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Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction and
organizational citizenship
behavior (OCB)
933
Does team commitment make a difference in
self-directed teams? Received October 2007
Revised March 2008
David A. Foote and Thomas Li-Ping Tang Accepted March 2008

Department of Management and Marketing,

Jennings A. Jones College of Business, Middle Tennessee State University,
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a model in which team commitment in
self-directed teams moderates the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational citizenship
behavior (OCB).
Design/methodology/approach – Survey questionnaires measuring team commitment, OCB, and
job satisfaction were administered to 242 full-time employees who were involved in self-directed teams
at three geographically diverse manufacturing facilities. After carefully testing the psychometric
properties of the scales, hierarchical multiple regression was used to test hypotheses.
Findings – The relationship between job satisfaction and OCB was shown to be significant, as was
the relationship between team commitment and OCB. Most importantly, the relationship between job
satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior was moderated by team commitment, such that
the relationship was stronger when team commitment was high.
Research limitations/implications – Due to heightened salience of self-directed team functioning
in our sample, generalization of results may be limited.
Practical implications – The findings indicate that the usefulness of self-directed work teams may
be limited in situations where employees lack team commitment. Besides implementing self-directed
teams and assigning performance goals, researchers and practitioners need to identify efforts that
work toward increasing commitment of team members, thereby increasing organizational citizenship
behavior in the organization.
Originality/value – It is believed that this research makes a significant contribution to
understanding the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior, a
relationship that has long been known but not well defined. Moreover, the paper develops what
appears to be a valid and reliable measure of team commitment, based on goodness of fit using
cross-validation, confirmatory factor analysis, and reliability tests.
Keywords Team working, Job satisfaction, Organizational behaviour
Paper type Research paper

