ISSN : 1598-2939
Managing human capital in an effective manner is always a challenge for sport managers. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationships among perceived support, collectivism, affective commitment, work effort, and intention to leave among sport instructors across the United States. The data were collected from 379 ACSM certified sport instructors using online questionnaire. The results showed that perceived support, which is represented by coworker support, supervisor support, and organizational support, and collectivism had a significant impact on affective commitment explaining 75.0% and 13.2% of the variances respectively. In addition, affective commitment explained 19.0% of the variance in work effort and 61.9% of the variance in intention to leave. This study significantly contributes to the existing body of knowledge in sport management literature and provides meaningful guidance to sport managers on how to retain valuable employees and elicit the best work effort they could offer.
Managing human capital in an effective manner is always a challenge for sport managers. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationships among perceived support, collectivism, affective commitment, work effort, and intention to leave among sport instructors across the United States. The data were collected from 379 ACSM certified sport instructors using online questionnaire. The results showed that perceived support, which is represented by coworker support, supervisor support, and organizational support, and collectivism had a significant impact on affective commitment explaining 75.0% and 13.2% of the variances respectively. In addition, affective commitment explained 19.0% of the variance in work effort and 61.9% of the variance in intention to leave. This study significantly contributes to the existing body of knowledge in sport management literature and provides meaningful guidance to sport managers on how to retain valuable employees and elicit the best work effort they could offer.
The fitness industry is a fast growing industry in the domain of sport. According to International Health, Racquet, and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), the fitness industry generated more than $84 billion worldwide in 2014. This is an increase of $17 billion in revenue from 2009. In the United States, the fitness industry is estimated to be a $23.4 billion market (IHRSA, 2016). The growing phenomenon of the industry indicates that the competitions among fitness organizations have become intense. Therefore, it has become important for those organizations to obtain a competitive advantage to survive in a highly competitive market environment. One of the significant competitive advantages in service organizations is human capital (Cunningham & Sagas, 2004). In particular, sport instructors are considered as crucial human capital in fitness organizations as they are the ones who have direct contact with the customers constantly. In fact, customers evaluate service quality mainly from the interaction they have with the employees (Schneider & Bowen, 1985), and the employees who spend the longest time with the customers are sport instructors in the case of the fitness industry. In addition, turnover ratio of sport instructors has traditionally shown to be high (Hong, 2015). As losing competent employees can be costly, fitness organizations must understand what could help sport instructors stay in the organizations. One of the guidelines fitness managers could use is sport instructors’ work attitudes. When employees demonstrate positive work attitudes, it can be assumed that their positive work behaviors will increase, and this leads to overall success of the fitness organizations. For these reasons, it is important to study sport instructors’ work attitudes and behaviors.
One of the work attitudes that is frequently discussed in relation to positive work-related outcomes is organizational commitment. Of the three dimensions of organizational commitment (i.e., affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment), affective commitment has been found to be closely and most strongly linked to many work-related outcomes, such as turnover intention (Turner & Chelladurai, 2005), absenteeism (Meyer, Allen, & Smith, 1993), job performance (Park & Rainey, 2007), and organizational citizenship behavior (Chang & Chelladurai, 2003). Therefore, understanding antecedents and consequences of sport instructors’ affective commitment is warranted. The antecedents included in this study are perceived support and cultural value of collectivism. Perceived support available at work and its impact on affective commitment have been frequently studied in various occupational and organizational settings in the past. However, the relationship has received limited attention in the fitness industry (Chang & Chelladurai, 2003). In addition, there is a very limited research that investigated the direct influence of collectivism on affective commitment. Recognizing the significant role it can play on affective commitment (Clugston, Howell, & Dorfman, 2000), individual orientation of collectivism was included as an antecedent of affective commitment. In terms of consequences of affective commitment, work effort and intention to leave were included because work effort is directly translated into the service quality sport instructors provide to the customers and sport instructors traditionally has a very high turnover ratio (Pack, Jordan, Turner, & Haines, 2007).
