Benchmarking organizational commitment across nonprofit human services organizations in Pennsylvania

The effects of organizational and job characteristics on employees’ organizational commitment in arts-and-culture organizations

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of organizational commitment among employees of Palestinian arts-and-culture organizations and to examine the combined effect and role of organizational and job characteristics in shaping employees’ commitment.

Design/methodology/approach

An on-site employee survey was conducted in 20 distinct local not-for-profit arts-and-culture organizations, where the respondent sampling frame constituted of 190 individuals with a response rate of 48 per cent. Confirmatory factor analysis was used in this study to confirm the original scale structure for study constructs and evaluate their distinctiveness in the Palestinian context.

Findings

Results from structural equation modeling analysis revealed a reasonable rather than a good fit of the model to the data. The current study recognized organizational and job characteristics as critical determinants of employees’ commitment, particularly its affective component; which was also found to be the most accurate description of organizational commitment in arts-and-culture organizations.

Research limitations/implications

Consistent with the social exchange theory, an emphasis should be placed on employees’ perception of organizational and job characteristics. This study advocates for combining organizational characteristics with job characteristics in light of their significant association with commitment in the context of motivational theories.

Practical implications

This study empirically demonstrates the positive effects of organizational and job characteristics on employees’ evaluation of their organization. Managers of arts-and-culture organizations should maintain a proper alignment of organizational values with those of the employees and create a working environment that meets employees’ psychological and career needs.

Originality/value

This study makes a valuable contribution to the existing body of research and adds to a very limited number of studies investigating organizational commitment in arts-and-culture organizations, validating the structure of commitment and its antecedents in a non-Western context and showing the multi-dimensionality of the concept.