Employee Loyalty as Adherence to Shared Moral Values

摘要

Although employee loyalty is often discussed as an important objective of firms, there seems to be little agreement about how to define or measure it. Many recent definitions do not acknowledge loyalty's moral elements, which had been a central part of early theoretical work in both management and philosophy. The objectives of the present article are: (1) to restore moral elements in a new conceptualization of loyalty, (2) to clarify the distinctions between loyalty and commitment, and (3) to draw connections between loyalty and current research in business ethics. Practical implications of the new perspective are discussed and a proposed scale for measuring loyalty is advanced.