Therefore, the purpose of the study is to examine the relationships among perceived support, collectivism, affective commitment, work effort, and intention to leave among sport instructors in the United States. In particular, this study investigates the impact of perceived support and collectivism on employees’ level of affective commitment, and how affective commitment is linked to work effort and intention to leave the organization. Different from the previous literature which used collectivism as a national culture, individual level of collectivistic orientation was used in this study.
Organizational commitment has been defined in many different ways since it was first introduced by Becker (1960). Initially, following the side-bet theory, Becker (1960) suggested that employees are committed to their organization because of the hidden investment they made to the organization. This investment, which will be lost if employees leave the organization, makes them committed to the organization. On the other hand, Mowday, Porter, and Steers (1979), from a psychological attachment perspective, defined organizational commitment as “the relative strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in an organization” (p. 226). Their view of organizational commitment, in fact, comes from emotional attachment to the organization. Meanwhile, Wiener (1982) from a normative perspective defined organizational commitment as “the totality of internalized normative pressures to act in a way which meets organizational goals and interests” (p. 421). As such, the researchers traditionally followed one dimension approach when defining organizational commitment.
However, Meyer and Allen (1991) proposed a three-component model of organizational commitment and it has been widely used among scholars in the past 20 years. According to Meyer and Allen (1991), organizational commitment includes affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment. Similar to Mowday et al.’s (1979) conceptualization of organizational commitment, affective commitment refers to emotional attachment to the organization. Continuance commitment refers to recognition of the costs associated with leaving the organization, which is consistent with the side-bet approach. Normative commitment is defined as an obligation to remain with the organization (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Therefore, an employee with high affective commitment stays in the organization because they like the organization, and an employee with high continuance commitment stays in the organization because there is so much to be lost if they left. On the other hand, an employee with normative commitment stays in the organization because they feel obligated to.
All three dimensions of organizational commitment have shown to be highly correlated with job performance and work-related outcomes in the past literature. For example, the results of the many previous studies demonstrated that three forms of organizational commitment were significantly associated with turnover intention (Turner & Chelladurai, 2005; Turner, Jordan, & DuBord, 2005), absenteeism (Meyer et al., 1993), job performance (Park & Rainey, 2007), and organizational citizenship behavior (Chang & Chelladurai, 2003). However, the magnitudes of the relationship differed based on the form of organizational commitment, and in certain cases, continuance commitment and normative commitment were unrelated to the outcomes. According to Meyer and Allen (1991), each dimension of organizational commitment is supposed to have different implications on work-related outcomes although all three dimensions may have an impact on them. In fact, Meyer, Stanley, Jackson, McInnis, Maltin, and Sheppard (2012) claimed that affective commitment is most strongly associated with work-related outcomes as well as employee well-being and found a support for such relationships in their meta-analysis. Based on the strongest and consistent impact of affective commitment on the work-related outcomes, this study only included affective commitment.
One of the factors that influences employees’ level of affective commitment is support available at work. According to Woo and Rocha (2011), there are three sources of support at the workplace: coworker support, supervisor support, and organizational support. Coworker support and supervisor support refer to emotional, instrumental, and information support that comes from a coworker and supervisor, respectively (Tate, 1996). Organizational support is defined as individuals’ perception of the degree to which the organization values the employee’s contributions and care about their well-being (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, & Sowa, 1986). Perceived support is defined as individual’s perception of degree to which they receive support from a coworker, supervisor, and organization (Woo & Rocha, 2011).
The relationship between perceived support and affective commitment can be explained by social exchange theory. Social exchange theory (Blau, 1967), which is based on ‘quid pro quo’, suggests that individuals who receive support have a tendency to return the support back to the entity that provided support to them initially. Thus, when an employee feels that they are receiving support from coworker, supervisor, and/or organization, they develop favorable feelings towards the support provider, develop emotional attachment to the organization, and respond to it with work-related behaviors that could lead to organizational success (Eisenberger, Armeli, Rexwinkel, Lynch, & Rhoades, 2001).
