Linking affective commitment to supervisor to work outcomes

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between affective commitment to the supervisor and three work outcomes: innovative work behaviour and two types of learning behaviours, namely, feedback seeking for self‐improvement and error reporting. Additionally, it seeks to examine the mediating role of work engagement in these relationships. Design/methodology/approach – In total, 192 research scientists from six science research centres in Ireland completed self‐reported questionnaires. Structural equation modelling was used to test the research hypotheses. Findings – Results indicated that as hypothesised, work engagement fully mediated the link between affective commitment to the supervisor and the three employee outcomes included in this study. Research limitations/implications – The cross sectional design of this study does not permit causal inferences. Additionally, all data were self‐reported and therefore common method variance may be an issue. Despite these limitations, the results suggest that affective commitment to the supervisor is likely to enhance employees' work engagement, innovativeness and learning. These findings imply that building employees' commitment to their supervisors can be a potent strategy for increasing individual and organizational effectiveness. Originality/value – This is the first study which has linked supervisory commitment to innovative work behaviour, feedback seeking and error reporting. Furthermore, it highlights one potential mechanism in the form of work engagement through which supervisory commitment relates to these work outcomes.