Workplace commitment as an exchange of commitments : exploring public managers' practices to secure employees' commitment

Résumé 0

While discussion of workplace commitment is not quite new, the (public) Management, HR and Organization behavior literature has largely been about commitment on the employee side. Less so on how organizations express their commitment to their employees, and particularly on the role public managers therein. In line with the exchange theory, workplace commitment may be conceive as an exchange of commitments: a perspective rarely adopted in the literature. Using a qualitative methodology, this study aims to dive into the very practices set up by public sector managers to secure their collaborators' loyalty. The 8 managers and 11 employees theoretically sampled, work within hybrid organizations (public corporations, education, health sector etc.), where the culture combines public and private management values and practices. Our analyses of the digitally recorded and transcribed interviews provide insights on organizations' commitment to their employees, thus complementing previous scholarship on organizational support, leader support and psychological contracts, in relation to workplace commitment. Specifically, this work highlights the participation of public managers in the very mechanism of organizations' commitment to their employees, by identifying key " bundles " of employer' commitment practices.