Chapter 2: Relevant Literature
2.11 Impact of Work Environment Changes on Employees’
greater portion of their total daily lives, especially with ADEK’s new reform requirements and constant changes. Similarly, although it is not strictly an economic effect, job transfers may not be resisted by teachers where their experiences, skills, and education levels are valued in jobs elsewhere when they look for alternative employment. These factors may lower commitment of teachers to their teaching jobs.
2.10.4 Technological Changes
Changes in technology may result in an abundance of information being more widely available than before, as well as the transfer and communication of the information that is exchanged, which becomes more advanced. It has been suggested that by using technology, employees can learn about other organizations more efficiently and can identify more attractive alternative job opportunities (Mowday et al., 1982).
On the other hand, organizations may retain their most valuable employees as a direct consequence of information transferred by technology. Furthermore, organizations will have more specializations and expertise from other countries and assuming greater input from new employees (Mowday et al., 1982). The increase in technical knowledge in organizations is associated, as stated by Mowday et al. (1982), with a shift in focus from employee to a focus on the profession (i.e., in sociological terms, it is a shift from a local to a diverse international orientation) (Mowday et al., 1982).
general, not all of these changes have the same effect on employees, and not all changes are equally important. According to Mowday et al. (1982) and Rosenholtz and Simpson (1990), it appears that such factors will weaken the attachment between employees and organizations. Therefore, work ethics will be altered, and less value will be placed on the belief that the work is of good quality on its own. In addition, the demographic changes can lead to changes in employees’ commitment when the employees question their organizations’ policies due to increased levels of education, and how their careers will be evaluated. Other examples include when economic changes make it easier for employees to leave their organizations without being financially affected, or when technological changes facilitate information gathering and comparisons being made between organizations by employees. These changes are likely to reduce the quality of employees’ loyalty and commitment to the organization (Mowday et al., 1982; Rosenholtz & Simpson, 1990).
Change in the workplace may potentially impact all types of employee commitment through impacting their commitment profiles. For example, AC could be influenced by a change in comfort- and competence-related experiences in the workplace. Therefore, employees whose jobs are improved by this change might develop more commitment to the organization. In contrast, those who become overworked or those who face role ambiguity and conflict may show less commitment.
For CC, change may highlight the costs and benefits of continuous employment within an organization. Thus, employees who experience a questionable nature of employment due to change might develop a more substantial CC, as their current job security and the availability of employment opportunities elsewhere are likely to be
reduced. On the other hand, employees who have identified that they possess sought- after skill sets might develop less CC as they can find jobs elsewhere.
If change is accompanied by extra training, employees might develop stronger NC. However, NC might decrease if the organization’s investment in the employee declines by, cuts in the training budget, for example (Meyer et al., 1998).
On the other hand, change may affect employee commitment through impacting the psychological contract that an individual has developed with their workplace. According to Morrison and Robinson (1997, p. 229), the psychological contract is “an employee’s beliefs about the reciprocal obligations between that employee and his other organization . . . based on perceived promises”. This contract could be transactional or relational in nature. Transactional contracts consist of distinct, short-term, as well as financial obligations (e.g., payment for a service) that require limited interaction between an employee and the organization. Relational contracts bring about wide-ranging, open-ended, and long-term obligations; they are derived from the exchange of financial elements and socio-emotional factors, including loyalty and support (Rousseau & Parks, 1993).
Meyer et al. (1998) emphasized that AC is likely to be mostly influenced by perceptions of change initiatives to the relational contract in which individuals demonstrate a weaker affective bond with their organization. The reason for this is that employees view the organization as violating their trust by implementing these changes in the organization’s own best interest, but harmful to its employees’
wellbeing. By its nature, CC is tied to the transactional aspects of the psychological contract where changes that result in tangible benefits driven by ongoing employment
and the costs that are associated with leaving the organization to be salient, and thus, this change can influence CC levels.
When NC is based on the sense of duty to reciprocate the benefits that an employee has received, it might be influenced by changes that result in the transactional contract being important to the individual. In such instances, employees might be encouraged to evaluate whether they have achieved and fulfilled the expectations placed on them as a result of investments made on their behalf by the employer (such as tuition payments or training opportunities). Those who have fulfilled their obligations might experience a lowered NC. However, for employees who have not yet repaid their debts, NC could become a determining factor in their decision about whether or not to stay with the organization (Meyer et al., 1998).
Meyer et al. (1998) highlighted that all of these commitment components might be impacted by an organizational change without being mutually exclusive. They emphasized the impact of these changes depends on the resulting levels of these commitment components and the extent to which each commitment component is involved, as employees assess their relationship with the organization after change.
They also concluded that organizations that rely heavily on the employees that remained provide a competitive advantage, and benefit the most from employees who have high levels of AC. Other benefits are gained by fostering a strong sense of NC, where it is distinguished from AC by being more limited and short in duration. In contrast, the employees with high CC as their attachment to the organization are based mainly on the cost associated with leaving, are less likely to exercise the level of effort expected by the new organization’s requirements (Meyer et al., 1998).
Moreover, Robinson (1996) claimed that direct conflict might be created as a result of the effects of organizational reactions to change in the workplace that impacts their employees’ commitment with what these organizations require to make their initiatives work. The initiatives that are led by the organization and caused environmental change might create a situation where the psychological contract is violated, and the promises that are made (implicitly or explicitly) by the organization (such as job security in lieu of diligence and productivity) are broken. Employees will attempt to comprehend the reasons for the contract violation and whether it could have been avoided. Robinson (1996) commented that employees with high levels of initial trust in the organization reacted less negatively to contract violations than those with lower trust, where trust is defined as “one’s expectations, assumptions, or beliefs about the likelihood that another’s future actions will be beneficial, favorable, or at least not detrimental to one’s interests” (p. 576).
Meyer et al. (1998) added that following the organization’s change, employees who remain are likely to reconsider the nature of their psychological contract with the new environment after the organizational change. Those who viewed this change as a previous contract violation are less likely to trust the organization enough to enter into a new relational contract. Therefore, it is unlikely that they will maintain, or develop, a strong AC. Instead, they might view their contract with the organization in transactional terms, leading to the development of CC or NC. This depends on an employee’s focus; whether their focus is based on the costs of leaving the organization or based on their obligations to the organization. Those employees who accept a contract violation as unavoidable rather than a violation, are likely to be more amenable to entering into new relational contracts which result in high levels of AC.
Maintaining a high level of AC is desirable; however, it remains a possibility that employees might redirect the focus of their commitment (Meyer et al., 1998).