A model of commitment to college student clubs: From a semi-organizational perspective

Abstract

Given that college student clubs have traits characteristic of both formal organizations and informal groups (Arai, 2004), the present study defined these clubs as "semi-organizations," and proposed a psychological model of commitment of members. Based on the three-dimensional organizational commitment model (Allen & Meyer, 1990), a "student club commitment scale" was constructed, which was administered to 205 college students who had memberships within a club. The data indicated that commitment to clubs subsumes three dimensions: affective, normative, and group-identification commitment. Furthermore, we investigated the antecedents for each commitment dimensions, with special emphasis on "group formality", a variable indicating the degree to which a certain club resembles a formal group. As a result, we discovered that affective commitment was predicted by social and task cohesions, and also, there was a marginally significant effect of the interaction between group formality and task cohesion. With regard to normative commitment and group identification commitment, group formality and social cohesion were their significant predictors.