The positive relationship between perceived support and affective commitment is well established in the previous studies. For example, in a health professional setting, Bartlett (2001) found that coworker support and supervisor support were significant predictors of affective commitment. Similarly, Ko, Price, and Mueller (1997), found a strong impact of coworker support and supervisor support on affective commitment in Korean service organizations. In a recreational sport context, Pack et al. (2007) found that perceived organizational support explained 46.2% of the variance in affective commitment. Similarly, Woo and Chelladurai (2012) discovered that perceived support, comprised of coworker support, supervisor support, and organizational support explained 79% of the variance in organizational commitment, which consisted of affective commitment and continuance commitment, among fitness club employees.
Based on social exchange theory and the past literature, the following hypothesis is proposed. As previous studies revealed that coworker support, supervisor support, and organizational support are well represented by the second-order latent variable of perceived support, this study will also use perceived support as a construct that indicates three sources of support at the workplace.
Culture is defined as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another” (Hofstede, 1980, p.21). Researchers have suggested that employees with different cultural values perceive workplace differently. In fact, culture influences one’s value system and it plays an important role in forming an individual’s attitudes and behaviors (Williamson, Burnett, & Bartol, 2009). According to Hofstede (1980), culture has four dimensions (i.e., power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualistic and collectivistic orientation, and masculinity) and one culture is different from others based on those dimensions. In this sense, it can be said that cultural value has an impact on organizational commitment.
Traditionally, individualistic and collectivistic orientation has been used widely in relation to work attitudes and outcomes because it is highly related to one’s psychological processes which shape one’s attitudes (Oyserman & Lee, 2008). Individuals with individualistic orientation are motivated by their personal preferences and needs, and they put their personal goals before group goals (Triandis, 1995). This means that the social framework is weak among those individuals. On the other hand, collectivists see themselves as parts of a whole; therefore, group values are promoted (Triandis, 1995). In this sense, collectivism is defined as one’s orientation which personal goals are subordinated to the goals of the collective (Triandis, 1995). When examining the influence of individualistic and collectivistic orientation on work attitudes and outcomes, a great number of past literature focused on collectivism and its predictive value of affective commitment. The notion is that individuals who have high collectivistic orientation are more likely to accept and adopt group goals. As a result, they tend to adopt the goals of the employers’ of their own and develop a higher level of commitment to the organization. (Clugston, Howell, & Dorfman, 2000; Williamson et al., 2009).
Although many researchers agree that collectivism has a significant impact on various job attitudes and outcomes including employees’ level of affective commitment, the direct impact of collectivism on affective commitment has not been studied much in the past literature. In fact, many studies investigated the national culture of collectivism as a moderator in the relationship between constructs (Hoftstede, 1980; Smith, Dugan, & Trompenaars, 1996). However, growing number of scholars claim that collectivistic orientation should be measured at the individual level rather than national level because intra-cultural difference exists within the same nation (Williamson et al., 2009). Nevertheless, still very limited research has examined how collectivism influences organizational commitment (Clugston et al., 2000). One of the little empirical evidence is Clugston et al.’s study (2000) which found that collectivism was highly associated with affective commitment among various job positions in Western culture. Also, Meyer et al. (2012), in their meta-analysis, discovered that collectivism was significantly and positively related to employees’ affective commitment. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed.
Researchers agree that turnover intention and turnover are the most important consequences of all three forms of organizational commitment. In particular, turnover intention and turnover are discussed as a major outcome of continuance commitment and normative commitment. (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001). On the other hand, affective commitment has shown to have close relationships with multiple job-related outcomes, such as turnover intention (Ko et al., 1997; Turner & Chelladhrai, 2005; Turner et al. 2005), work effort (Lee & Gao, 2005; Woo & Chelladurai, 2012), job satisfaction (Park & Rainey, 2007), performance (Turner & Chelladurai, 2005), absenteeism (Burton, Lee, & Holtom, 2002), and organizational citizenship behavior (Chang & Chelladurai, 2003). Of all those consequences of affective commitment, the current study investigates the impact of affective commitment on work effort and intention to leave.
