Malaysian Management Review, June 1999

A PSYCHOMETRIC ASSESSMENT OF THE MALAY VERSION OF

MEYER AND ALLEN'S ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT

MEASURE

DR ALI YUSOB MD ZAIN School of Management, Universiti Utara Malaysia

DR ROGER GILL The Leadership Trust, Hereford shire, UK

ABSTRACT

Meyer and Allen's (1991) model of organizational commitment

conceptualizes it in terms of three distinct dimensions: affective,

continuance, and normative. The purpose of this study was to examine

its generalizability in Malaysia. Meyer and Allen's research

instrument was translated into Malaysian language and distributed to

non-supervisory employees in 61 organizations in the government, semi-

government and private sectors. Data from 672 respondents were analyzed

using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The results

generally support the cross-cultural generalizability of Meyer and

Allen's model and utility of their questionnaire. The results also

support McGee and Ford's (1987) proposal that continuance commitment

may be better represented by two sub-dimensions: one associated with

the costs of leaving and the other associated with the availability of

alternatives.

INTRODUCTION

Culture plays a dominant role in organizational studies. The importance

of cross-cultural study in management was recognized by many

researchers. Gill (1983) emphasized that "understanding cross-cultural

personality differences can help management and government to achieve

more harmonious adjustment of expectations where managers are

transferred from one country to another". Triandis (1980) suggested

that "for a complete science of behavior we need to tie the

characteristics of the ecology with the characteristics of humans".

Moreover, Bass and Barrett (1976) asserted that "generalizations about

management and supervision in the cross-cultural context are limited ...

concepts and constructs tend to shift in meaning as we move from one

culture to another ... cross-cultural investigations have considerable

utility for industrial and organizational psychology".

Organizational commitment in recent years has become an important

concept in organizational research and in the understanding of

employees' behaviour in the workplace. It reflects the extent to which

employees identify with an organization and are committed to its goals.

A meta-analysis of 68 studies and 35,282 individuals revealed a strong

relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction

(Tett and Meyer, 1993). However, another study showed that only 38 per

cent of employees feel any long-term commitment to their organization

(Today, 1995). Yet greater organizational commitment can aid higher

productivity (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990).

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Interest in organizational commitment has led to the development of

several instruments to measure the construct. Morrow (1983) noted that

there were some 25 concepts and measures related to commitment, and

Sutton and Harrison (1993) called for a moratorium on developing

additional measures until existing ones could be further analyzed and

tested. One of the major models of organizational commitment is that

developed by Meyer and Allen (1991), which conceptualizes

organizational commitment in terms of three distinct dimensions:

affective, continuance, and normative.

Affective commitment

For several authors, the term commitment is used to describe an

affective orientation toward the organization. Kanter (1968), for

example, defined what she called "cohesion commitment" as the

attachment of an individual's fund of affectivity and emotion to the

group. Likewise, Buchanan (1974) described commitment as a partisan,

affective attachment to the goals and values, and to the organization

for its own sake, apart from its purely instrumental worth. Porter and

his associates (Mowday, Steers and Porter, 1979; Porter, Crampon and

Smith, 1976; Porter, Steers, Mowday and Boulian, 1974) described

commitment as the relative strength of an individual's identification

with and involvement in a particular organization. It is a "partisan

affective attachment to the goals and values of an organization apart

from its instrumental worth" (Popper and Lipshitz, 1992). Employees who

are affectively committed to an organization remain with it because

they want to do so (Meyer, Allen and Gellatly, 1990).

Continuance Commitment

For Stebbins (1970), continuance commitment was the awareness of the

impossibility of choosing a different social identity because of the

immense penalties involved in making the switch. Still others have used

the term "calculative" to describe commitment based on a consideration

of the costs and benefits associated with organizational membership

that is unrelated to affect (Etzioni, 1975; Hrebiniak and Alutto, 1972;

Stevens, Beyer and Trice, 1978). Finally, Farrell and Rusbult (1981)

suggested that commitment is related to the probability that an

employee will leave his job and involves feelings of psychological

attachment which is independent of affect.

Meyer and Allen (1991) suggested that recognition of the costs

associated with leaving the organization is a conscious psychological

state that is shaped by environmental conditions (e.g. the existence

of side bets) and has implications for behaviour (e.g. continued

employment with the organization). Employees wise primary link to the

organization is based on continuance commitment remain because they

need to do so (Meyer and Allen,1991).

