analyses dem-onstrated that the mediators were significantly re-lated to both the independent and dependent vari-

ables. To examine whether the interveningvariables mediated the relationship between giving

behavior and affective commitment to the com-pany, we followed the procedures recommended

by James, Mulaik, and Brett (2006).5 We estimated

the indirect effects with the coefficients from thefull model and then used bootstrapping methods toconstruct confidence intervals based on 1,000 ran-dom samples with replacement from the full sam-ple (Stine, 1989).6 The coefficient for the prosocial

4 To examine whether giving explained variance overand above the six control variables in predicting affectivecommitment, we conducted a hierarchical regressionanalysis. Even with all six control variables included,giving behavior was a significant predictor of affectivecommitment ( .14,t[239] 2.61,p .01), increasingvariance explained significantly (from R2 .40 to R2 .42, F[1, 232] 6.81, p .01).

5 We also examined whether the mediated paths im-proved model fit by testing a nested model in which weadded a direct path from giving to commitment and re-moved the mediating prosocial sensemaking paths. Despitethe decrease in parsimony, the mediated model displayedsignificantly superior fit (2[1] 57.52,p .001).

6

Because this is a two-stage mediation model ratherthan a traditional one-stage mediation model, each indi-rect effect is the product of three paths ([F13F2] [F23F4] [F43F6] for prosocial sensemaking about theself and [F13F3] [F33F5] [F53F6] for prosocialsensemaking about the company), rather than the stan-dard two paths. Accordingly, the path coefficients for theindirect effects are substantially lower than would beobserved for a traditional one-stage mediation model.This is merely a scaling artifact of the standardized paths

being represented on a scale from 0 to 1. The standarderrors are affected in the same direction, resulting in anaccurate estimate of the confidence intervals.

FIGURE 2Study 2 Structural Modela

a 2(111) 169.42, NNFI .97, CFI .98, RMSEA .05, RMSEA confidence interval (.03, .06). All reported relationships arestatistically significant at thep .05 level. Asterisks indicate that the factor correlations are freely estimated.

The prosocial individual and company identity factors explained a total of 48 percent of the variance in affective organizationalcommitment. Because common causes may have been omitted, we allowed two residual disturbances to correlate freely: d1d2 and d3d4.



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sensemaking about the self path was .02, and the 95percent confidence interval excluded zero (.01, .02).

The coefficient for the prosocial sensemaking aboutthe company path was .07, and the 95 percent confi-dence interval excluded zero (.07, .08). Since media-tion is present when the size of an indirect effect issignificantly different from zero (Shrout & Bolger,2002), these confidence intervals suggest that each ofthe two pathways was a partial mediator: the link

between giving to the ESF and affective commitmentwas partially mediated by prosocial sensemakingabout the self (Hypothesis 1d) and prosocial sense-making about the company (Hypothesis 2d).

STUDY 2 DISCUSSION

This provisional quantitative test provided sup-port for our theoretical model. We found that giving

behavior explained significant variance in affectiveorganizational commitment, even after controllingfor past support received from the ESF and ex-pected future support received from the ESF, aswell as job satisfaction, age, company tenure, andjob level. We further found that each of the twoprosocial sensemaking mechanisms identified inthe qualitative study partially mediated the asso-

ciation between giving and commitment. Thesefindings suggest that giving to an employee sup-

port program is associated with higher levels ofaffective commitment to ones organizationthrough employees interpretations of personaland organizational actions and identities inprosocial, caring terms.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

We used qualitative and quantitative data tobuild and test theory about the relationship be-tween giving to an employee support program andaffective commitment to the organization that man-

ages the program. Taken together, our findings sug-gest that giving triggers a process of prosocial sen-semaking about the self and the company thatstrengthens employees affective commitment tothe company. The two studies provide convergentevidence for our claims that giving strengthens af-fective commitment by enabling employees to in-terpret personal and company actions in more car-ing, prosocial terms. Our findings extend previousresearch by introducing giving as a novel anteced-ent of commitment and as a novel, other-interestedprocess through which employee support programs

FIGURE 3Study 2 Structural Model with Control Variablesa

a 2(268) 533.08, NNFI .91, CFI .93, RMSEA .07, RMSEA confidence interval (.06, .07). All paths from the original model arestatistically significant at thep .05 level, but of the six control variables, only the path from job satisfaction was significant. We allowedESF giving behavior to correlate freely with all of the control variables, which also correlated freely with each other.



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cultivate commitment. Our findings also extendprevious research by identifying two prosocial sen-semaking mechanisms through which giving culti-vates commitment, drawing attention to the impor-tance of prosocial interpretations of personal andorganizational actions and identities as sources ofcommitment.

