Chapter 2: Relevant Literature
2.1 Commitment of Teachers
2.1.3 The Multidimensional Approaches
In the 1980s, O’Reilly and Chatman (1986) and Meyer and Allen (1984) presented two salient multidimensional approaches that took the lead over much less impactful other multidimensional approaches advanced in the same era (Meyer &
Herscovitch, 2001). O’Reilly and Chatman (1986) constructed their approach by defining commitment as the psychological attachment (an attitude) to the organization felt by the person, reflecting internalization and adoption of the organization characteristics or perspectives. In their argument, commitment can take three forms:
compliance, identification and internalization; therefore, they backed the three- dimensional structure of commitment measure (O'Reilly & Chatman, 1986).
Whereas O’Reilly and Chatman merged the concepts of identification and internalization to form what is now known as normative commitment (NC), this was because of the absence of a clear distinction between the concepts and the compliance dimension which is distinct from them. However, this compliance dimension measures
the commitment to perform, not commitment to remain, leading to a positive correlation with turnover (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990; Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001).
While O’Reilly and Chatman (1986) advanced an interesting approach to commitment, Meyer and Allen’s (1984) approach gained more popularity in approaching the study of commitment. They developed two scales, one representing affective commitment (AC) and the other representing CC. The AC scale was a major improvement compared to the OCQ. It was defined as a tool for measuring commitment in organizations, where they have positive feelings of identification with, attachment to, and involvement in organizations (Meyer & Allen, 1984).
The second scale is the continuance dimension. Meyer and Allen (1984) saw Becker’s (1960) side-bet approach to be inappropriately operationalized, and it measures attitudinal commitment. They considered their continuance dimension to be a better reflection of Becker’s side-bet approach as their continuance dimension was made to measure the extent to which employees feel committed to the organizations by virtue of the price that they feel is associated with leaving an organization (Meyer
& Allen, 1984).
Meyer and Allen (1990) proposed a third dimension, the NC. Where they defined it “…as a feeling of obligation to continue employment” (Meyer & Allen, 1991, p. 67). It is affected by socialization and culture prior to entry into the organization (Allen & Meyer, 1990).
More studies have tested and used Meyer and Allen’s OCQ scale, primarily to examine the psychometric properties of the three scales model, specifically the discriminant validity, and the links with determinants and outcomes (McGee & Ford, 1987; Allen & Meyer, 1990; Hackett et al., 1994; Ko et al., 1997; Beck & Wilson,
2000). The three dimensions were described as unique components, rather than types of attitudinal commitment where employees can experience each of these psychological states in different levels (Allen & Meyer, 1990). It is seen as a three- component conceptualization of OC (Meyer & Allen, 1991) with an attempt to tie this approach to motivation theories (Meyer & Allen, 1997; Meyer et al., 2004).
Some have criticized this approach of Meyer and Allen (1990). Vandenberg and Self (1993) found inconsistency in the factor structures, particularly in AC and CC across three timeframes (the first day of work, the third month of work, and the sixth month of work). The first explanation was that work experiences cause alteration into the newcomers during the entry period, to the point that these items took on different meanings from one time period to the next. Another explanation is the assumption of the developing of newcomers’ deep understanding of their organization and its fundamental components that are needed to equate the items in a meaningful way during the first months. This would lead to differences in assigning meanings and interpretation of the items that respondents in different career levels in an organization could have (Vandenberg & Self, 1993).
A later stronger criticism raised by Ko et al. (1997) when they considered the discriminant and content validity of the Meyer and Allen scales. Conceptual problems were noticed in the scales which may cause psychometric difficulties. Ko et al. (1997) simply noted the lack of explanation of the psychological state that links the employee to the organization.
With regard to the CC dimension, Ko et al. (1997) contended with Meyer et al.
(1993), who claimed that attitudinal commitment represents Becker’s (1960) concept of commitment because they emphasized the costs associated with leaving the
organization. Ko et al. (1997) consider this argument untenable because Becker (1960) defined employee commitment to be a consistent line of activity, which maintained employees as members of the organization. Thus, Becker’s view of commitment is an attempt to explain what causes this inconsistency. This seems to be more consistent with the behavioral rather than attitudinal approach (Ko et al., 1997).
For the second criticism, Ko et al. (1997) focused on the lack of discriminant validity between AC and NC in Meyer and Allen’s scales (1990). Ko et al. (1997) determined that the concept of NC is troublesome due to the considerable conceptual overlap that appears between NC and AC. Therefore, it is unclear how to separate NC from AC conceptually (Ko et al., 1997).
Over time, some scale modifications were put forward and tested. For instance, a cut-down version of the 6-item version of the three scales was proposed. Scholars also advanced a revised NC scale, in addition to a two-dimensional CC scale that was also suggested (Meyer et al., 1990; Meyer & Allen, 1997). Then massive CC scale revisions were advanced (Powell & Meyer, 2004). A dilemma appeared for researchers on which version of the scales to use, even though the changes did improve some of the psychometric properties of the scales.
As with the study of educational context commitment, educational researchers aim to define and describe teacher commitment as a concept that is distinct from other forms of commitment. Firestone and Rosenblum (1988) asserted that school teachers might commit to multiple objects, such as the profession, their school, their subject matter, their students, and according to their commitment, their behavior and attitudes vary (Firestone & Rosenblum, 1988).
Based on this and other research that has concluded that teachers may have multiple objects of commitment, Tyree (1996) suggests that using the OCQ to measure teacher commitment is unsuitable. Even though the original and adapted versions of OCQ, and similar instruments have been widely used in research on teacher commitment, Tyree (1996) criticized these instruments for being unidimensional and suggested that they would fail to capture the complexity of commitment of teachers (Tyree, 1996). Moreover, Tyree (1996) assumed that while OCQ is designed to measure commitment to a workplace or organization, it is too limited for teachers who generally tend to commit for reasons beyond workplace conditions, such as making a difference to the subject matter or students. Thus, Tyree (1996) develops a measurement scale to include students and subjects as two referents, of the three traditionally defined dimensions of commitment: identification, involvement, and loyalty. For that, Tyree (1996) submitted the resulting measure as a multidimensional scale with further accuracy to measure commitment of teachers. This could lead to better recruitment, professional development and school improvement efforts and a greater understanding of commitment of teachers. Tyree (1996) found that commitment of high school teachers generally focused on either their subject matter or their students (Tyree, 1996). In other words, commitment of teachers is more complicated than the 15 items that are included in the OCQ.
When considering the aforementioned concerns, considerable conceptual work is required, and new measures that adequately assess these new conceptualizations should be developed. This dissertation pursues the goal of precisely measuring the commitment of government school teachers in the Al Ain area by creating a tool that is more appropriate for assessing their commitment in times of reform and change and identifying the set of variables that influence it.