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identication with, involvement in, and emotional attachment to the organi-zation.

Since the development of adequate instruments for measuring affective

commitment (Mowdy, Steers, & Porter, 1979; Allen & Meyer, 1990) numer-ous studies have examined both its antecedents, correlates, and conse-quences. Meta-analyses of these studies suggest that among the antecedentvariables considered, certain task characteristics (like skill variety, auton-omy), perceived organizational support, the various forms of organizational justice (i.e., distributive, procedural, and interactional), and transformationalleadership exhibit the strongest positive relations to affective commitment.For another group of variables, often classied as correlates of commitment(like job satisfaction, job involvement), relatively strong positive correlations

have been established as well. Finally, with regard to the consequences of commitment, not only turnover and withdrawal cognitions have been foundto correlate negatively with affective commitment, but also measures of absenteeism. In-role performance and organizational citizenship behavior, onthe other hand, show positive, albeit weak, associations with commitment(see Mathieu & Zajac, 1990; Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky,2002).

In recent years, the set of consequences of commitment has been ex-panded by indicators of job strain and well-being. Meyer and Herscovitch

(2001) substantiated the claim of corresponding relations with the strongemotions which, in their view, constitute the core of affective commitment.These positive emotions are expected to exert a direct inuence on a widerange of measures of strain and well-being because the strain measuresthemselves have strong emotional roots (see Warr, 1990). Meyer et al. (2002)provided the rst empirical evidence in favor of this assumption. On the basisof ve independent samples, their meta-analysis revealed a statisticallysignicant estimate of the true correlation of .21 between affective com-mitment and various indicators of strain. In consideration of the rather small

database underlying this meta-analytic nding, Meyer et al. (2002) havestressed the need of paying more attention to the strain consequences of commitment in future research.

TWO THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

In addition to these direct inuences, two theoretical perspectives have

ascribed to commitment the function of moderating the relation betweenwork-related stress and strain and well-being at work. Although both per-spectives refer to the relationship between work-related stress and experi-enced strain and health outcomes, they posit opposite directions of the

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moderating effect of affective commitment. According to the rst view,presented by Mathieu and Zajac (1990), highly committed employees expe-rience the adverse effects of work stress more than less committed employ-

ees. The former should suffer more from stressors because of their highinvestment in and identication with the organization. Thus, commitmentshould increase the vulnerability of employees to the psychological threatposed by high work stressors (see Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). On the otherhand, because of their greater detachment from the organization, employeeswith a weaker affective commitment are expected to experience stress as lessthreatening.

By way of contrast, the second view holds that organizational commit-ment buffers the effects of work stress on strain and health outcomes. This

hypothesis has its roots in the widely shared notion of affective commitmentas a psychological bond or link of the individual to the organization (Meyer& Herscovitch, 2001). This bond gives employees a sense of stability,security, and belonging that makes them more resistant to any kinds of work stressors. Thus, in this view, organizational commitment is hypothesized tobe a protective resource (Kobasa, 1982). In a social psychology context,Antonovsky (1979) argues in a similar vein that organizational commitmentis a crucial resource that enables individuals to resist the effects of stressfulevents in their environment. Accordingly, an increase in this resource should

reduce, not enhance the adverse effects of those events. Commitment wouldthen operate similarly to other hypothesized moderators of the stress-strainrelationship as social support (Cohen & Wills, 1985) or control at work (Karasek, 1979; Wall, Jackson, Mullarkey, & Parker, 1996).

Empirical tests of these competing hypotheses are quite rare. Only twosuch studies were found. The rst one was conducted by Begley and Czajka(1993) during adverse organizational changes (closing units, tightening bud-gets) in a hospital. A measure of work stress that indicated the extent towhich participants felt stressed by these changes was analyzed in combina-

tion with Mowdy et al.s (1979) measure of affective commitment to predicta three-outcome composite of job displeasure (job dissatisfaction, intent toquit, work-related irritation). Results of hierarchical moderated regressionanalyses revealed signicant main effects of stress and commitment on jobdispleasure, with a positive sign for stress and a negative one for commit-ment. In addition, a signicant effect for the interaction between stress andcommitment did emerge, the form of which clearly conrmed the stress-buffering function of commitment. Stress increased job displeasure more forthose low in commitment.