This study investigates the extent to which team commitment moderates the
relationship between job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)
among members of self-directed teams in an organization. For the last several decades, Management Decision
Vol. 46 No. 6, 2008
pp. 933-947
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
The authors are grateful to Nancy Johnson, Michelle Duffy, and anonymous reviewers for their 0025-1747
helpful comments on earlier versions of this work. DOI 10.1108/00251740810882680
MD organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has become a major construct in the fields of
46,6 the psychology and management and received a great deal of attention in the literature
(Bateman and Organ, 1983; Bergeron, 2007; Bolino et al., 2002; LePine et al., 2002;
Niehoff and Moorman, 1993; Organ, 1988; Organ and Ryan, 1995; Smith et al., 1983;
Podsakoff et al., 2000; Tang et al., 2008). There are almost 30 different forms of OCB.
Organizational citizenship behavior “represents individual behavior that is
934 discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and
in the aggregate promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organization”
(Organ, 1988, p. 4). These behaviors “lubricate the social machinery of the
organization”, “provide the flexibility needed to work through many unforeseen
contingencies”, and help employees in an organization “cope with the otherwise
awesome condition of interdependence on each other” (Smith et al., 1983, p. 654).
More recently, the definition of OCB has been expanded to include not only the
categories of altruism (helping behaviors aimed directly at specific persons) and
generalized compliance (conscientious performance for the good of the organization) but
also the categories of courtesy, sportsmanship, and civic virtue (Podsakoff et al., 2000).
Many researchers examine five categories of contextual performance: volunteering for
activities beyond a person’s formal job expectations; persistence of enthusiasm; assistance
to others; following rules and procedures; and openly espousing and defending
organization objectives (Organ, 1997) as related to personality variables, motivational
basis, organizational support (e.g. Borman et al., 2001; Organ, 1990), social exchange
(Konovsky and Pugh, 1994), job satisfaction (Bateman and Organ, 1983; Koys, 2001), and
social capital (Bolino et al., 2002). Additionally, Lam et al. (1999) provided important
insight regarding perceived boundaries between in-role and extra-role behavior, further
clarifying what behaviors constitute organizational citizenship behavior. Organizational
citizenship behavior continues to be of substantial interest to researchers and
practitioners (LePine et al., 2002).
Concurrently, the use of work teams has evolved over time as a popular strategy for
improving employee productivity and efficiency, as well as for enhancing product quality
in the USA and around the world (e.g. Abbott et al., 2006; De Jong et al., 2006; Langfred,
2007; Tang et al., 1987, 1989; Tasa et al., 2007). More than two decades ago, it was
estimated that over 90 percent of the Fortune 500 companies used teams in their
organizations (Lawler and Mohrman, 1985). Recently, Druskat and Wheeler (2004)
estimated that 79 percent of companies in the Fortune 1,000 currently deploy
“empowered,” “self-directed” or “autonomous” teams. In self-directed work teams, team
members are empowered and have the responsibility and autonomy to complete
identifiable pieces of work, and in some cases, even to make and carry out personnel and
staffing decisions, such as hiring and firing team members (Tang and Crofford,
1995/1996). These figures suggest that a large number of organizations have implemented
some form of self-directed teams (Druskat and Wheeler, 2004; Sheridan, 1997).
Despite the proliferation of research on organizational citizenship behavior and the
increasing prevalence of self-directed teams in organizations, remarkably little
research has examined organizational citizenship behavior in the context of these
teams, with some exceptions (e.g. Banuelos et al., 2006; Euwema et al., 2007; Flaherty
and Moss, 2007; Lavelle et al., 2007). The lack of such research represents an important
gap in our understanding of organizational citizenship behavior. Indeed, there may be
important factors inherent in the team environment that influence employees’
involvement in organizational citizenship behavior. Bishop et al. (2005) found support Job satisfaction
for the distinction between team commitment and organizational commitment, and
found that team commitment moderates the relationship between perceived team
support and job performance.
Based on these findings, the present study further advances Bishop et al.’s (2005)
research by focusing on the extent to which team commitment has an impact on the
relationship between job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior. More 935
specifically, the major purpose of this research is to propose a model in which team
commitment in self-directed teams moderates the relationship between job satisfaction
and organizational citizenship behavior (Baron and Kenny, 1986) (Figure 1).
In the next section, we briefly review some of the literature on job satisfaction,
organizational citizenship behavior, commitment in work teams, and social capital, and
state our hypotheses for the study. Following that, we describe the study sample of 242
members of an organization in which self-directed teams are prevalent, as well as the
development of the team commitment scale (TCS), a new scale that we found to have
good psychometric properties and strong reliability. We then discuss our finding that
team commitment in self-directed teams did moderate the relationship between job
satisfaction and OCB for our sample. Finally, we offer some implications for practicing
managers, and suggestions for future research.

Theory and hypotheses

The relationship between job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior
(OCB) has been examined by many researchers and is well established in the literature.
Due to the reciprocal relationship between job satisfaction and OCB (i.e. job satisfaction
( OCB versus OCB ( job satisfaction) (e.g. Koys, 2001; Podsakoff et al., 1993), it is
unlikely that researchers will be able to conclusively determine the direction of
causality between job satisfaction and OCB in the near future. Directional causality
remains uncertain, but ample evidence indicates that such a relationship does exist,
and we can at least conclude that job satisfaction is likely to be highest in organizations
where OCB is prevalent (Podsakoff et al., 1993). Although the relationship between job
satisfaction and OCB has been established in the literature with regard to traditional
work environments, we believe it is important to test that relationship in a self-directed
team environment, adopting a position similar to other researchers (e.g. Allen and
Rush, 1998; Bateman and Organ, 1983; Bishop et al., 2000) by considering job
satisfaction as an antecedent of organizational citizenship behavior. Thus:
H1. Job satisfaction of self-directed team members will be significantly related to
organizational citizenship behavior.

