Commitment to team goals and the organization: test of an integrative model

Based on a review of the team effectiveness and commitment literatures, we developed a model of commitment to team goals and to the organization. We identified promotion of team goals by the supervisor, collective efficacy, task-related team cohesion, and interpersonal team cohesion as antecedents of commitment to team goals; and expected these antecedents to be indirectly related to employees’ affective organizational commitment through commitment to team goals. We further predicted that task interdependence would negatively moderate the relationship between promotion of team goals and commitment to team goals and indirectly affective organizational commitment. Using a sample of 608 employees from four public organizations in the province of Quebec, Canada, structural equations modeling analyses through Mplus 7.31 (Muthén & Muthén, 2010) indicated that promotion of team goals, collective efficacy, task-related team cohesion, and interpersonal team cohesion were positively related to commitment to team goals; and the latter acted as a mediator between these antecedents and affective organizational commitment. Moreover, the relationship between promotion of team goals and commitment to team goals and indirectly affective organizational commitment was stronger when employees’ task interdependence was lower. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on commitment to team goals and the organization.