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Article Excerpt
This article investigated the effect of personal characteristics (proactive personality) and contextual characteristics (organizational learning culture and job complexity) on employees' intrinsic motivation and organizational commitment. Employees exhibited the highest organizational commitment when they perceived higher learning culture and higher job complexity. Employees were more intrinsically motivated when they showed higher proactive personality and perceived higher job complexity. The perception of their job complexity partially mediated the relationship between organizational learning culture and organizational commitment and the relationship between proactive personality and intrinsic motivation. Overall, organizational learning culture, proactive personality, and perceived job complexity accounted for 44% and 54% of the variances in organizational commitment and intrinsic motivation, respectively. In addition, proactive personality moderated the relationship between organizational learning culture and organizational commitment. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and recommendations for further research are discussed.
Keywords: organizational commitment," intrinsic motivation; job complexity; proactive personality; organizational learning; learning organization
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The effect of organizational commitment on individual performance and organizational effectiveness has prompted much interest among researchers (Allen & Meyer, 1996; Beck & Wilson, 2000; Mowday, 1998). Organizational commitment refers to an individual's feelings about the organization as a whole. It is the psychological bond that an employee has with an organization and has been found to be related to goal and value congruence, behavioral investments in the organization, and likelihood to stay with the organization (Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1982). It has become more important than ever in understanding employee work-related behavior because it is identified as more stable and less subject to daily fluctuations than job satisfaction (Angle & Perry, 1983; Mowday et al., 1982). Whereas the antecedents of organizational commitment include organizational characteristics, personal characteristics, group/leader relations, and job characteristics, the consequences of organizational commitment are the job performance variables including intention to leave, turnover, and output measure (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990).
People are more productive and creative when they are intrinsically motivated primarily by the passion, interest, enjoyment, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself--not by external pressures or rewards (Amabile, 1996; Amabile & Kramer, 2007). A necessary component of intrinsic motivation is the individual's orientation or level of enthusiasm for the activity (Amabile, 1988). Although motivational orientation may be partially shaped by the environment (i.e., organizational, social, job characteristics; Amabile, 1996), there is also evidence suggesting a stable, trait-like nature (Amabile, Hill, Hennessey, & Tighe, 1994). Thus, intrinsic motivation encompasses both contextual and personal characteristics. Because intrinsic motivation affects an employee's decision to initiate and sustain creative effort over time (Amabile, 1988), intrinsic motivation has been cited as one of the most prominent personal qualities for the enhancement of creativity (Amabile, 1988, 1996) as well as job performance (Barrick, Stewart, & Piotrowski, 2002; Tiemey, Farmer, & Graen, 1999).
Organizational commitment and intrinsic motivation are important constructs in the human resources (HR) and organization behavior (OB) field. Both constructs share the personal characteristics and contextual characteristics for their antecedents. Moreover, they are two of the most frequently used variables for satisfaction, performance, change, and innovation and creativity. Although the consequences of organizational commitment and intrinsic motivation are not in the scope of this study, they ultimately influence employee job/career satisfaction and turnover, organizational performance, and employee creativity and innovation. Although the extent of research on intrinsic motivation and organizational commitment has increased during the past two decades, little research has been conducted focusing on the two topics simultaneously.
As Drucker (1988) put it, organizations are shifting to information-based self-governing units of knowledge specialists. Jobs not only in service and knowledge work but also in manufacturing are becoming more knowledge oriented, highlighting the importance of cognitive characteristics of work (Parker, Wall, & Cordery, 2001). By definition, knowledge work is "unpredictable, multidisciplinary, and nonrepetitive tasks with evolving, long-term goals which, due to their inherent ambiguity and complexity, require collaborative effort in order to take advantage of multiple viewpoints" (Janz, Colquitt, & Noe, 1997, pp. 882-883). Thus, job complexity is considered to be an important contributor to employees' intrinsic motivation and organizational commitment.
To survive and thrive in a business environment characterized by turbulent change and fierce competition, an organization must always be ready to adapt. Thus, many organizations strive to have a learning organization culture of creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge and modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights (Garvin, 1993). In a similar vein, proactive employees are more crucial than ever because of the changing nature of the work and business environment (Parker, 1998). People are not always passive recipients of environmental constraints on their behavior. Rather, they can intentionally and directly change their current circumstances (Crant, 2000). Although a number of studies have examined job design, little identified research has investigated organizational learning culture and proactive personality as the antecedents of organizational commitment and intrinsic motivation.
The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of personal characteristics (i.e., proactive personality) and contextual characteristics (i.e., organizational learning culture and job complexity) on intrinsic motivation and organizational commitment of employees. The specific research questions are as follows: (a) What are the relationships between the above factors (contextual and personal) and the criterion variables (organizational commitment and intrinsic motivation)? and (b) Do those factors jointly contribute to employee creativity? The theoretical contributions of this study lie in its integrative approach encompassing both personal and contextual factors.
This article is divided into four parts. The first part provides a theoretical framework and hypotheses. Then, research methods including data collection and measures are described. The next part summarizes the research findings, based on a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), structural equation model (SEM) analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis. Finally, the implications, limitations, and future research areas will be discussed.
Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses
As mentioned earlier, based on a comprehensive literature review, a set of constructs was selected: proactive personality for personal characteristics and organizational learning culture and job complexity for contextual characteristics. These constructs are considered necessary for influencing intrinsic motivation and organizational commitment. The hypothesized model for this study is illustrated in Figure 1.
Organizational Learning Culture
At the organizational level, organizational learning culture is one of the key contextual components to enhance organizational commitment and intrinsic motivation. By definition, it refers to "an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights" (Garvin, 1993, p. 80). Watkins and Marsick's (1997) framework for the learning organization served as another theoretical base for this study. They identified seven action imperatives for a learning organization: (a) create continuous learning opportunities, (b) promote inquiry and dialogue, (c) encourage collaboration and team learning, (d) establish systems to capture and share learning, (e) empower people to have a collective vision, (f) connect the organization to the environment, and (g) use leaders who model and support learning at the individual, team, and organization levels. Thus, learning organization involves an environment in which organizational learning is structured so that teamwork, collaboration, creativity, and knowledge processes have a collective meaning and value (Confessore & Kops, 1998).
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
Proactive Personality
People are not always passive recipients of environmental constraints on their behavior; rather, they can intentionally and directly change their current circumstances (Crant, 2000). Proactive personality is defined as a belief in one's ability to overcome constraints by situational forces and the ability to effect changes in the environment (Bateman & Crant, 1993). More specific, Crant (2000) described proactive behavior as "taking initiative in improving current circumstances or creating new ones; it involves challenging the status quo rather than passively adapting to present conditions" (p. 436). Proactive individuals look for opportunities and act on...
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