Figure 1.
A model of team
commitment as a
moderator of the job
satisfaction-OCB
relationship in
self-directed teams
MD Team commitment
46,6 Commitment in the context of self-directed work teams has emerged as a topic of
interest in recent years (e.g. Kirkman and Shapiro, 2001; Riketta and Van Dick, 2005).
Employees distinguish between commitment to their work teams (team commitment)
and commitment to their organizations (organizational commitment) (Bishop et al.,
2005). According to field theory, the proximity and salience of environmental elements
936 play a substantial role in determining individuals’ reactions to their environments
(Mathieu and Hamel, 1989). Therefore, one reason employees distinguish between team
commitment and organizational commitment may be that the organization itself seems
more remote, and therefore less salient, than the team in employees’ daily work
experience. In other words, employees may experience more difficulty “connecting”
with the organization than with the team, such that their level of commitment to the
organization is comparatively lower than their commitment to the self-directed work
team (De Lara and Rodriguez, 2007).
Consistent with Bishop and Scott (2000), we believe that self-directed teams, in
which members work closely together on an ongoing basis, thereby developing
meaningful and positive interrelationships, offer a commitment target that is more
salient to employees than is the global organization. Consequently, commitment should
be higher among team members, as should the number of organizational citizenship
behaviors being demonstrated. The relationship between team commitment and
organizational citizenship behavior has been previously shown to be strong and
significant (Bishop and Scott, 2000; Bishop et al., 2000; De Lara and Rodriguez, 2007).
In this study, we investigate this relationship among self-directed team members and
trust that this relationship will hold true for our sample. We present Hypothesis 2 as
follows:
H2. Team commitment in self-directed teams will be positively related to
organizational citizenship behavior.

Social capital and team commitment as a moderator

Social capital in organizations derives from social relations, a dimension of social
structure in which favors and gifts are exchanged among organizational members
(Adler and Kwon, 2002). “The cognitive aspect of social capital is a precursor . . . of
organizational citizenship behavior” (Bolino et al., 2002, p. 516). Thus, the favors and
gifts associated with social capital, which can serve to “promote development for the
collective whole,” (Thomas, 1996, p. 11) may also be considered to be organizational
citizenship behaviors. In the context of self-directed teams, this phenomenon may be
even more pronounced. There is a reciprocal relationship between help provider and
help receiver such that satisfied employees, who help their fellow employees and
colleagues who like, trust, and identify with each other, and who understand one
another (Bolino et al., 2002), are more likely to receive help in return. The amount of
reciprocated help is a monotonic increasing function of the amount of prior help (Wilke
and Lanzetta, 1970). Therefore, it is possible that for some effective members of
self-managing teams, the initiation of organizational citizenship behaviors may cause
the snowball effect and become an upward momentum and vicious circle to improve
employee attitudes, commitment, further helping behavior, and continuous
improvement (Tang et al., 2008).
 According to Adler and Kwon (2002, p. 22), social capital “normally grows and Job satisfaction
develops with use.” That is, through their functional participation in self-directed
teams, members’ interpersonal relationships are strengthened, thereby enhancing the
social capital resident within the team, which may in turn lead to a higher level of
OCBs (De Lara and Rodriguez, 2007). It can be reasonably argued that members who
are more committed to their self-directed teams will “use” the team’s social capital to a
greater extent than do those members who are less committed to the team. 937
Conversely, social capital may depreciate with non-use (Adler and Kwon, 2002).
Members who are not satisfied with their jobs and who are not committed to their
teams are less likely to participate in their teams’ self-direction (functional
participation) and build stronger interpersonal relationships (increase their social
capital). These team members are less committed to the team and are more likely to see
involvement in team-related activities as burdensome and unnecessary.
We argue that inherent in the social capital accruing from greater functional
participation and stronger relationships is an increased propensity to engage in
organizational citizenship behaviors (Bolino et al., 2002). The increased social capital of
team members who are more committed suggests an attendant increase in the number
of organizational citizenship behaviors performed, while the more limited participation
of less committed team members suggests non-use (and thereby depreciation) of social
capital, with the consequence of diminished OCBs. Thus, we posit that the relationship
between job satisfaction and OCB will be positive and stronger for team members who
have strong team commitment than for those who do not. Based on these arguments,
we assert that team commitment moderates the relationship between job satisfaction
and OCB.
H3. The positive relationship between job satisfaction and OCB in self-directed
teams will be moderated by team commitment, such that the relationship will
be stronger when team commitment is high.

