Antecedents and outcomes of unit cohesion and affective commitment to the Army

ABSTRACT

Group cohesion and affective commitment have shown to have critical relevance to military organizations in particular. The relationship between cohesion and affective commitment is established, and the two constructs share a number of common organizational antecedents and employee outcomes. The authors explored the relationship between cohesion and affective commitment in a model that incorporates antecedents (effectiveness of immediate leadership and procedural justice) and consequences (organizational citizenship behaviors [OCBs] and turnover intentions) common to both. Respondents (N = 714, 102 women, 612 men) were Canadian Army personnel. The models suggest that cohesion partially mediates the relationships between (a) perceptions of immediate leadership and affective commitment to the Army and (b) perceptions of unit procedural justice and affective commitment to the Army. Furthermore, affective commitment to the Army partially mediates the relationship between unit cohesion and turnover intentions but fully mediates the relationship between unit cohesion and OCBs. This model helps explain some common variance between unit cohesion and organizational affective commitment.

KEYWORDS:

• Cohesion
• affective commitment
• leadership
• procedural justice
• turnover intentions

Acknowledgment

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and not the views of Canada’s Department of National Defence.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the Director Land Personnel Management (DLPM/G1), Department of National Defence, Canada.