A closer look into the employee influence : Organizational commitment relationship by distinguishing between commitment forms and influence sources

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to elucidate the relationship between perceived employee influence and organizational commitment by applying a multidimensional approach that includes influence perceived to stem from the individual and the team, as well as affective and normative commitment. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 526 out of a population of 732 employees (72 percent reply rate) from four Danish companies in different industries and with different types of teams participated in the questionnaire study. Findings – Results of bootstrapping mediation analyses reveal that a relationship between perceived influence of the team and affective commitment is fully mediated by perceived individual influence. Results of multiple regression analyses show a positive relationship between team and individual influence, and that normative commitment moderated the relationship negatively. The results are to suggest that influence of the team may stimulate employees’ individual influence, and in turn their affective commitment, if their normative commitment is not very high. Research limitations/implications – Generalization of the results to cultures, which are dissimilar to the Danish should be cautiously considered and further studies are needed to elucidate causality between the variables. Originality/value – The identification of normative commitment as a variable that can potentially hinder that employees experience their teams to enhance their individual freedom elucidates the conditions that may be behind different current findings in the literature. The finding that suggests that employees need to perceive that they benefit from their team's influence in order to feel more affective committed to their organization adds to knowledge about team work's possible effects for employee attitudes.