The second study was conducted by Siu (2002) among white-collar andblue-collar workers in Hong Kong, and blue-collar workers in China. In allthree samples, the measure of stress combined diverse sources of work-related stress like long working hours, conicting job tasks, lack of social

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support, underutilization of skills, and incompatible home/work demands.The outcome variables considered included both job satisfaction and indica-tors of mental and physical well-being. As in Begley and Czajkas (1993)

study, the affective commitment to the organization was measured with theinstrument designed by Mowdy et al. (1979). In addition to the expected maineffects of work stress on all indicators of strain, results of hierarchicalregression analyses showed that commitment was signicantly and positivelyrelated to job satisfaction, and to mental and physical well-being in HongKong white-collar and China blue-collar workers. In the Hong Kong blue-collar sample, only job satisfaction was subjected to a similar main effect of commitment. Furthermore, the results provided at least partial support to thenotion of commitment as stress buffer. Commitment was found to interact

signicantly with work stress to determine job satisfaction in the Hong Kongwhite-collar sample and physical well-being among Hong Kong white-collarand blue-collar workers.

Whereas the ndings of both studies are consistent with the hypothesisthat affective commitment serves to buffer the effects of stress and incon-sistent with the hypothesis of a sensitizing action, the evidence thus far fallsshort of being fully convincing. First, the database is rather small, so that theissue of generalizability across geographic regions (and cultures) and types of organizations is quite unclear; the claim of a general role of commitment as

a buffer for the consequences of work-related stress needs far more studies(Meyer et al., 2002). Second, generalizability across methodological varia-tions is unclear. For example, in Begley and Czajkas (1993) study a veryspecic measure of work stress was used, and in both studies affectivecommitment was assessed by means of the same instrument. To establish thehypothesis on the construct level, more studies are needed which demonstrateinvariance of the ndings across different methods.

THE CURRENT STUDY

The purpose of the present study was to broaden the database for thenotion that affective commitment acts as a buffer for the consequences of work-related stress. We used a measure of quantitative and qualitativeworkload, which covered stressors which are well established in the organi-zational stress literature (Kahn & Byosiere, 1992). Furthermore, the studyextended the spectrum of potential strain outcomes that might be sensitive for

the moderating effects of commitment. Specically, in addition to job satis-faction the burnout dimensions of emotional exhaustion and depersonaliza-tion were included as outcome variables. These dimensions are considered ascore symptoms of burnout (Green, Walkey, & Taylor, 1991). Whereas

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burnout was initially assumed to result from emotionally charged interactionsin human service professions, such as social work, health care, and teaching,there is now sufcient empirical evidence of burnout outside the human

services (see Bakker, Demerouti, Taris, Schaufeli, & Schreurs, 2003). Fi-nally, in the current study a different measure of affective commitment wasapplied.

Within this conceptual framework, two hypotheses were tested.

Hypothesis 1: In line with the theoretical reasoning of Meyer andHerscovitch (2001), affective commitment was expected to exert a directbenecial inuence on all strain outcomes considered.

Hypothesis 2: Besides this main effect, affective commitment was alsoexpected to exert a moderating effect on the relationship between work stress and strain which, in view of the few ndings summarized above,should correspond with the stress buffering function of commitment.

METHODS

Participants and Procedure

Participants were staff members of a municipal administration in amiddle-sized city in Germany. A total of 506 staff members completed aquestionnaire (response rate 78%) that included the scales described below.The questionnaire was administered in small groups of about 15 personsduring normal working hours. The mean age of the sample was 43.2 years(SD 9.6). Participants average tenure in their present positions was 17.7years (SD 11), and 54.5% were women. The majority (70%) worked on afull-time basis.

