Different Individual-Organization Attachments: Exploring Their Meanings between Managers

This work investigated Organizational Commitment based on the three component model - affective, normative and continuance - introduced by Meyer and Allen (1991) and two constructs - Organizational Entrenchment and Consent. The objective was analysis of the meaning attributed by managers to three links, exploring their distinct elements. The research was carried out through the use of qualitative analysis of interviews with 20 managers. The interview script investigated personal data and the concepts attributed to each link. Data was submitted to content analysis. Results highlighted that managers have very different conceptual structures for the three constructs. Commitment was considered a positive tie, indicating engagement and motivation. In a different way, entrenchment was related to fear of changing organizations, in that changing jobs risks existing stability. Entrenchment turned out to be an instrumental tie that imprisons the subject and leads to development of a relationship of dependency and accommodation. Consent fit better into the idea of submission to power and authority relationships, and being unsatisfied with work and the organization. In conclusion, the three links are different in conceptual terms and indicate distinctive influence on relationships between individuals and organizations.