The Nature of Organizational Commitment: A Multi-Cultural Analysis

Abstract

Organizational commitment has become an in- creasingly important construct in the theory and research of organizational behavior. Studying the relationships between commitment and job beha- viors and altitudes has become commonplace (e.g., Tokunaga and Staw, 1983). This popularity of commitment research has recently spilled over into the issue of Japanese versus American productivity. Researchers have focused on organizational com­ mitment as a major reason for the widening gap between Japanese and U.S. productivity. Organiza­ tional commitment is assumed to be an integral part of the Japanese management system and therefora may account for the productivity gap. The purpose of this paper is to explore this notion and its via - bilíty, from both atheoretical and research point of view. Both the cultural aspeets of management sys- tenis and the nature of the concept of commitmet will be explorad ín an attempt to darify relevan t issues and draw some meaningful conclusions.