Normative Commitment

Finally, a less common, but equally viable, approach has been to view

commitment as an obligation to remain with the organization. Marsh and

Mannari (1977), for example, described the employee with "lifetime

commitment" as one who considers it morally right to stay in the

company, regardless of how much status enhancement or satisfaction the

firm gives over the years. In a similar vein, Wiener (1982) defined

commitment as the totality of internalized normative pressures to act

in a way which meets organizational goals and interests and suggested

that individuals exhibit these behaviours solely because they believe

it is the right and moral thing to do. Normative commitment is

characterized by feelings of loyalty to a particular organization

resulting from the internalization of normative pressures on the

individual (Popper and Lipshitz,1992). Employees with a high level of

normative commitment feel they ought to remain with the organization

(Meyer and Allen, 1991).

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

There have been repeated calls since the early 1980s for clarification

of the definition and measurement of organizational commitment (McGee

and Ford,1987; Meyer and Allen, 1984; Mowday, Porter and Steers, 1982;

Reichers, 1985). Several distinct views of commitment have evolved and

become well established over the years, making it unlikely that any one

approach will dominate and be unanimously accepted as the correct

definition of commitment. It is important, therefore, that the various

instruments measuring organizational commitment be tested in order to

clarify the distinctions among the various conceptualizations of

organizational commitment dimensions.

Thus, the main purpose of this study was to examine the factor

structure of the Meyer and Allen's (1991) three-component model of

organizational commitment measure by using data obtained from a sample

in Malaysia. It is hoped that the findings from this study will provide

some indications of cross-cultural generalizability of the model.

The other purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric

properties of the Malaysian version of the three-component

organizational commitment questionnaire. The Malaysian version was

translated from the original questionnaire developed by Meyer and Allen

(1991).

METHODOLOGY

The Sample

The sampling frame used was non-supervisory employees in 61

organizations in the northern states of Malaysia (Kedah, Perlis and

Pulau Pinang). A variant of cluster sampling (Frankfort-Nachmias and

Nachmias, 1996; Aaker, Kumar and Day,1995) was used. Between 10 and 25

sets of questionnaires were sent to each of the 61 organizations for

distribution by the heads of their personnel/human resource departments.

The Instrument

A questionnaire was developed using items taken from Allen and Meyer's

(1990) instrument. Each dimension of organizational commitment -

affective, continuance, and normative - was measured by eight items.

Possible responses were arrayed on a five-point Likert scale (rather

than on Allen and Meyer's seven-point scale) comprising "strongly

disagree" (1), "disagree" (2), "undecided" (3), "agree" (4), and

"strongly agree" (5).

The questionnaire was translated from English into Bahasa Malaysia by a

university lecturer competent in both languages and then back-

translated into English by a different lecturer. Both the English

versions (the original and the translated) were compared to ensure

similarity. The items and the dimensions they measure are shown in

Table 1.

Procedure

It was not possible to obtain all the names of non-supervisory

employees in each of the 61 organizations included in the study. The

selection of the respondents was therefore decided by the heads of the

organization's personnel/human resource departments. They were asked to

distribute the required number of questionnaires to non-supervisory

employees at random in their organizations. A covering letter outlining

the purpose of the study, defining the target sample, and the

procedures of questionnaire distribution was enclosed together with the

sets of questionnaires sent to the organizations.

Statistical Analysis

In addition to descriptive analysis, factor analyses (both exploratory

and confirmatory) were used to determine the dimensions of Meyer and

Allen's organizational commitment instrument. Exploratory factor

analysis, using varimax rotations, was performed on the 24-item measure.

Following Nunnally (1978), only factors with eigenvalues greater than

one were selected for further analysis. Results obtained from

exploratory factor analysis were further analyzed using both orthogonal

and oblique maximum likelihood factor analyses. The confirmatory factor

analyses were carried out for several substantive models as well as for

a null model. The indexes of goodness-of-fit which provide an

indication of the extent to which a factor model can reproduce or

account for the covariation in the correlation matrix were applied to

each of the models (Joreskog and Sorbom, 1989). For the standardized

solutions provided by the confirmatory maximum likelihood factor

analyses, four indicators - a chi-square test (x2), a x21df ratio, a

goodness-of-fit index (GFI), and a root mean square residual (RMSR) -

were used (Joreskog and Sorbom, 1989).

Customarily, in the interpretation of the various indicators of the

closeness of fit, the smaller the values of chi-square, chi-square/df

and the RMSR, the superior and closer the degree of fit. On the other

hand, the greater the values of GFI and AGFI, the better the degree of

fit (Al-Samarrai, Michael and Hocevar,1993).