Measures

Main Predictor Variables

Work stress. A measure of work stress was derived by combining theitems of the quantitative workload (four items) and qualitative workload (ve

items) subscales of a job analysis instrument developed by Prumper,Hartmannsgruber, and Frese (1995). The items for measuring quantitativeworkload address aspects like time pressure and excessive amount of work, whereas the items of the qualitative workload scale consist of state-

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ments referring to high demands on concentration and high complexity of tasks. Each item asks respondents to indicate the extent to which therespective statement applies to ones own job on a ve-point scale ranging

from 1 (totally incorrect ) to 5 (totally correct ). A summary measure of work stress was dened as the mean of the item scores. The internal consistency(Cronbachs alpha) of the stress measure was .85 for the present sample.

Organizational commitment. For the measurement of organizationalcommitment, Allen and Meyers (1990) 8-item affective commitment scalewas used in a German translation by Schmidt, Hollmann, and Sodenkamp(1998). This scale reects the affective attachment to and involvement in theorganization and is highly correlated with Mowdy et al.s (1979) commit-ment measure (see Allen & Meyer, 1990). The scale has a seven-point

response range (strongly disagree to strongly agree), and a total scorewas obtained by averaging the item scores. Typical items are, for example, Ireally feel as if this organizations problems are my own, and I would bevery happy to spend the rest of my career with this organization. Theinternal consistency (Cronbachs alpha) of the resulting commitment measurewas .86.

Outcome Measures

Burnout. The two burnout dimensions of emotional exhaustion (nineitems), and depersonalization (ve items) were measured by the MaslachBurnout Inventory (Maslach & Jackson, 1981, 1986) in a German translationby Bussing and Perrar (1992). Emotional exhaustion refers to feelings of being overextended and drained by the emotional demands of ones work.Depersonalization is characterized by a detached, callous, indifferent, andcynical attitude toward other persons one has to interact with at work.

Exemplary items are I feel emotionally drained from my work (exhaustion)and I have become more callous toward people since I took this job(depersonalization). Each item is scored on a seven-point intensity ratingscale ranging from 1 ( not at all ) to 7 (very strong ). The internal consistencyof the exhaustion scale was a .90, that of the depersonalization scale wasa .76.

Job satisfaction. Overall job satisfaction was assessed by means of aseven-item scale using Kunins (1955) faces. The items address the satisfac-tion with various job facets, namely colleagues, supervision, task content,

physical working conditions, organization and management, opportunitiesfor professional development, and pay. The instrument was developed byNeuberger and Allerbeck (1978) who also give a description of its psycho-metric properties. A measure of overall job satisfaction that covers a seven-



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point range was obtained by means of averaging the item scores. The internalconsistency of this measure was .75.

Statistical Analyses

The main and interaction effects of work stress and organizationalcommitment were examined by means of hierarchical moderated regressionanalyses performed separately for each strain measure. In the rst step, thebiographical variables (age, gender, tenure, working time) were introduced tocontrol for their potential inuences on the relationships under examination.In the second step, work stress and commitment were jointly added to the

equation to examine their unique main effects. Finally, an interaction termcomputed as the cross-product of work stress and commitment was intro-duced. The test for the interaction effect is based on the variance explainedby the cross-product over and above that accounted for by the main effectsof stress and commitment. In order to eliminate nonessential correlationsbetween the interaction term and its constituent variables, all predictors werestandardized prior to calculating the cross-product term and conducting theanalyses (see Aiken & West, 1991).

RESULTS

Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations

Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of all study variables arepresented in Table 1. Some of the biographical variables were signicantlyrelated to both work stress and the burnout dimension of depersonalization.The association of stress and organizational commitment was only weak andnonsignicant. As expected, work stress was positively correlated with bothdimensions of burnout and negatively related to job satisfaction. Commit-ment was also signicantly correlated with all indicators of strain, but with aninverse pattern of signs. All strain measures were signicantly intercorre-lated. However, all variables of the present study showed lower levels of intercorrelations than their respective scale reliabilities which suggests thatempirically distinct, yet related, constructs were assessed.

