Assessing generational differences in organizational commitment in the context of Facebook

Abstract

The existence of generational differences in workplace attitudes has been given much attention both in popular and academic literature. This topic is especially of importance now that Millennials are slowly taking up most of the workplace. Among the many assumptions made regarding Millennial workplace attitudes, having low organizational commitment is one of the most prominent. This is so because its possible implications on organizational development is crucial given that losing trained employees is a waste of invested resources. However, despite these perceived effects, the existence of generational differences in organizational commitment remains debated-upon. This emphasizes the need to further scholarly investigation on the said matter-more so now that social media is embedded into modern life and studies on organizational commitment and generations fail to consider this pivotal aspect. With the objective of determining the existence of generational differences in organizational commitment, a survey questionnaire based on Jaros' (2007) revision of Meyer & Allen's Organizational Commitment Questionnaire was administered to 100 respondents from four different organizations. Afterwards, the role of Facebook on the statistical results was assessed by conducting four interviews exploring each generation's perceptions and attitudes regarding social media, organizational commitment, and work-related social media use. The ANOVA results show that there are no generational differences in organizational commitment despite the respondents' perception of it. Furthermore, respondents report that work-related Facebook use has advantageous effects on organizational commitment. However, this does not ensure their intention to stay as organizational commitment is found to be linked with individual personalities. Thus, the effectiveness of tapping into social media factors and/or IRL (In Real Life) factors to influence employees' organizational commitment may depend on the factors' compatibility with their personality. Implications and recommendations are given based on these results.