The Relationship Between University Student Commitment Profiles and Behavior: Exploring the Nature of Context Effects

Abstract

Theoretical concepts from the organizational behavior literature, including commitment, are rarely used to help explain university student behavior. The benefits of doing so might include the development of a synthesis of knowledge about the behavior of students in an organizational setting. Such a synthesis is important because it will help extend organizational commitment literature to student samples and will help explain student behavior as a result of their commitment. As such, the purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to test theoretical propositions advanced by Meyer and Herscovitch concerning the interactive effects of affective, normative, and continuance commitment on students’ focal and discretionary behaviors and (b) to provide an exploratory examination of the notion of a commitment profile “context effect” for normative commitment for students in a university setting. Study measures were gathered from a sample of 287 undergraduate business students. Results showed support for interactive effects of the three components of commitment for both focal and discretionary behavior. Results also showed support for commitment profile differences and for the existence of a normative commitment context effect.

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