RESULTS

Sample Characteristics

From a total of 1,280 sets of questionnaires distributed, 672 usable

questionnaires were returned, yielding a response rate of 52.5%. The

sample characteristics are shown in Table 2. Of the respondents, 40.6%

were employed in private sector organizations, 27.5% in government

organizations, and 31.8% in semi-government organizations. 53.1% were

male, and most of the respondents (71.5%) were aged 35 years or less.

34.8% had been employed by their organizations for three years or less,

14.6% for four to six years, 6.8% for seven to nine years, 14.7% for 10

to 12 years, and 29% for more than 12 years.

Exploratory Factor Analysis

To examine the factor structure of the Bahasa Malaysia version of Meyer

and Allen's organizational commitment measure, exploratory factor

analyses using orthogonal (varimax) rotations were performed. The first

factor analysis yielded a five-factor solution. One item in the

normative commitment scale ("I think people these days move from

organization to organization too often") loaded on a factor. This might

be due to the way the question was asked: it concerned other people's

commitment. As the purpose of this study concerns measuring

respondents' own commitment, the item was dropped from subsequent

analysis.

A second factor analysis was conducted on the remaining items. The

results of the analysis are shown in Table 3. The analysis yielded four

meaningful factors rather than the three factors that Meyer and Allen

found: their dimension of continuance commitment was found to be

composed of two dimensions, one concerning the costs of leaving the

organization and the other concerning the availability of job

alternatives. The eigen-values were 7.09 for factor 1 (affective

commitment), 2.84 for factor 2 (normative commitment), 1.69 for factor

3 (continuance commitment: costs of leaving), and 1.02 for factor 4

(continuance commitment: availability of alternatives).

The means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations of the dimensions

are shown in Table 4. All but one pair of intercorrelations were

significant at the 0.001 level. The correlation between Affective

Commitment and Continuance Commitment (Availability of Alternatives)

was not significant.

Reliability coefficients (a) were calculated for the measures of the

dimensions of commitment in the Bahasa Malaysia version of the

questionnaire. The measures showed generally acceptable internal

consistency. They are shown in Table 5.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Using the results obtained from exploratory factor analysis, a series

of oblique and orthogonal maximum likelihood confirmatory factor

analyses was conducted. The results of the confirmatory factor analyses

are presented in Table 6.

Based on the goodness-of-fit indexes shown in Table 6, it could be

concluded that substantial support was obtained for the four-factor

oblique model. This indicates that, for the Malaysian sample, the

construct of organizational commitment is best represented by four

correlated dimensions: affective, normative, continuance (costs of

leaving), and continuance (availability of alternatives).

DISCUSSION

Two major conclusions may be drawn from this study. First, Meyer and

Allen's conceptualization of organizational commitment is generally

supported by its findings and therefore is generalizable to Malaysia.

Second, their model might be further refined as a four-component model,

with the third component, continuance commitment having two dimensions:

continuance commitment (costs of leaving) and continuance commitment

(availability of alternatives).

Several reservations, however, must attach, to the findings from this

study. First, the sample employed is assumed to be representative of

non-supervisory employees in Malaysian organizations in general. Also,

it did not encompass supervisory, professional or managerial employees.

Second, there may be further aspects to organizational commitment among

Malaysian employees that are not represented in the questionnaire items.

The questionnaire might suffer from cultural bias in having originally

been designed and tested in the "Western" culture. That this could be

the case is exemplified by Bond and colleagues' (1987) extension of

Hofstede's (1984) essentially "Western" instrument for measuring

dimensions of national cultural differences in relation to Asian values

and the resulting enhanced model. Third, the respondents are assumed

to have been expressing their true feelings and perceptions in respect

of organizational commitment. The findings and conclusions of this

study, therefore, need to be interpreted in the light of these

limitations.

This study suggests that translated versions of questionnaires

developed in one culture can provide reliable and valid measures in

different cultures. There has been much debate about the cross-cultural

transferability of such questionnaires, and indeed of management

policies and practices based on findings of research using them.

Variations in work values across cultures, in the case of North America

and Malaysia, apparently do not necessarily preclude attitudinal and

behaviour commonality.

The results from both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses lend

support to McGee and Ford (1987), who suggested that the continuance

commitment scale consists of two meaningful sub-scales, one concerning

the personal sacrifice associated with leaving the organization and the

other an awareness of the availability of job alternatives.

Future research might usefully include respondents from other job

categories as well as from other regions in Malaysia to obtain more

conclusive evidence of the generalizability of the Meyer and Allen's

model of organizational commitment.

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