Abstract
To investigate the strategy of promoting university faculty’s performance and effectiveness through cultivating organizational commitment, the mixed-methods research collected data from a survey of 188 academics and interviews of 35 survey participants in Beijing. Analysis of survey and interview responses suggested that (a) it was appropriate to measure Chinese academics’ organizational commitment in terms of affective, normative, ideal, choice, and economic commitment; (b) normative and ideal commitment helped to promote faculty’s performance and effectiveness; while affective and choice commitment tended to be dysfunctional in faculty’s work; (c) economic commitment did not present significant relationships to performance and effectiveness; and (d) these relationships could be partly explained with the individual and interactive contributions of faculty’s personal goals, available resources, and perceptions of cost/benefit balance. These findings provided practical implications for university administrators from China and other countries influenced by Confucian culture in their efforts to promote academic excellence in higher education institutional performance review.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abrami, P. C., d’Apollonia, S., & Rosenfield, S. (1997). The dimensionality of student ratings of instruction: What we know and what we do not. In R. P. Perry & J. C. Smart (Eds.), Effective teaching in higher education: Research and practice (pp. 321–367). New York: Agathon Press.
Ballantyne, R., Bain, J. D., & Packer, J. (1999). Researching university teaching in Australia: Themes and issues in academics’ reflections. Studies in Higher Education, 24(2), 237–257.
Becker, H. S. (1960). Note on the concept of commitment. American Journal of Sociology, 66, 32–42.
Borman, W. C., & Motowidlo, S. J. (1997). Task performance and contextual performance: The meaning for personnel selection research. Human Performance, 10(2), 99–109.
Brew, A. (1999). Research and teaching: Changing relationships in a changing context. Studies in Higher Education, 24(3), 291–301.
Campbell, J. P. (1994). Alternative models of job performance and their implications for selection and classification. In M. G. Rumsey, C. B. Walker, & J. H. Harris (Eds.), Personnel selection and classification (pp. 33–52). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Association, Inc.
Centra, J. A. (1993). Reflective faculty evaluation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Chang, M. K. (1998). Predicting unethical behavior: A comparison of the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behavior. Journal of Business Ethics, 17, 1825–1834.
Cheng, Y. C. (1990). The relationship of job attitudes and organizational commitment to organizational environment. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston, MA.
Chughtai, A. A., & Zafar, S. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of organizational commitment among Pakistani university teachers. Applied Human Resource Management Research, 11(1), 39–64.
Cohen, A. (2003). Multiple commitments in the workplace: An integrative approach. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Dill, D., & Soo, M. (2005). Academic quality, league tables, and public policy: A cross-national analysis of university ranking systems. Higher Education, 49(4), 495–533.
Dilts, D., Bialik, D., & Harber, L. (1994). Assessing what professors do: An introduction to academic performance appraisal in higher education. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Dramstad, S. A. (2004). Job satisfaction and organizational commitment among teachers in Norway: A comparative study of selected schools from public and private educational systems. Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University.
Dunham, R. B., Grube, J. A., & Castaneda, M. B. (1994). Organizational commitment: The utility of an integrative definition. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79(3), 370–380.
Eisinga, R., Teelken, C., & Doorewaard, H. (2010). Assessing cross-national invariance of the three-component model of organizational commitment: A six-country study of European university faculty. Cross-Cultural Research, 44(4), 341–373.
Fischer, J. L., & Cation, L. J. (2005). Developments: Impact of a residency research program on research activity, faculty involvement, and institutional cost. Teaching and Learning in Medicine, 17(2), 159–165.
Graneheim, U. H., & Lundman, B. (2004). Qualitative content analysis in nursing research: Concepts, procedures and measures to achieve trustworthiness. Nurse Education Today, 24, 105–112.
Hakanen, J. J., Schaufeli, W. B., & Ahola, K. (2008). The job demands-resources model: A three-year cross-lagged study of burnout, depression, commitment, and work engagement. Work and Stress, 22(3), 224–241.
Ho, K. K. (1998). Research output among the three faculties of Business, Education, Humanities and Social Sciences in six Hong Kong universities. Higher Education, 36, 195–208.
Hu, Q., & Gill, T. G. (2000). IS faculty research output: Influential factors and implications. Information Resources Management Journal, 13(2), 15–25.
Hu, J., & Mo, Y. (2005). A research on organizational commitment and job performance of university teachers. Journal of Zhejiang Institute of Science and Technology, 22(4), 420–429.
Jing, L. Z. (2010). The impact of work stress and organizational commitment on university faculty’s task performance and effectiveness in Mainland China. The University of Hong Kong.
Kocak, R. (2006). The validity and reliability of the teachers’ performance evaluation scale. Educational Sciences: Theory and practice, 6(3), 799–808.
Kreber, C. (2000). How university teaching award winners conceptualize academic work: Some further thoughts on the meaning of scholarship. Research in Higher Education, 5(1), 61–79.
