Abstract
To reassess and enhance our understanding of employee commitments in contemporary organizations, we conducted a mixed‐method study. In open‐ended surveys, we asked employees (N = 712) to explain why they are committed to various work‐related targets (organization, coworker, organizational goal, and occupation). We content analyzed the responses and derived 15 distinct explanations for those commitments. We then compared these explanations to extant commitment models and examined how explanations varied across commitment targets. Finally, we examined the relationship between these explanations and commitment strength. Our findings indicate that many factors in extant commitment models are still relevant (e.g., Social Exchange), but other aspects of those models were not mentioned by participants (e.g., competition) or mentioned very infrequently (e.g., No Choice). Perhaps most importantly, some current explanations (e.g., Altruism) are not represented in extant models. In addition, some explanations were provided more or less often for different commitment targets. For example, Social Exchange was provided more frequently for coworker commitment but less frequently than expected by chance for organizational goal commitment. Finally, explanations differentially related to commitment strength, with stronger commitment associated with Social Exchange than with Financial Exchange. The implications of these findings for theory and human resource management practice are discussed.