Commitment - there is more than 1 kind, you know

The study of commitment in organizations has been around for decades. Commitment is important because it has been found to positively affect satisfaction, retention, and good citizenship behavior. More recently scholars, such as Meyer, Allen, Mowday and Porter, have advocated for three facets of commitment to help alleviate inconsistencies in how organizational commitment influence employees.

The three different forms of commitment are (1) affective, (2) normative, and (3) continuance. Affective commitment is an emotional attachment that results from the individual desiring to be identified or associated with the relationship. Individuals give their effort to another because they "want to." Normative commitment is an attachment one feels out of obligation or duty. Here individuals stay involved in relationship with another because they "have to." Finally, continuance commitment is the attachment one has to another because they have no other choice, their options are limited. Individuals who have continuance commitment in a relationship remain because they "have to."

Its pretty easy to see why research has found that affective commitment results in the strongest service and association employees have in relationship with their organization, and without stress and burnout. There are a variety of reasons people have each kind of commitment, but affective is the most volitional and therefore results in the highest level of supportive behavior.  

The understanding we have of commitment to an organization has implications in commitment in other relationships, such as friendships, marriage or parenting. I would want someone to be affectively committed, willfully desiring to be with me, to support me, and to serve me because they wish to, not because they are obligated to me out of duty or have to because its their best or only option.

This is somewhat the message of my book on sense-making. Our human nature, through the equilibrium imperative, tends to orient us towards normative and continuance commitment. This quietly bleeds over into our thinking about God and our relationship with Him. When our response to Him is duty, we either become legalistic in trying to serve or we abandon the relationship because it is not salient to us,

You can read more about this in

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