Commitment to work and commitment to an organization are essentially two different concepts, although they are related to one another. Studies of job satisfaction and job involvement have in the past tended to focus primarily on jobs, ignoring the organizations to which the employees belong. However, recent concerns have been more organization-orientated, with increasing interest in organizational commitment as the secret of raising productivity. More and more employees have been encouraged to commit through an intensive socialization process, which now plays a key role in the formation of an integrated management system, alongside the development of an internal labour market and articulation of a unique company philosophy.

As the interest in commitment has increased, so too has the amount of research. Various discoveries have been made. First, the concept was split into sub-categories, usually dichotomic: a typical distinction is attitudinal commitment versus calculative commitment, with the former playing a larger part in employee commitment. Second, although the determinants used for organizational commitment tended to be wide-ranging (for example, personal and job characteristics, organizational characteristics, labour market conditions and the organizational framework of human resource management), employee internalization, identification, compliance, and the like were found to be closely related to the concept. Third, organizational commitment was found to influence employees' withdrawal behaviours: although it was found in past research not to have any positive impact on organizational performance and labour productivity, it did impact on employees' intentions to search for other jobs.

Japanese management, for example, continues to pay great attention to promoting employees' commitment to their organizations, especially in the case of young newcomers, through orientation, on-the-job training, small group activities and big brother and sister groups.

The concept of organizational commitment has grown in range over the years, becoming increasingly abstract. Organizational commitment was originally intended as a tool with which to manage human resources within a hierarchical organizational structure with a large number of employees. Such organizations are now decreasing in number, with the unit of activities becoming smaller. However, due to its potential for increasing productivity, whatever their form, strategies to encourage commitment will continue to be important in managing human resources in the future.

Yoko Sano