According to Woo and Chelladurai (2012), the amount of effort employees exert into work is crucial in service organizations because it is directly translated into the quality of service they provide to the customers, which will lead the customers to remain with the service providers. As sport instructors are constantly in direct contact with the customers, work effort they put into work becomes important. Previous literature suggests that affective commitment is positively linked to employees’ work effort. For example, Lee and Gao (2005), in a Korean retail setting, found that affective commitment explained 15% of the variance in work effort. Similarly, Woo and Chelladurai (2012) showed that affective commitment was a strong predictor of work effort. In their study of fitness employees, it was discovered that affective commitment explained 16% of the variance of work effort. As such, the following hypothesis is proposed.
In addition, predicting sport instructors’ intention to leave is important as the turnover rate of sport instructors has traditionally been very high (Pack et al., 2007). Replacing valuable employees and training new employees are costly processes; therefore, it is important to identify the factors that influence turnover intention. Previous studies show a strong link between affective commitment and intention to leave. In a Korean business context, Ko et al. (1997) demonstrated that affective commitment had the strongest relationship with turnover intention among all three forms of organizational commitment. For employees who work in sport organizations, Tuner and Chelladurai (2005) also found that affective commitment was significantly and negatively associated with turnover intention among intercollegiate coaches in Division I and III institutions. Similarly, Turner et al. (2005) showed that affective commitment explained 13.4% of the variance of student employees’ desire to stay in a university recreational sport department. Based on the stream of the past literature, the following hypothesis is suggested.
A random sample of 3,000 American ACSM (American College of Sport Medicine) certified sport instructors were recruited with a help of ACSM. ACSM provided email addresses of their past trainees to the researcher, and an online survey was distributed to them. Approximately 7% of the email invitation bounced back due to invalid email addresses resulting in the total sample size of 2,779. After removing unusable data, a total of 379 responses were used for analysis representing 14% response rate. Of the participants 134(35.4%) were male and 245(64.6%) were female. The mean age of the participants was 35.6 years old (SD = 15.2). The participants’ work settings were both for profit (270, 71.2%) and non for profit (106, 28%). 53% (201) of the participants worked as full time employees and 45.9% (174) of the participants worked as part time employees. Of the participants, 180 of them (47.5%) were personal trainers, 187 (49.3%) were health/fitness specialists, and 12 (3.2%) were group exercise leaders.
Perceived support. Perceived support was indicated by three factors: coworker support, supervisor support, and organizational support. Coworker support was measured by a 4- item scale modified from Ducharme and Martin’s (2000) 10- item scale. The construct of supervisor support was measured using 4 items adopted from Anderson, Coffey, and Byerly’s (2002) 6-item scale. Four items which have shown highest loadings in the previous literature were selected for the current study. In addition, organizational support was measured by eight highest loading items from the original 36-item scale developed by Eisenberger et al., (1986).
Collectivism. Collectivism was measured by 4 items selected from Lam et al.’s (2002) eight-item scale. Some of the items in the original scale suffered from low factor loadings in the previous studies. Therefore, the highest loading items were selected and used in this study based on the previous literature.
Affective commitment. Affective commitment was measured by Meyer et al.’s (1993) 4 item scale. Meyer et al’s (1993) scale has been used widely in various cultural and occupational settings in the past literature and has consistently shown good internal consistency.
Work effort. Work effort was measured by Chang’s (2006) three-item scale, which is a modified from Brockner, Grover, Reed, and Dewitt’s (1992) scale.
Intention to leave. The construct was measured using Mobley, Horner, and Hollingsworth’s (1978) 3-item scale.
Therefore, the questionnaire was composed of total 32 items in addition to demographic items, such as gender, age, employment setting, and employment status. For all the scales used in this study, response options were based on a 7-point Liker scale ranging from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7 (very strongly agree).
