Organisational commitment : Employer expectations in the context of Taiwanese organisations.

The research deals with an alternative view to understanding organisational commitment within the context of Taiwanese organizations, namely organisational demand-side commitment (ODC). ODC is based on an organisational perspective, which renders this study quite distinct from the prior traditional studies.The overarching research aim that guided this study was, "Does an organisation require different degrees of commitment from its employees, and does it have different expectations from its individual employees according to their different position characteristics?" The exploration of the dynamic relationships, that exist between the commitment expected by the organisation and the commitment freely given by its employees, was based upon 40 in-depth interviews with senior HR managers, line managers and workers in Taiwan-based firms. This formed the basis for an exploratory study to develop a theoretical model of ODC. Subsequently, quantitative analytical methods were employed to test the resulting hypotheses.With the uniqueness of ODC as a concept and an analytical tool, data were collected from 1,380 individuals employed in 60 Taiwan-based firms. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and regression analysis were used to analyse and interpret the data. The results found a significant positive correlation between ODC and the position characteristics of Demand-Side Commitment: authority, complexity and exclusivity of skills. Through the PCA, two sub-dependent variables 'identity' and 'turnover' were extracted, with the former acting as a stronger predictor of ODC than the latter. It was shown that the finding could draw both employers and employees to enhance mutual identity with each other to secure the desired balance between expectation and achievement.The contribution of this thesis to the study of organisational commitment is that the framework presented in this study focuses on the organisational demand-side commitment, which not only rests principally on the development of the linkage from employer to employee, but also forms the basis to conduct further research on this two-way linkage in the future.