2020 Volume 9 Issue 1 Pages 18-26
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationships between organizational commitment, individual characteristics, and group cohesiveness among members of community organizations for the elderly which were depended on voluntary participation of members. Active organizational commitment is one of elements that can improve the activity of the organizations.
Methods: A collective survey using an anonymized questionnaire was completed by participants in community organizations that cater to the elderly. The questionnaire assessed respondents’ personal attributes, characteristics of their participation in the organization, task cohesiveness, group cohesiveness, and organizational commitment. Univariate analysis and multiple logistic regression analyses were used for statistical analysis.
Results: The effective response rate was 88.0% (n=183). A majority of respondents were female (80.3%), aged over 75 years (54.6%), and 35.7% were leaders who were the member of the community organizations and running their organizations. Submeasures of organizational commitment—emotional, group identification, and normative commitment—were all related to age. Furthermore, affective commitments were associated with task cohesiveness, normative commitments with member cohesiveness, and group-identification commitments with task and member cohesiveness. In addition, group identification was significantly higher for leaders than for members.
Conclusion: Maintaining emotional commitment is important for increasing organizational commitment among members of community organizations for the elderly. Moreover, it is important to support operations that involve not only leaders but also regular members.
