Is affective commitment always good? A look at within-person effects on needs satisfaction and emotional exhaustion

摘要

Employees' affective commitment and well-being are intertwined, but the underlying mechanisms remain unknown, particularly among long-tenured employees. This study explored such mechanisms at both between- and within-individual levels. Drawing upon self-determination theory, we considered the changes in basic need satisfactions key mechanisms linking affective organizational commitment (AOC) to emotional exhaustion. To test a latent growth model, we collected data from 284 tenured employees in three waves over six months during an economic boom. We found that AOC and competence need satisfaction remained stable, autonomy and relatedness need satisfactions increased, and emotional exhaustion decreased. Moreover, the higher the between-individual AOC, the lower the growth rate of within-individual autonomy and relatedness need satisfactions. In turn, a lower growth in autonomy need satisfaction was related to a weaker decline in emotional exhaustion, whereas a lower growth in relatedness need satisfaction was related to a stronger decline in emotional exhaustion. We discuss how the dynamic need satisfactions enrich our understanding of the relation between AOC and change in emotional exhaustion among tenured employees.