Theoretical Implications

Below, we elaborate on how our studies contrib-ute to theory and research on organizational pro-grams, commitment, sensemaking and identity,and citizenship behavior.

Organizational programs. Our research makestwo contributions toward understanding the organ-izational and individual benefits of support pro-grams. First, as noted earlier, scholars have tradi-tionally assumed that support programs cultivatecommitment through the self-interested pathway ofenabling employees toreceivesupport (e.g., Good-stein, 1995; Johnson, 1986; Trice & Beyer, 1984).Our findings suggest that support programs alsocultivate commitment through the other-interestedpathway of enabling employees togivesupport. Wethus provide researchers with a wider conceptuallens for examining how support programs assistorganizations in increasing employee commitment

by facilitating both giving and receiving. Second,with respect to individual benefits, scholars havefocused primarily on the experiences of employeeswho receive support, giving less attention to the

experiences of employees who provide support(Bacharach et al., 2000). Our findings underscorethe potential benefits of support programs for sup-port providers, in terms of seeing their personalidentities and the companys identity in moreprosocial, caring terms. Our findings bolster evi-dence that support can benefit givers as well asreceivers (Penner, Dovidio, Piliavin, & Schroeder,2005). Our research thus provides scholars with anew window for investigating and understandingthe organizational and individual benefits of sup-port programs.

Our research also informs scholarship on thepsychological processes through which a broaderclass of organizational programs, not only supportprograms, cultivates commitment. The prosocialsensemaking process that we proposed is applica-

ble to any organizational program that providesemployees with opportunities to give and contrib-ute, including corporate volunteer programs andcorporate social responsibility initiatives. Whereasscholars often understand these programs as pro-viding image benefits to organizations (e.g., Els-

bach, 2003), our research suggests that these pro-

grams can enable employees to contribute to, andthus attach to, the organizations. Our research sug-gests that by providing opportunities to give, organi-zational programs can facilitate employees efforts toconstruct prosocial identities as caring individuals, aswell as to see their organization as a more prosocial,caring institution. These findings are applicable to a

wide variety of programs in which an organizationprovides a valued giving opportunity: when employ-ees act on the opportunity to give, they are able to seethemselves and the organization as more caring,which is likely to strengthen their commitment to theorganization that manages the program.

Commitment. Our research answers recent callsto explain commitment using alternative theoreti-cal mechanisms that transcend self-interest (Meg-lino & Korsgaard, 2004). We find that behaviorsdirected toward giving and contributing canstrengthen employees emotional bonds with theirwork organizations. Our discovery of prosocial sen-semaking processes suggests that affective commit-ment can be shaped in powerful ways by prosocialinterpretations of the self and the organization ascaring entities, advancing existing theory toward amore complete understanding of the antecedents ofaffective organizational commitment. Indeed, intheir meta-analysis, Meyer et al. (2002) foundthat work experiences in which employees re-ceive positive treatment from an organizationinthe form of perceived organizational support,transformational leadership, organizational jus-tice, and clearly defined, well-structured roles

are the strongest known predictor of affectiveorganizational commitment. Our research sug-gests that in addition to the treatment that em-ployees receive from the organization, the givingbehaviorsin which employees engagetowardtheorganization have important implications fortheir affective commitment to the organization.

Our research further fills a gap in existingknowledge about the role of emotions in affectiveorganizational commitment. Although affectiveorganizational commitment is by definition anemotion-laden attitude, little research has exam-

ined the role of discrete emotions in guiding thiscommitment (e.g., Brief & Weiss, 2002). Althoughwe were unable to test these mechanisms in ourquantitative model, our qualitative findings shedlight on the relationship between the discrete emo-tions of gratitude and pride and affective commit-ment. Our results suggest that when employees en-gage in prosocial sensemaking about the self, theircommitment is based on gratitude to their organi-zation for facilitating their own giving behaviorsand caring identities. When employees engage inprosocial sensemaking about the organization, their



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commitment is based on pride in the organizationfor being a giving and caring institution. Thesefindings illuminate how giving can foster commit-ment through two distinct emotional pathways.

Sensemaking and identity. Our research addsnovel content to the traditionally process-focusedtheories of sensemaking and identity. Sensemaking

theories emphasize the processes through whichindividuals interpret actions and identities, payingless attention to the content of these interpreta-tionsthe type or nature of understandings formed(Maitlis, 2005; Pratt, 2000; Weick, 1995; Weick,Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005). Similarly, identity the-ories emphasize theprocessesthrough which indi-viduals develop and maintain personal and collec-tive self-concepts (e.g., Dutton, Dukerich, &Harquail, 1994), giving less attention to the contentof these self-conceptsthe descriptive adjectivesthat characterize the identity (Wrzesniewski, Dut-ton, & Debebe, 2003). Our research points to theimportance of other-interested, prosocial content inemployees sensemaking and identity constructionefforts. It also highlights that sensemaking is morethan a cognitive process, generating and being af-fected by the emotions of gratitude and pride thatprosocial sensemaking evokes.