Regression Analyses

The results of the hierarchical moderated regression analyses are sum-marized in Table 2. The biographical variables accounted for a statistically

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signicant proportion of variance in both burnout dimensions. The entry of work stress and commitment in Step 2 contributed a highly signicantamount of variance to the prediction of all indicators of strain. In all nalregression equations, both stress and commitment had signicant betaweights, with signs corresponding to expectations. More important, however,

the introduction of the two-way interaction between stress and commitmentin Step 3 added a signicant amount of incremental variance to the predictionof both emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. For both burnout di-mensions, this interaction accounted for an additional proportion of variance

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations of Study Variables

Variable

Scale Intercorrelations

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1. Age 43.19 9.62 2. Gender a 1.45 0.50 .18 ** 3. Organizational

tenure 17.72 10.99 .66 ** .13** 4. Working time b 1.71 0.46 .05 .54 ** .15** 5. Work stress 3.11 0.68 .09 * .01 .12** .06 6. Commitment 4.58 1.29 .07 .05 .08 .06 .05 7. Exhaustion 2.64 1.02 .01 .08 .09 * .13** .56** .22** 8. Depersonalization 2.24 0.92 .12** .23** .02 .23** .27** .20** .53** 9. Job satisfaction 4.74 0.92 .03 .01 .02 .08 .24** .45** .50** .36**

Note. N 506.a Gender (1 female, 2 male). b Working time (1 half-time, 2 full-time).* p .05. ** p .01.

Table 2. Results From Hierarchical Moderated Regression Analyses Predicting EmotionalExhaustion, Depersonalization, and Job Satisfaction

Regression steps

and effect tested

Emotional exhaustion Depersonalization Job satisfaction

R2

R2

R2

Step 1Age .10* .02* .19** .10** .01 .01Gender a .07 .20** .02Organizational tenure .09 .06 .02Working time b .07 .11* .10*

Step 2Work stress .58

**.37

**.26** .11 ** .24** .28**

Commitment .26**

.20** .43**

Step 3Interaction .11

**.02

**.10** .02** .02 .00

R2 .41 .23 .29F 46.46 ** 21.19 ** 28.67 **

Note. N 506.a Gender (1 female, 2 male). b working time (1 half-time, 2 full-time).* p .05. ** p .01.



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found that specic events have an inuence on how people feel at work andthis, in turn, determines job satisfaction (see Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996;Weiss, 2002).

The present results broaden the empirical foundation of both the mainand interaction effects of commitment. Furthermore, they show that botheffects become evident with other outcome measures and other measures of work stress than used in previous studies. Thus, the main and interactioneffects of commitment are not bound to specic indicators of strain and work stressors, but exhibit at least some degree of invariance across methodolog-ical variations. A task of future research will be to map out the scope of validity even more precisely. Finally, going beyond Begley & Czajkas(1993) and Sius (2002) observations, the simple-slope analyses show that

commitment has not only the potential to mitigate the adverse inuences of work stress on strain, but can even (at least in the burnout dimension of depersonalization) eliminate them.

As in previous studies, the current ndings show that work stress is notsignicantly related to commitment (see Begley & Czajka, 1993; Siu, 2002).This observation is counterintuitive at rst glance and has important theo-retical implications for an understanding of the mechanisms which underliethe observed buffering effect of commitment. The absence of a correlationbetween work stress and commitment implies that highly committed employ-

ees do not cope with stressors by actively and directly limiting their exposureto them. Such active and direct coping efforts should become manifest in asignicant negative correlation between work stress and commitment. It is,therefore, more likely that the buffering effect of commitment is because of appraisal processes which inuence individuals responses to work stress (seeLazarus & Folkman, 1984). As result of these appraisal processes, highlycommitted employees may experience stress as less threatening and disturb-ing because commitment gives them a sense of stability, security, andbelonging (see Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001).

