INTROCUTION

Organizational commitment has been an important variable of interest to organization researchers for its relationship with various work outcomes (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Meyer and Allen, 1997). In educational settings, it has been found that organizational commitment has positive linkages with work performance, organizational citizenship behaviour and student achievement and has negative relationships with burnout and turnover (Bogler and Somech, 2004; Chelte and Tausky, 1986; Rosenblatt and Inbal, 1999). Therefore, one of the main challenges confronting administrators of educational institutions is to identify factors that are likely to contribute to the development of organizational commitment of their employees and make certain that these factors are taken into account in the formulation of their human resource programs.

Higher education in Thailand is undergoing transformation as a consequence of the second educational reform which aims to improve university effectiveness. Thai universities have been expected to improve the teaching-learning process; be self-responsible in terms of academic matters, finance, personnel and general affairs administration; and achieve required standards and quality assurance. Consequently, old and new, public and private universities have been confronted by many challenges. In order to comply with the requirements of the reform, Thai universities have to depend heavily upon their academic employees. The commitment of Thai academics to their respective organizations is argued to be a significant factor in achieving university success.

While it is now well established in the organizational commitment literature that this construct is multidimensional (Allen and Meyer, 1990; Mayer and Schoorman, 1998; Meyer and Allen, 1991, 1997; O’Reilly and Chatman, 1986), few extant studies conducted in an educational context have examined the commitment dimensions simultaneously (Cetin, 2006; Marchiori and Henkin, 2004). In order to capture the concept of organizational commitment comprehensively, further examination is required by considering the multidimensional conceptualization of this construct. In addition, while the majority of the previous research investigating organizational commitment has been conducted in North America and Western countries (Hattrup et al., 2008), there has been relatively little attempt to examine organizational commitment of educators outside the U.S. (Cetin, 2006; Somech, 2005). It is possible that the predictors of organizational commitment may be culture-specific (Andolsek and Stebe, 2004). Thus, “extending research on organizational commitment to other borders is important” (Cheng and Stockdale, 2003).

The current study sought to make contributions to the organizational commitment literature by identifying variables that influence organizational commitment in a sample of academics in Thailand, a society culturally different from the Western context and considering the multidimensional conceptualization of organizational commitment.

Three organizational commitment dimensions and their antecedents: Meyer and Allen (1991, 1997) and Allen and Meyer (1990) proposed a multidimensional model of organizational commitment within which they identified three themes that represent the numerous and diverse commitment definitions: affective, continuance and normative commitment. Affective commitment refers to the employee’s emotional attachment to, identification with and involvement in an organization. Continuance commitment refers to an awareness of the perceived costs associated with leaving an organization. Normative commitment refers to a feeling of obligation to continue employment. Meyer and Allen (1991, 1997) and Allen and Meyer (1990) argued that common to these perspectives is the view that commitment is a psychological state that characterizes the relationships between employees and the organization and influences the employee’s decision to maintain their membership in the organization. To date, the three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment is regarded as the dominant model in organizational commitment research (Solinger et al., 2008).

Given their conceptual differences, Meyer and Allen (1991, 1997) and Allen and Meyer (1990) proposed that different antecedents are involved in the development of the three forms of organizational commitment.

Antecedents of affective commitment: Much of the research on organizational commitment has uncovered variables that influence affective commitment (see Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Meyer and Allen, 1991, 1997; Meyer et al., 2002; Mowday et al., 1982) for reviews and meta-analyses. Reviews by Meyer and Allen (1991, 1997) classified the antecedents of affective commitment into three categories: personal characteristics, organizational structure and work experiences and indicated that strong affective commitment is largely the result of work experiences that satisfy the basic needs, meet expectations and allow for the goal achievement of employees. They divided work experience variables into two categories: the comfort category and competence-related experiences. Variables in the comfort category include those that satisfy employees’ needs to feel physically and psychologically comfortable in the organization such as perceived organizational support and role clarity. The competence-related experiences include variables that contribute to employees’ feelings of competence in the work role such as fairness of performance-based rewards, opportunity for advancement and participation in decision-making.