Citizenship behavior.Our research enriches ex-isting knowledge about organizational citizenship

behavior, acts directed toward contributing to otherpeople and an organization. Research has demon-strated that affective organizational commitment isa robust predictor of citizenship behaviors (Harri-

son et al., 2006; Meyer et al., 2002). Our researchreverses the causal arrow by suggesting that citizen-ship behaviors are not only influenced by, but canalso strengthen, organizational commitment. Bycontributing to their organization, employees areinternally and externally signaling their investmentin the organization, creating private and publicconditions for enhanced commitment. Our re-search thus enters the long-standing debate aboutwhether attitudes cause behaviors and/or viceversa. Although there is now clear evidence thatcausality flows in both directions (e.g., Judge,

Thoresen, Bono, & Patton, 2001; McBroom & Reed,1992), researchers have primarily assumed that be-haviors are a consequence of affective commitment,paying little attention to the possibility that behav-iors are also a cause of affective commitment (seeMeyer et al., 2002). We have taken a step toward

balancing this literature by suggesting that givingbehaviors can cause, not only result from, affectiveorganizational commitment. Our research therebyidentifies fresh questions for researchers to inves-tigate concerning how the act of contributingshapes employees organizational commitment.

Our research also advances this literature byshedding new light on the motives that underliecitizenship behavior. Organizational scholars havedebated about whether citizenship behavior isdriven by self-interested or prosocial motives (Bo-lino, 1999; Meglino & Korsgaard, 2004), and ourfindings suggest that this debate contributes to a

false dichotomy. Rather than pitting self-interestedand prosocial motives against each other, our find-ings suggest that giving can serve both sets of mo-tives simultaneously. We find that organizationsefforts to facilitate the experience of giving andcontributing to a support program indirectly serveemployees self-interests by enabling them to seethemselves and the company in more prosocial,caring terms. Our research thereby answers recentcalls to explain attitudes and behaviors throughtheoretical perspectives that blend, rather than di-chotomize, self-interest and other-interest (DeDreu, 2006; Grant, 2007).

Managerial Implications

Our findings suggest that managers can achieveboth individual and organizational benefits by pro-viding employees with opportunities to give andcontribute. This advice to managers is somewhatcounterintuitive: we propose that organizations cancultivate commitment not only by enabling em-ployees to receive support, but also by enablingemployees to give support. By designing programsthat enable employees to help others, managers

may improve the quality of employees experienceswhile simultaneously promoting the welfare of re-cipients and benefiting from increased affectivecommitment from employees. Our findings maymotivate managers to achieve these benefits by en-gaging in the following specific behaviors: (1) in-troducing employee support programs, (2) design-ing these programs to allow employees to give aswell as receive, (3) communicating to employeesabout the range of ways in which they can give timeand money to these programs, (4) dismantlingnorms of self-interest by modeling the appropriate-

ness and legitimacy of giving to these programs,and (5) subtly highlighting the organizations con-tributions to these programs. By taking these ac-tions, managers may facilitate employee giving be-haviors that trigger the prosocial sensemakingprocess.

Limitations and Future Directions

Our research is subject to a number of limita-tions. First, although both of our studies suggestthat giving contributes to affective organizational



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commitment, our cross-sectional data do not ruleout the possibility of alternative causal pathways.For example, it is likely that affective commitmentis a cause, as well as a consequence, of giving. Thisis suggested by meta-analyses linking identificationand affective commitment to higher levels of citi-zenship (Harrison et al., 2006; Meyer et al., 2002),

as well as by evidence that individuals define theirroles more broadly to include citizenship behaviorswhen they are more affectively committed (Morri-son, 1994; Tepper, Lockhart, & Hoobler, 2001). Re-search using experimental or longitudinal designsis necessary to substantiate our causal inferencesand examine these issues of reciprocal causality.Second, the low response rate in Study 2 raisesquestions about selection and response biases. Weused strategic sampling in Study 1 to obtain a morerepresentative sample, but future research is neces-sary to examine the generalizability of our findings,which are likely circumscribed to internal ratherthan external giving behaviors, as well as to em-ployees who want to give.