Descriptive statistics on the participants as well as alpha coefficients for each scale and subscale were calculated using SPSS 22. Internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) was estimated to determine how well the items in a specific scale were correlated with each other. According to Nunnally and Bernstein (1994), values higher than .70 are considered as adequate. Construct reliability of the scales was measured by the Average Variance Extracted (AVE). Fornell and Larcker (1981) suggest that values of .50 or higher show good construct reliability. In addition, discriminant validity of the constructs was examined by correlations among the constructs. If the correlation is above .85, it is considered as lacking discriminant validity (Kline, 1985).
Then, two different data analysis techniques were performed to analyze the data in the current study. First, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test the measurement model of the study. In particular, second order CFA was conducted because the second order latent variable of perceived support was included in the analysis representing three factors. Then, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to look at the structural relationships among the variables included in the study. AMOS 22 was used to perform both CFA and SEM. AMOS 22 provides Normed Fit Index (NFI), Incremental Fit Index (IFI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), and chi-square value divided by degrees of freedom as measures of model fit. The suggested guideline for NFI, IFI, and CFI is .90 (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1998). However, Cheung and Rensvold (2002) argue that this guideline should be used with caution because these fit indices are likely to be depressed as a function of model complexity. In addition, Browne and Cudeck (1992), indicating that chi-square value based fit indices are greatly influenced by the number of parameters of the model and sample size, noted RMSEA is the only and best goodness-of-fit index to check the model fit. Therefore, RMSEA value was used to determine the model fit in this study. RMSEA values less than .06 indicate close fit of the model to the data whereas values less than .08 indicate a reasonable fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999). Values greater than .10 should not be considered as it indicates a poor fit (Browne & Cudeck, 1992). In addition, the paths between the constructs were examined to determine practical significance. According to Cohen (1992), the variance explained should be 6% or higher to have a practical significance.
Results of the second order confirmatory factor analysis showed that the model fits reasonably (RMSEA = .076; CI = .072-.080; pclose < .001, X²/df =1701.739/514 = 3.31, NFI = .825, IFI = .871, CFI = .871). The NFI, IFI, and CFI value was slightly lower than the recommended value of .90. However, as discussed earlier, this value tends to be depressed based on the model complexity (Cheung & Rensvold, 2002). The second-order latent variable of Perceived Support was well represented by the first order latent variables of Coworker Support (β = .67, p<.01), Supervisor Support (β = .85, p<.01), and Organizational Support (β = .94, p<.01). The factors, items, loadings, alpha coefficients, and AVEs are demonstrated in Table 1. The alpha coefficients for the scale and subscales used in the study ranged .75-.95 indicating good internal consistency. The AVE values ranged from .53-.72 all exceeding the recommended value of .50 by Fornell and Larcker (1981). In addition, none of the correlation coefficients between the constructs was over the guideline of .85, indicating good discriminant validity. The mean, standard deviations, and correlations among the constructs are presented in Table 2.
| Factor and Item | β | α | AVE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coworker Support | .90 | .68 | |
| My coworkers really care about me | .88 | ||
| I feel close to my coworkers | .86 | ||
| My coworkers take a personal interest in me. | .87 | ||
| My coworkers are helpful in getting job done | .69 | ||
| Supervisor Support | .88 | .66 | |
| My supervisor is supportive when I have a work problem. | .80 | ||
| My supervisor is understanding when I talk about personal or family issues that affect m work | .86 | ||
| I feel comfortable bringing up personal or family issues with my supervisor | .82 | ||
| My supervisor really cares about the effects that work demands have on my personal and family life | .77 | ||
| Organizational Support | .95 | .69 | |
| The organization values my contribution to its well-being | .82 | ||
| The organization fails to appreciate any extra effort from me | .72 | ||
| The organization really cares about my well-being | .89 | ||
| Even if I did the best job possible, the organization would fail to notice | .83 | ||
| Help is available from the organization when I have a problem | .83 | ||