Methods
Sample
Survey questionnaires were administered to full-time employees of three
geographically diverse (urban Pennsylvania, rural Kentucky, and coastal
Mississippi) manufacturing plants of an international organization that produces
activated carbon filtration products. A field experiment was conducted among the
three facilities: a coastal Mississippi plant had been using self-directed teams for
several years and two urban plants in which the implementation of self-directed teams
was relatively recent. The company’s concept of self-directed teams involves highly
autonomous teams of employees who are wholly responsible for major manufacturing
processes within the organization. Teams develop their own work schedules and
assignments, are responsible for all aspects of their manufacturing processes and
products, and play a major role in the hiring, selection, promotion, and termination of
members.
Of the 368 total personnel involved in such teams, 242 participated in the study. Of
the respondents, 11 percent were female. Further, 48.3 percent of respondents were
between ages 40-49 and 79.5 percent had either not attended college at all or had not
completed a college education. The population was 90.1 percent White/Caucasian and
8.2 percent Black/African American, with the remaining 1.7 percent a mix of American
MD Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian/Pacific Islander and others. Means, standard deviations,
46,6 and correlations of the major variables are presented in Table I.

Measures
Team commitment. To measure team commitment, we started with the 15-item
Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) (see Mowday et al., 1979) as a model
938 because it is one of the most important and frequently used measures of organizational
commitment in the literature. Following suggestions in the literature (e.g. Bishop et al.,
2000; Reichers, 1985; Scott and Townsend, 1994), we then identified appropriate
specific items of the OCQ and modified these items to fit the context of self-directed
work teams. We developed a new ten-item team commitment scale (TCS) specifically
for this study.
OCB and job satisfaction. We adapted Neihoff and Moorman’s (1993) 20-item,
five-factor OCB scale to develop a short 12-item, four-factor OCB measure: items 1-3
measured Altruism, items 4-6 measured Courtesy, items 7-9 measured
Conscientiousness, and items 10-12 measured Civic Virtue. In the present study,
results of a confirmatory factor analysis revealed a good fit between our 12-item,
four-factor OCB model and our data (x 2 ¼ 127.71, df ¼ 49, p ¼ 0.00, TLI ¼ 0.99,
CFI ¼ 0.99, RMSEA ¼ 0.08). Job satisfaction was measured by using the following
two-item scale:
(1) I am happy with my job.
(2) Most of the time I feel dissatisfied in my job (reverse scored).

Results
We examined the psychometric properties of the team commitment scale (TCS) using
the following process. First, we randomly selected approximately 50 percent of the data
(n ¼ 108) from our whole sample (n ¼ 242) and employed exploratory factor analysis
(EFA), a data-reduction technique that is driven by the data. Results of this exploratory
factor analysis showed that the ten items indicated a single factor, with 60.61 percent of
the total variance explained by that factor. Factor loadings varied between 0.88 and
0.67. The ratio of the sample size to number of items was good (108/10 ¼ 10.8).
Second, we established a ten-item, one-factor model based on results from the first
half of the sample, and employed confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test our model
using the second half of the sample (n ¼ 128). We applied the following criteria to
examine the goodness of fit (e.g. x 2/df , 3.00, TLI . 0.90, CFI . 0.90, and
RMSEA , 0.10). Confirmatory factor analysis allows researchers to test data using
the hypothesized factor structure and examine the goodness of fit; it is theory-driven.
We found a good fit between the ten-item, one-factor model and our data (x 2 ¼ 71.19,
df ¼ 35, p ¼ 0.00, TLI ¼ 0.99, CFI ¼ 1.00, RMSEA ¼ 0.09), leading us to conclude that
the ten-item, one-factor model of the team commitment scale (TCS) (established using
the first half of the sample) survived the cross-validation process (using the second half
of the sample). Third, combining the two half samples and using the whole sample, we
again conducted both an exploratory factor analysis and a confirmatory factor analysis
of this scale and found a good fit between the model and our data (x 2 ¼ 99.71, df ¼ 35,
p ¼ 0.00, TLI ¼ 0.99, CFI ¼ 0.99, RMSEA ¼ 0.09). The Cronbach’s alpha for the team
commitment scale using the whole sample was 0.92 (alpha . 0.70). Individual items
and factor loadings for both the exploratory factor analysis and the confirmatory factor
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1. Sex 0.89 0.31