Third, researchers have emphasized that organi-zational commitment takes multiple forms (e.g.,Meyer et al., 2002), but we focused only on affec-tive commitment. We encourage researchers to in-vestigate how giving influences continuance andnormative forms of organizational commitment.We expect giving to strengthen continuance com-mitment by increasing the perceived costs of with-drawing from the organization. Because givingprivately and publicly demonstrates employees

dedication to their organization, employees mayfeel that they will lose the credit gained for theirdonations if they leave the organization, and willthus display stronger continuance commitment inorder to avoid these costs. On the other hand, weenvision competing hypotheses for the effects ofgiving on normative commitment. Through a dis-sonance or self-perception mechanism (Bem,1972), giving may increase normative commitment:employees may justify or interpret their giving be-haviors as driven by perceived duty, and will there-fore display stronger normative commitment as a

result of feeling obligated to the organization. Con-versely, through a psychological contract mecha-nism, giving may decrease normative commitment:employees may see their giving behaviors as fulfill-ing their obligations, reducing feelings of furtherobligation. We hope researchers will explore theeffects of giving on continuance and normativeforms of organizational commitment.

Fourth, in focusing on affective organizationalcommitment, we did not examine whether givingand receiving are related to distinct psychologicaland behavioral outcomes. We believe it will be

fruitful for researchers to move beyond attitudinalconsequences of giving toward a broader examina-tion of behavior and performance effects. Bystrengthening affective commitment, giving islikely to reduce absenteeism and turnover (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005; Meyer et al., 2002),and it may also increase productivity by improving

employees reputations as dedicated, competentcontributors (e.g., Flynn, 2003). Fifth, researchershave observed that giving behaviors take multipleforms (Penner et al., 2005), but we did not theoret-ically or empirically differentiate forms of givingsuch as giving time versus money, emotional ver-sus instrumental support, and formal versus infor-mal peer support, which may have divergent effects(Penner et al., 2005). Sixth, ESF recipients areanonymous, but in settings in which giving is di-rected toward identified recipients, researchersshould examine whether employees propensitiesto give and feel affectively committed are linked totheir relational proximity and intimacy with in-tended or potential recipients (Grant, 2007).

Seventh, giving may strengthen affective com-mitment through additional mechanisms that arecomplementary to prosocial sensemaking. We en-courage researchers to investigate the possibilitythat through giving, employees become engaged incommunity building, increasing their attachmentto a community to which they feel they have con-tributed (e.g., Bacharach, Bamberger, & Sonnen-stuhl, 2001). Eighth, we assumed that all employ-ees value personal prosocial identities as caring

individuals and company prosocial identities ascaring organizations. It will be worthwhile for fu-ture research to investigate whether our modelholds for all individuals, or whether individualswith high levels of agreeableness, strong prosocialmotives and values, and salient moral identities aremore likely to seek and construct prosocial expla-nations for personal and organizational actions(Aquino & Reed, 2002; Grant, 2008b; Penner et al.,2005). Ninth, we treated prosocial sensemakingabout the self and the company as independentpathways through which giving strengthens com-

mitment, but it is possible that these two pathwaysmay interact. Future research should addresswhether commitment is highest when employeesexperience prosocial fit, or congruence betweenpersonal and organizational prosocial identities.

Finally, there are likely several dark sides tothe present research that do not appear in our data.One risk is that the opportunity to give may elicithigh expectations that, if unfulfilled, lead employ-ees to feel that their psychological contracts have

been breached and violated (e.g., Thompson &Bunderson, 2003), generating attributions of hypoc-



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risy and feelings of disenchantment (Cha & Ed-mondson, 2006). Such reactions may be particu-larly likely when giving is forced rather thanmerely facilitated (Grant, 2008a). A second risk isthat employee support programs may harm the veryemployees they are designed to help, leaving em-ployees financially and emotionally dependent on

receiving contributions from others and the organ-ization. A third risk is that managers may takeadvantage of giving as a cheap alternative to receiv-ing: instead of providing support to employees,managers may simply provide employees with op-portunities to give support to others. As such, giv-ing-based commitment may be misappropriated asa form of managerial manipulation, where manag-ers attempt to get more from employees in ex-change for less. Critical theorists have expressedconcerns about similar risks of empowerment prac-tices (Fineman, 2006), and it will be important forfuture research to examine the conditions underwhich giving opportunities are undermined bypressure, cynicism, distrust, and ill intentions.

Conclusion

As employees continue to become less physi-cally, administratively, and temporally attached toorganizations (Cascio, 2003; Pfeffer & Baron, 1998),scholars need new lenses for understanding howand why organizational commitment develops, andpractitioners need new resources for cultivatingcommitment. Our theoretical perspective on pro-

social sensemaking indicates that support pro-grams cultivate stronger affective organizationalcommitment not only by enabling employees toreceive, but also by enabling employees to give. InWeicks (1995) terms, the traditional assumption isthat employees judge their affective commitment toorganizations by asking, How can I know how Ifeel until I see what I get? Our research suggeststhat employees also judge their affective commit-ment to organizations by asking, How can I knowhow I feel until I see what I give?

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