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The Multi-Targeted Nature of Affective Commitment in the Workplace
Workplace commitment, defined as a force binding an individual to a course of action of relevance to one or more targets, can be expressed through three mindsets.

Affective commitment, one of three mindsets of workplace commitment, remains the most widely investigated form of commitment, and the one sharing the most consistently positive associations with work-related constructs, such as job satisfaction, job performance, or turnover intentions.

As opposed to looking at employees’ Workplace Affective Commitment (WAC) as one entity, Reichers (1985) suggested that employees may commit differently to different work-related entities, or targets (i.e., the organization, supervisor, workgroup, career planning, career advancement, customers, profession and tasks), due to the affiliative nature of organizations. The concept of WAC being multi-targeted was brought forward because it provided a more realistic perspective of what employees’ experience in their day to day lives at the workplace, potentially having to face conflicting commitments towards various targets. In addition, employees’ global levels of commitment to their work-life (global levels of WAC across all eight targets), has been viewed as a ninth target.

Empirical research results have supported the importance of considering WAC directed at multiple targets not only as being generalizable to a whole sample, but in relation to qualitatively distinct subpopulations (or profiles) of employees characterized by different configurations of WAC directed at each of the nine targets in the workplace (i.e., the organization, supervisor, workgroup, etc.). Taking into account the notion of WAC through this perspective aids in understanding the typical combinations of WAC experienced by employees in the workplace.