| The organization cares about my general satisfaction at work | .88 | ||
| The organization shows very little concern for me | .87 | ||
| The organization is willing to help me when I need a special favor | .80 | ||
| Affective Commitment | .85 | .59 | |
| I do not feel a strong sense of belonging to my organization | .62 | ||
| I do not feel emotionally attached to this organization | .77 | ||
| I do not feel like part of the family at my organization | .86 | ||
| This organization has a great deal of personal meaning for me | .83 | ||
| Work Effort | .82 | .61 | |
| I try to work as hard as possible | .79 | ||
| I intentionally expend a great deal of effort in carrying out the job | .75 | ||
| I am willing to exert a high level of work effort | .81 | ||
| Intention to Leave | .89 | .72 | |
| I often think about leaving this organization | .81 | ||
| I am actively searching for an alternative to this organization | .84 | ||
| As soon as it is possible, I will leave the organization | .90 | ||
| Collectivism | .75 | .53 | |
| If a coworker gets a prize, I would feel proud | .67 | ||
| The well-being of my coworkers is important to me | .80 | ||
| To me, pleasure is spending time with others | .79 | ||
| I feel good when I cooperate with others | .65 |
| M | SD | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Coworker Support | 4.86 | 1.10 1 | |||||||
| 2. Supervisor Support | 4.68 | 1.30 | .51** | 1 | |||||
| 3. Organizational Support | 4.49 | 1.35 | .59** | .76** | 1 | ||||
| 4. Affective Commitment | 4.62 | 1.42 | .60** | .63** | .80** | 1 | |||
| 5. Work Effort | 5.95 | .85 | .23** | .20** | .23** | .26** | 1 | ||
| 6. Intention to Leave | 3.37 | 1.67 | -.40** | -.52** | -.71** | -.73** | -.26** | 1 | |
| 7. Collectivism | 5.58 | .84 | .53** | .29** | .29** | .33** | .53** | -.19** | 1 |
The goodness-of-fit statistics indicated that the structural model showed a reasonable fit to the data (RMSEA = .076; CI = .073-.079; pclose < .001, X²/df =2309.381/398 = 5.80, NFI = .846, IFI = .869, CFI = .869). Unstandardized and standardized regression weights for the structural model are presented in Table 3. As hypothesized, the relationships among the latent variables were all significant. Both Perceived Support and Collectivism had a significant and positive impact on Affective Commitment explaining 75.0% and 13.2% of the variance respectively. Affective commitment had a significant and positive impact on work effort explaining 19.0% of the variance. In addition, Affective commitment was significantly and negatively associated with Intention to Leave explaining 61.9% variance. All the paths had a practical significance as they exceeded the recommended value of 6% by Cohen (1992).
| Unstandardized Regression Weight | Standardized Regression Weight | S.E. | C.R. | P | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Affective Commitment β Perceived Support | 1.602 | .866 | .122 | 13.082 | .000 |
| Affective Commitment β Collectivism | .158 | .115 | .039 | 4.097 | .000 |
| Work Effort β Affective Commitment | .308 | .436 | .032 | 9.583 | .000 |
| Intention to Leave β Affective Commitment | -1.026 | -.787 | .064 | -16.143 | .000 |
The purpose of the study was to examine the relationships among perceived support, collectivism, affective commitment, work effort, and intention to leave among sport instructors. The results of the study showed that the second-order latent variable of perceived support was well represented by three factors of support: coworker support, supervisor support, and organizational support. In addition, as hypothesized, sport instructors’ level of perceived support and collectivism had a significant impact on affective commitment, and subsequently, affective commitment had a great impact on sport instructors’ work effort and intention to leave the organization. Therefore, all four hypotheses proposed in this study were confirmed.
The relationship between perceived support and affective commitment was consistent with the previous findings (Eisenberger et al., 2001; Pack et al., 2007; Woo & Chelladurai, 2012). That is when sport instructors felt that they are receiving support from a coworker, supervisor, and/or organization, their psychological attachment to the organization increased. This confirmed Hypothesis 1. Yet, the most significant finding of the current study is the direct influence of collectivism on affective commitment. This study found that collectivism was a significant predictor of affective commitment among sport instructors supporting Hypothesis 2. The result may be due to the fact that those individuals who have high collectivistic orientation tend to value group goals and perceive them as their own, which strengthens their tie with the organization (Clugston, Howell, & Dorfman, 2000; Williamson et al., 2009). As a result, they develop a strong psychological attachment to the organization.
