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Keywords Job commitment, Employees, Voluntary sector
Abstract The voluntary and not-for-profit sector accounts for an important and growing proportion of employment in the UK though it remains highly under-researched. Rates of pay are often relatively low, necessitating forms of human resource management that emphasise non-financial means of eliciting employee motivation and commitment. This paper examines HRM in a major charity that provides services to adults with learning disabilities. It finds that the intrinsic commitment to the job held by employees - which the organisation is trying to tap - can form a competing commitment towards different entities of the organisation. This competing commitment is difficult to reconcile to organizational objectives because it reflects ambivalences in existing power structures and group dynamics. The results have wider relevance to the management of employee commitment in other service sectors.
Introduction
Securing the commitment of employees to their organisation is in some respects the "holy grail" of human resource management (HRM), at least in its "softer" guises (Guest, 1987; Storey, 1992). This may be pursued in a number of ways, including through team-working techniques, performance appraisals oriented to employee development, highly developed bi-lateral communication processes, employee stock ownership, a commitment to employment security, and forms of union-management "partnership" (Walton, 1985, pp. 48-9). The underlying principle is often mutuality - in terms of goals, influence, respect, responsibility, rewards - with the desired outcome of better employee development and performance (Walton, 1985, p. 64). In this view, workers who feel that the organisation is committed to them are likely to have a positive perception of HRM practices and hence be committed to the organisation (Eisenberger et al., 1990; Meyer and Smith, 2000).
In some ways the voluntary and not-for-profit (NFP) sector is an ideal test-bed for high-commitment management practices because of the strong sense of altruistic mission that can, potentially, underpin mutuality and participatory management styles. Management structures in NFP organisations tend to be flatter and more informal, and leadership may be more democratic than in commercial firms and the public sector (Markham et al., 2001). Conversely, the reality of tight resource constraints and environmental uncertainty can introduce tensions in the employment relationship such that job satisfaction and commitment are not translated to commitment to the organisation, particularly as many...