To reassess and enhance our understanding of employee commitments in contemporary organizations, we conducted a mixed-method study. In open-ended surveys, we asked employees (N = 712) to explain why they are committed to various work-related targets (organization, coworker, organizational goal, and occupation). We content analyzed the responses and derived 15 distinct explanations for those commitments. We then compared these explanations to extant commitment models and examined how explanations varied across commitment targets. Finally, we examined the relationship between these explanations and commitment strength. Our findings indicate that many factors in extant commitment models are still relevant (e.g., Social Exchange), but other aspects of those models were not mentioned by participants (e.g., competition) or mentioned very infrequently (e.g., No Choice). Perhaps most importantly, some current explanations (e.g., Altruism) are not represented in extant models. In addition, some explanations were provided more or less often for different commitment targets. For example, Social Exchange was provided more frequently for coworker commitment but less frequently than expected by chance for organizational goal commitment. Finally, explanations differentially related to commitment strength, with stronger commitment associated with Social Exchange than with Financial Exchange. The implications of these findings for theory and human resource management practice are discussed.

中文翻译：

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当代职场中的承诺体验：对承诺模式前因的探索性再审视

为了重新评估和增强我们对当代组织中员工承诺的理解，我们进行了一项混合方法研究。在开放式调查中，我们询问了员工（N = 712) 解释为什么他们致力于各种与工作相关的目标（组织、同事、组织目标和职业）。我们对这些回应进行了内容分析，并针对这些承诺得出了 15 种不同的解释。然后，我们将这些解释与现有的承诺模型进行了比较，并检查了承诺目标之间的解释如何变化。最后，我们检验了这些解释与承诺强度之间的关系。我们的研究结果表明，现有承诺模型中的许多因素仍然相关（例如，社会交换），但参与者没有提到这些模型的其他方面（例如，竞争）或很少提及（例如，没有选择）。也许最重要的是，一些当前的解释（例如，利他主义）在现存模型中没有体现。此外，对不同的承诺目标或多或少地提供了一些解释。例如，为同事承诺提供更多的社交交流，但为组织目标承诺提供的机会比预期的要少。最后，解释与承诺强度的相关性不同，与社会交换相关的承诺比与金融交换相关的承诺更强。讨论了这些发现对理论和人力资源管理实践的影响。与社会交换相关的承诺比金融交换更强。讨论了这些发现对理论和人力资源管理实践的影响。与社会交换相关的承诺比金融交换更强。讨论了这些发现对理论和人力资源管理实践的影响。