Furthermore, as expected, affective commitment was a significant predictor of work effort and intention to leave the organization among sport instructors. Therefore, Hypothesis 3 and 4 were fully supported. That is the more sport instructors are psychologically attached to their fitness organizations, the higher their work effort was. In addition, those instructors with higher level of affective commitment showed significantly lower level of intention to leave. These findings are also in consistent with the previous literature (Ko et al., 1997; Lee & Gao, 2005; Turner & Chelladhrai, 2005; Turner et al. 2005). Such a relationship can be explained by social exchange theory (Blau, 1967). Employees who perceive the support as high attempt to repay the organization with work-related behaviors that could contribute to organizational performance, such as more effort into work and loyalty to the organization (Eisenberger et al., 2001).
This study has both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, the current study is an important addition to the existing body of knowledge in sport management literature. Up to recent years, there has been very limited literature that investigated the direct relationship between collectivism and affective commitment. In particular, to the author’s knowledge, no study in the field of sport management has looked at such a relationship. Additionally, the majority of the past studies that included collectivism measured the construct at a national level. Following Triandis’ (1995) recommendation, this study used collectivism as a construct that varies at an individual level, which also contributes greatly to the sport management literature. From a practical standpoint, this study suggests managers in sport organizations on what factors they need to focus on to retain their valuable employees and enable them to exert their best effort into work. The managers should develop and strengthen the support system within the organization in order to increase sport instructors’ level of psychological attachment to the organization. In addition, by understanding sport instructors’ collectivistic orientations, the managers will be able to administer different strategies to motivate them and manage a diverse workforce.
The current study has several limitations. First of all, convenient sampling method was utilized for data collection. In addition, the response rate was very low at 14%. Low response rate may be due to the fact the questionnaire was delivered through email, and it is possible that many of them were delivered to junk mail box. It is also possible that some people did not respond to the research invitation simply because they do not work as a sport instructor. Having certification does not necessarily mean that those people work as sport instructors. Yet, low response rate still poses generalizability issues. Both use of convenience sampling technique and low response rate limit the generalizability of the study greatly. Therefore, the results of the study may not be generalized beyond the study group. Secondly, this study did not take sport instructors’ work setting into a consideration. All the participants worked as sport instructors. However, whether they are working at fitness clubs, schools, hospitals, and/or military were not considered in this study. As it is possible that the work setting plays an important role in the relationships among the constructs included in the study, the results of the study should be interpreted with caution.
As such, future studies should investigate the applicability of the proposed relationships in various work settings. In fact, it will be beneficial if the results could be compared based on different work settings for sport instructors, such as schools, hospitals, and military. In addition, the proposed relationships should be replicated in various job positions in the domain of sport management. Furthermore, future studies should include more work-related outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, performance, etc.) that are directly associated with the performance of the organization. Finally, the impact of other cultural dimensions, such as power distance and uncertainty avoidance, on work attitudes and behaviors should be studied as these dimensions may also play an important role in the relationships among work-related constructs.
The present study investigated the relationships among perceived support, collectivism, affective commitment, work effort, intention to leave among sport instructors in the United States. This study supported that three factors of support (i.e., coworker support, supervisor support, and organizational support) and individuals’ collectivistic orientation are good predictors of affective commitment. Moreover, affective commitment predicted the level of work effort and sport instructors’ intention to leave the organization. The results of the study greatly contribute to the existing body of knowledge in the field of sport management literature, and it suggests guidelines to sport managers on how to retain valuable sport instructors and help them exert the best work effort possible.
Hong, H. (2015). Structural relationships among employment relationship characteristics, organizational effectiveness and organizational citizenship behavior in fitness center employee. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from National Assembly Library database. (KDMT1201515753), 2015, Structural relationships among employment relationship characteristics, organizational effectiveness and organizational citizenship behavior in fitness center employee. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from National Assembly Library database. (KDMT1201515753)
