Organizational Commitment Profiles and Employee Well-Being: Exploratory and Confirmatory Latent Profile Analyses

Abstract Organizational commitment scholars generally agree that there are three components of organizational commitment: affective commitment (emotional attachment to one’s organization), normative commitment (sense of loyalty or obligation to remain in an organization), and continuance commitment (awareness of the cost of leaving an organization or perceived lack of alternatives). Notably, these components of commitment are not mutually exclusive, and various combinations of organizational commitment components have been uncovered in the form of latent profiles. Although the nomological network of the individual organizational commitment components has been studied extensively, less is known about the nomological network of organizational commitment profiles. In two samples, we show the cross-sample consistency of organizational commitment profiles and examined how employees’ organizational commitment profiles impact their job stress, workplace anxiety, and work interference with family. Conducting an exploratory latent profile analysis using Sample 1 ( N = 512), this study detected four previously reported profiles, three of which were replicated in a confirmatory latent profile analysis using Sample 2 ( N = 342). In testing the hypotheses, we found that, in general, profiles high in affective commitment are associated with the lowest levels of harmful outcomes when compared to profiles high in continuance and normative commitment but low in affective commitment and profiles with low affective, normative, and continuance commitment. The implications of these results on theory, practice, and future directions are also addressed.