2. Age 5.51 1.60 0.07
3. Education 2.88 0.89 20.05 2 0.15 *
4. Organization (year) 16.14 9.02 0.01 0.61 * 20.31 *
5. Job Tenure (month) 103.41 96.09 20.08 0.41 * 20.16 * 0.55 *
6. Prior Team Tenure 16.30 48.51 0.01 0.02 0.07 2 0.13 20.01
7. Current Team Tenure 38.15 28.88 20.07 2 0.09 0.14 * 2 0.20 * 20.01 0.16 *
8. Satisfaction 5.50 1.19 20.05 0.00 20.01 0.04 20.01 2 0.11 0.12
9. Team Commitment 5.26 1.08 20.02 2 0.12 0.16 * 2 0.25 * 20.15 * 2 0.04 0.25 * 0.40 *
10. OCB 5.48 0.60 20.08 0.09 0.27 * 2 0.08 20.01 0.14 * 0.04 0.20 * 0.44 *
Notes: n varied between 222 and 236; Sex: Male = 1, Female = 0; Age: 18-24 = 1, 25-29 = 2, 30-34 = 3, 35-39 = 4, 40-44 = 5, 45-49 = 6, 50-54 = 7, 55-59 = 8,
60-64 = 9, 65-69 = 10, 70+ = 11; Education: 8th grade = 1, HS = 2, Some college = 3, 4 year College Degree = 4, Masters Degree = 5, PhD = 6; p , 0.05
Job satisfaction

Mean, standard
deviation, and

variables
correlations of major
939

Table I.
MD analysis of the whole sample are presented in Table II. We concluded that the TCS
46,6 shows good psychometric properties and reliability. Our study suggests that
researchers may have confidence in applying the TCS in future research.
Further, we established a measurement model involving the ten-item team
commitment scale, the 12-item OCB, and the two-item job satisfaction scale, i.e. all
measures of interest in this study. Results suggested a good fit between our model and
940 our data (x 2 ¼ 783.42, df ¼ 251, p ¼ 0.00, TLI ¼ 0.97, CFI ¼ 0.97, RMSEA ¼ 0.09).
Thus, we have confidence that the items of these measures load properly on their
hypothesized dimensions, that the measures have good psychometric properties, and
that we have three distinctive and separate measures.
Since all measures were collected from team members at one point in time, there was
the potential for issues related to the common method variance bias (CMV) (Podsakoff
et al., 2003). The common method variance (CMV) problem may have been overstated
and reached the status of urban legend in the literature. There is little credible evidence
that common method variance exists, and much evidence to the contrary (Spector,
2006). Nevertheless, to show that our data are not affected by the common method
variance, CMV, we conducted Harman’s one factor test and examined the unrotated
factor solution involving all variables of interest (24 items) in an exploratory factor
analysis. Results of this analysis showed six factors. The total amount of variance
explained for six individual factors (29.59 percent, 8.88 percent, 8.12 percent, 5.84
percent, 5.26 percent, and 4.74 percent, respectively) and the six factors combined
(62.42 percent) suggested that no single factor accounted for the majority of the
covariance in the independent and criterion variables. Therefore, we concluded that
common method variance was not a significant factor in our findings.