Limitations

The present study is, of course, not without limitations that need to beconsidered. First, the cross-sectional design does not allow rm conclusionsabout the direction of causality. Therefore, the current ndings await furtherempirical examination in longitudinal studies. Second, since both the predic-

tor and criterion variables were assessed by self-reports, the results might becontaminated by common method variance or a self-report bias (Podsakoff,MacKenzie, Podsakoff, & Lee, 2003). However, the impact of a self-reportbias or common method variance would mainly be reected in inated main

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effects which, in turn, impair the chances of detecting signicant interactioneffects (Aiken & West, 1991). This fact gives the interactions between work stress and affective commitment additional weight. Nevertheless, future

research could gain in methodological clearness and practical signicance byconsidering more objective criterion measures which, like absenteeism orwork performance, for example, are largely immune against the chroniccommon method inuences of self-report measures.

Furthermore, it might be argued that the incremental variance explainedby the interaction terms is rather low. However, Evans (1985) concluded thatmoderator effects are so difcult to detect that even those explaining as littleas one percent of the total variance should be considered important. More-over, Champoux and Peters (1987) reviewed much of the relevant literature

and reported that eld study interactions typically account for about 13% of the variance (see also McClelland & Judd, 1993). Thus, the additionalamount of variance explained by the interaction in the current study (2% ineach dimension of burnout) is not only statistically signicant but alsotheoretically and practically relevant.

Finally, although the present study adds to the small evidence base of previous studies, it was conducted with a small sample consisting of only onekind of job holders. Clearly, future research should study larger samplescovering a wider range of jobs and should examine whether ndings gener-

alize across different work settings and professions (see Donald et al., 2005).

Implications

From a theoretical perspective, the present ndings reveal largely ne-glected functions of organizational commitment as a protective resourcewhich has the potential to reduce strain directly and by way of buffering the

effects of work-related stress. Thus, a new facet can be added to the existingknowledge on commitment as an important antecedent of other work-relatedvariables (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990). From a practical perspective, the ndingsreveal a further starting point for interventions which aim at the preventionor reduction of strain at work. Creating work environments in a way thatemployees feel affectively committed to their organization is a promisingoption for practitioners which can be used in analogy to the well-establishedstress buffers of social support (Cohen & Wills, 1985) and control at work (Wall et al., 1996).

With respect to the enhancement of affective commitment of employees,the most effective antecedents of commitment may help to derive specicmeasures. Consequently, perceived organizational support can be assumed tohave the strongest benecial impact on the development of employees

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affective commitment to their organization. This conclusion is in accord withEisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, and Sowas (1986) argument that orga-nizations that want affectively committed employees must demonstrate their

own commitment by providing a supportive work environment. In line withthis argument, Donald et al. (2005) have recently demonstrated among a largesample of a broad range of occupations that commitment from the organi-zation to the employee is a signicant predictor of individual work perfor-mance. Therefore, organizations and managers interested in promoting com-mitment and performance of their employees can nd guidance in thegrowing organizational support literature.

Perceived organizational support has been found to be affected by avariety of human resource management policies and practices which contrib-

ute to the employees experiences of being treated in a fair and solicitous wayby the organization (see overview by Eisenberger, Cummings, Armeli, &Lynch, 1997). These practices include, for example, family-oriented actions,developmental training and promotion plans, procedural justice in perfor-mance appraisal decisions, or fair compensation and distribution of benets.In addition, managers themselves have many opportunities to strengthenthose experiences in their day-to-day interactions with their employees. Asrecently shown (Eisenberger, Stinglhamber, Vandenberghe, Sucharski, &Rhoades, 2002), perceived supervisor support is a signicant determinant of

organizational support.The ndings of the current study suggest that investments in strength-

ening employees affective commitment to their organization are not limitedto that aim but, at the same time, have both direct and indirect effects onemployees experienced strain and well-being at work. In conclusion, theaffective commitment of employees offers a new and promising avenue of stress management that merits further attention in both research and practice.

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