Lan, J. J., Liu, Z., Jian, J., & Li, L. (2005). Test of the level of working stress in young college teachers and analysis of the related factors. China Journal of Clinical Rehabilitation, 9, 102–103.
Lawrence, J., Ott, M., & Bell, A. (2012). Faculty organizational commitment and citizenship. Research in Higher Education, 53(3), 325–352.
Ling, W. Q., Fang, L. L., & Zhang, Z. C. (2002). Research on Chinese employees’ organizational commitment. Social Sciences in China (Autumn), 3, 59–67.
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2006). New directions in goal-setting theory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(5), 265–268.
Lu, G. L. (2005). Research on organizational commitment of university teachers. Henan University.
Marsh, H. W., & Hattie, J. (2002). The relation between research productivity and teaching effectiveness: Complementary, antagonistic or independent constructs? Journal of Higher Education, 73(5), 603–638.
Mathieu, J. E., & Zajac, D. (1990). A review and meta-analysis of the antecedents, correlates and consequences of organizational commitment. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 171–194.
Meyer, J. P., & Allen, N. J. (1991). A three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment. Human Resource Management Review, 1(1), 61–89.
Meyer, J. P., & Herscovitch, L. (2001). Commitment in the workplace toward a general model. Human Resource Management Review, 11, 299–326.
Motowildo, S. J., Borman, W. C., & Schmit, M. J. (1997). A theory of individual differences in task and contextual performance. Human Performance, 10(2), 71–83.
Mowday, R. T., Porter, L. W., & Steers, R. M. (1982). Employee-organizational linkages: The psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. New York: Academic Press.
Murphy, P. R., & Jackson, S. E. (1999). Managing work role performance: Challenging the twenty-first century organizations and their employees. In D. R. Ilgen & E. D. Pulakos (Eds.), The changing nature of performance: Implications for staffing, motivations, and development (pp. 325–365). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Print, M., & Hattie, J. (1997). Measuring quality in universities: An approach to weighing research output. Higher Education, 33, 453–469.
Searle, B. J., Bright, J. E. H., & Bochner, S. (1999). Testing the 3-factor model of occupational stress: The impact of demands, control and social support on a mail sorting task. Work and Stress, 13(3), 268–279.
Shirabe, M. (2004). Measures of performance of universities and their faculty in Japan. Information Knowledge Systems Management, 4, 167–178.
Shong, A. H., & Cai, Y. H. (2005). Teacher organizational commitment construct: Confirmatory factor analysis. Psychological Development and Education, 2, 48–51.
Shouksmith, G. (1994). Variables related to organizational commitment in health professionals. Psychological Reports, 74, 707–711.
Siegrist, J. (1996). Adverse health effects of high-effort/low-reward conditions. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 1, 27–41.
Siu, Q. L. (2003). Job stress and job performance among employees in Hong Kong: The role of Chinese work values and organizational commitment. International Journal of Psychology, 38(6), 337–347.
Smeby, J. C., & Try, S. (2005). Departmental contexts and faculty research activity in Norway. Research in Higher Education, 46(6), 593–619.
Song, S. Q., & Qin, J. L. (2006). Investigation on organizational commitment of kindergarten teachers. Theory and Practice of Education, 26(6), 59–61.
Teodorescu, D. (2000). Correlates of faculty publication productivity: A cross-national analysis. Higher Education, 39, 201–222.
Uctug, Y., & Koksal, G. (2003). An academic performance measurement system and its impact on quality of engineering faculty work at Middle East Technical University. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 28(3), 251–264.
Wang, X., Liao, J., Xia, D., & Chang, T. (2010). The impact of organizational justice on work performance: Mediating effects of organizational commitment and leader-member exchange. International Journal of Manpower, 31(6), 660–677.
White, M. D., & Marsh, E. E. (2006). Content analysis: A flexible methodology. Library Trends, 55(1), 22–45.
Wiener, Y. (1982). Commitment in organizations: A normative view. Academy of Management Review, 2(3), 418–428.
Wong, C. S., Wong, T. Y., Hui, C., & Law, K. S. (2001). The significant role of Chinese employees’ organizational commitment: Implications for managing employees in Chinese societies. Journal of World Business, 36, 326–340.
Wu, X. P., Xu, F. Y., & Zhou, Y. (2006). Determinants of university teachers’ job performance. Journal of East China Normal University (Educational Sciences), 24(1), 30–37.
Xu, S. G., & Lu, G. L. (2008). Research on the relationships between organizational commitment of university teachers and their job performance. Psychological Science, 31(4), 987–988.
Zhao, X., Li, M., & Tan, T. (2009). The relationship between university faculty’s organizational commitment and job performance. Human Resource Management Review, 2, 99–100.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jing, L., Zhang, D. Does Organizational Commitment Help to Promote University Faculty’s Performance and Effectiveness?. Asia-Pacific Edu Res 23, 201–212 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-013-0097-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-013-0097-6