Item Factor EFA Loading CFA

1. I am proud to tell others that my company uses the team

concept 0.88 0.88
2. I am extremely glad our company chose the team concept
over other ideas 0.84 0.84
3. This company’s decision to implement the team concept
was a definite mistake (R) 0.82 0.78
4. In the long run, there is not much to be gained by using the
team concept. (R) 0.84 0.75
5. I talk up the team concept to may peers as a positive change
for our company 0.79 0.76
6. The team concept rally inspires the best in me in the way of
job performance 0.71 0.74
7. I really care about the success of the team concept 0.78 0.67
8. I am willing to put in a great deal of effort beyond that
normally expected in order to help the team concept be
successful. 0.67 0.65
9. It would take very little change in my present circumstances
to cause me to give up on the team concept. (R) 0.72 0.65
Table II. 10. I feel very little loyalty to the team concept (R) 0.72 0.61
The team commitment
scale Note: (R) denotes reverse-scored items
Hierarchical multiple regression Job satisfaction
We used hierarchical multiple regression to test our hypotheses. In Step 1, we
controlled several demographic variables, such as sex, age, team tenure (in months),
educational level, and prior team experience (in months). We scale-centered job
satisfaction and team commitment measures by subtracting the mean of each scale,
respectively, thereby reducing multicollinearity and allowing meaningful
interpretation of coefficients (e.g. Aiken and West, 1991; Edwards, 1996). Then, we 941
entered job satisfaction (A), team commitment (B), and the job satisfaction and team
commitment interaction (A £ B) each in separate steps (Steps 2, 3, and 4). Table III
shows that the main effects of job satisfaction and team commitment and the
interaction of job satisfaction and team commitment on OCB were all significant,
supporting H1 and H2.

Team commitment as a moderator

The major purpose of this research was to ascertain whether team commitment in
self-directed teams moderates the job satisfaction-OCB relationship, and to examine
the significance of the team commitment-job satisfaction interaction effect with regard
to OCB. Based on the observed interaction effect, we further selected participants who
scored in the top 25 percent and the bottom 25 percent on the team commitment scale
(TCS), labeled these two groups as high and low team commitment groups,
respectively, and examined the relationship between job satisfaction and OCB for each
group in two separate hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Results suggested
that for the high team commitment group, after controlling the demographic variables,
the effect of job satisfaction on OCB was significant (R ¼ 0.37, R 2 ¼ 0.14, DR 2 ¼ 0.03,
DF ¼ 4.70, p ¼ 0.032); whereas for the low team commitment group, it failed to reach
significance (R ¼ 0.46, R 2 ¼ 0.21, DR 2 ¼ 0.01, DF ¼ 0.98, p ¼ 0.327). For the high
team commitment group, without controlling the demographic variables, the effect of
job satisfaction on OCB was again significant (R ¼ 0.16, R 2 ¼ 0.03, DR 2 ¼ 0.03,
DF ¼ 4.25, p ¼ 0.041); whereas for the low team commitment group, it again failed to
reach significance (R ¼ 0.06, R 2 ¼ 0.003, DR 2 ¼ 0.003, DF ¼ 0.20, p ¼ 0.657)
(Figure 2). The regression equations for high and low team commitment groups can
be expressed as below, respectively.
y ¼ 5:572 þ ð0:159Þ £ High Team Commitment ð1Þ

y ¼ 5:160 þ ð20:055Þ £ Low Team Commitment ð2Þ

Discussion
Our purpose in this study was to propose a model in which team commitment in
self-directed teams moderates the relationship between job satisfaction and
organizational citizenship behavior. To do so, we developed a measure of team

Variable R R2 DR 2 DF df p

1. Sex, age, team tenure, education, prior team 0.33 0.11 0.11 5.32 5,212 0.000
2. Job satisfaction (A) 0.37 0.14 0.03 6.75 1,211 0.010 Table III.
3. Team commitment (B) 0.52 0.27 0.13 36.62 1,210 0.000 Hierarchical multiple
4. Satisfaction £ Team (A £ B) 0.53 0.28 0.01 4.17 1,209 0.042 regression on OCB
MD
46,6

