Career-Oriented Commitment as a Moderator of the Autonomy-Performance Relationship

Abstract

It is generally accepted that there is a positive relationship between organizational autonomy and performance. However, a few researchers recently argued that the increased autonomy may not automatically result in high performance and that the employees’ personality and disposition might be the cause of the null effect of autonomy. So, this study investigates the complexities in the relationships between organizational autonomy and outcomes by examining the interaction effect of the employees’ career-oriented commitment on that relationship. More specifically, we suggest that career-oriented commitment may serve as a mechanism for facilitating the autonomy impact to organizational outcome variables including job satisfaction, job performance and continuance commitment of the members. As such, we propose moderating roles of career commitment on the relationship between perceptions of autonomy and the work outcomes. It was hypothesized that autonomy would enhance the organizational performance and that the interaction between autonomy and career commitment would have effects on organizational outcomes. The sample consisted of 280 employees from 40 enterprises near Seoul. Hypotheses were supported for the proposed interaction effect of career commitment with autonomy on three of the work outcomes: satisfaction(+), performance(+) and continuance commitment(-). Implications of results and areas for future research are discussed