Antecedents of continuance commitment: Based on arguments posed by Becker (1960), Farrell and Rusbult (1981), Rusbult and Farrell (1983) and Meyer and Allen (1991, 1997) proposed that continuance commitment develops when an individual recognizes high levels of personal sacrifice or lost investments associated with terminating an organizational membership. These investments can be of a financial or nonfinancial nature (Becker, 1960) such as lack of skill transferability, retirement payments and organizational tenure. In addition to investments, Meyer and Allen (1991) proposed that alternative employment opportunities may operate in the development of continuance commitment. Meyer and Allen (1997) stated that employees with more alternatives have weaker continuance commitment than those with fewer options. They also posited that perceptions of alternatives could be influenced by several factors, such as unemployment rates and the general economic climate, the degree to which skills are current and marketable (vs. outdated and unmarketable), the results of previous job search attempts and the extent to which family factors limit the employee’s ability to move. It is important to note, however, that neither investments nor alternatives will have an impact on continuance commitment without an employee’s recognition of their implications.

Antecedents of normative commitment: Of the three forms of commitment, normative commitment has received the least attention (Meyer and Parfyonova, 2010) and least is known empirically about the development of this component (Meyer and Allen, 1997). On the basis of the works of Wiener (1982), Scholl (1981) and Meyer and Allen (1991) proposed that normative commitment develops as a result of the familial/cultural/organizational socialization experiences that emphasizes the appropriateness of remaining loyal to one’s employer and the receipt of benefits from an organization that induces a need to reciprocate. Meyer and Allen (1997) and Meyer and Herscovitch (2001) have incorporated the psychological contract between an employee and the organization in relation to normative commitment.

Empirical studies in tertiary educational settings: The preceding review of literature on organizational commitment has indicated that the development of each dimension of organizational commitment is dependent on different antecedent variables. This section will now turn to a review of the empirical studies examining antecedents of organizational commitment in university settings. Table 1 summarises the results of studies that have examined potential antecedent variables associated with the organizational commitment of academics in a number of countries.

An examination of Table 1 indicates that there were different antecedent variables of academics’ organizational commitment including procedural justice (Ambrose and Cropanzano, 2003; Magner et al., 1994; Rahim et al., 2001), distributive justice (Ambrose and Cropanzano, 2003; Magner et al., 1994; Neumann and Finaly-Neumann, 1990), role ambiguity (Ameen et al., 1995; Hutchison, 1997; Wolverton et al., 1999), role conflict (Ameen et al., 1995; Chelte and Tausky, 1986; Hutchison, 1997; Wolverton et al., 1999), support from colleagues (Neumann and Finaly-Neumann, 1990), support from supervisor/department chair (Hutchison, 1997; Neumann and Finaly-Neumann, 1990), organizational support (Fuller et al., 2006; Hutchison, 1997), job satisfaction (Ameen et al., 1995; Cetin, 2006), participation in decision-making (Hutchison, 1997), job insecurity (Adkins et al., 2001; Ameen et al., 1995) and demographics (Cetin, 2006; Chelte and Tausky, 1986; Falkenberg, 2003; Marchiori and Henkin, 2004).

Table 1:	Empirical studies of antecedents of organizational commitment of academics

Previous organizational commitment research involving academics however has reported some inconsistent or inconclusive findings about the antecedents of commitment. For example, Wolverton et al. (1999) found a relationship between role conflict and organizational commitment, while other studies (Ameen et al., 1995; Chelte and Tausky, 1986) did not find a relationship between these variables. These inconsistent findings may be due to the different definitions and operationalization of commitment used as well as the variables analysed (Liou, 1995).

METHOD
Sample and data collection: A sample of 407 full-time academics was drawn from three public and three private universities located in Bangkok that were willing to take part in the study. The respondents were recruited through the use of convenience sampling, undertaken by research representatives in each institution. Of the respondents, 64.4% were women. Approximately 76% of the participants in the current study held master’s degree qualifications and 41.6% were aged between 25-34 years. Most respondents (41.8%) reported working for their organisation for 2-10 years.

Data for the study were collected via self-administered questionnaires. The participants were asked to answer three open-ended questions in a written format: “What influences your sense of belonging to and identification with this university?”, “What influences your feelings of obligation to continue employment with your university” and “Terminating a university membership may involve some losses and difficulties. What do you perceive as your costs associated with leaving the university?”. It was considered important to allow the respondents themselves to identify factors which contributed to commitment to their organization, rather than suggesting possible reasons through the use of more focused questions.

Method of analysis: Content analysis of responses to the three open-ended questions of the questionnaires was conducted following a simplified approach of template analysis of qualitative data (Crabtree and Miller, 1999). The template approach allows for modifications and revisions of the template to correct for deficiencies after encountering the text (Crabtree and Miller, 1999). Goodwin and Goodwin (1985) procedure was followed to analyze the content of the open-ended responses and calculate the inter-rater reliability. Finally, frequency counts on the coded responses of how strongly the categories were manifested in the data were performed.