942

Figure 2.
Effects of team
commitment as a
moderator of the job
satisfaction-OCB
relationship in
self-directed teams

commitment that was adapted from the widely used Organizational Commitment
Questionnaire (Mowday et al., 1979) and tested its psychometric properties. Next, we
measured job satisfaction, team commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior
for a sample of 242 employees in three geographically separate locations. Results
suggest that team commitment does moderate the relationship between job satisfaction
and organizational citizenship behavior for members of self-directed work teams.
We first hypothesized a significant relationship between job satisfaction and
organizational citizenship behavior, based on theory and extant literature that
supports such a relationship. The relationship was shown to be significant, and H1
was supported. While this relationship has been reported by previous researchers,
demonstrating the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational citizenship
behavior in a team environment was necessary for the development of our model
(Baron and Kenny, 1986).
Our second hypothesis predicted that team commitment would be positively related
to organizational citizenship behavior, based on earlier studies suggesting that team
members are more likely to develop strong personal relationships than are non-team
members, which may then lead those team members to engage in more socially
supportive activities. H2 was also supported.
The primary hypothesis of this study, H3, predicted that the relationship between
job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior would be moderated by team
commitment, such that the relationship would be stronger when team commitment was
high. Figure 2 shows that for employees with high team commitment, job satisfaction
was significantly and positively related to OCB. That is, employees with higher job
satisfaction who also have a high level of team commitment will display higher levels
of OCB. On the other hand, for low team commitment employees, job satisfaction was Job satisfaction
not significantly related to OCB. Thus, H3 was also supported.
This finding may provide insight into situations where employee involvement in
self-directed teams did not produce attitudinal change (e.g. Cohen and Ledford, 1994;
Pearson, 1992). If team members have not developed satisfying work relationships
within their teams, they may not have developed the social capital that could lead to
higher levels of commitment to those teams (Van der Vegt et al., 2000). Enhanced job 943
satisfaction ensuing from improved co-worker relationships may in turn lead to higher
levels of team commitment, and ultimately to increases in the overall volume of
organizational citizenship behavior present in their organizations (Bolino et al., 2002;
Wilke and Lanzetta, 1970). The finding that commitment to one’s team enhances the
likelihood of engaging in organizational citizenship behavior for employees with
higher job satisfaction provides important insight into the potential benefits of
self-directed work teams for the overall work environment.
The finding that team commitment did not affect the job satisfaction-organizational
citizenship behavior relationship for employees with low job satisfaction suggests that
the implementation of self-directed work teams may not create a self-reinforcing
upward momentum to improve employee attitudes, commitment, further helping
behavior, and continuous improvement (Tang et al., 2008). From a practical standpoint,
managers in organizations where implementation of self-directed work teams has not
produced an increase in team commitment may want to consider implementing team
development programs as part of their organizational development (OD) strategy.
In addition to these findings, we have developed what appears to be a valid and
reliable measure of team commitment, the Team Commitment Scale (TCS), based on
goodness of fit using cross-validation, confirmatory factor analysis, and reliability
tests. This scale requires substantial additional testing, but preliminary indications
suggest that it may be useful in future studies as a measure of team commitment, a
dimension within the commitment domain that has received relatively little attention to
date.

Limitations
As with any research, despite the strengths of this paper, there are limitations that
must be addressed. Our sample was drawn from employees of an organization in
which the functioning of self-directed work teams was a particularly salient issue in
that, for many employees, the implementation of those teams was relatively new;
therefore, generalization of our findings may be somewhat limited. For this reason,
examination of the Team Commitment Scale across a wide range of samples is
appropriate and offers a number of opportunities for future research.
Common method bias is also a potential source of error because as our data were
collected from a single source at one time. However, as noted earlier, the common
method variance problem may not be as significant a concern as it was once thought to
be (Spector, 2006). Furthermore, in addition to the unrotated factor solution described
in the previous section, we conducted Harman’s one factor test and concluded that no
single factor accounted for the majority of the covariance, suggesting that common
method variance is not solely responsible for our findings (Podsakoff et al., 2003;
Spector, 2006). Finally, results of our overall measurement model involving all three
measures in a confirmatory factor analysis suggest a good fit between our model and
MD our data, providing strong evidence to suggest three distinctive and separate measures
46,6 in this study.

Future research
One potentially fruitful area of future research involves additional examination of the
Team Commitment Scale (TCS) developed in this study. Although our tests of the scale
944 suggest that it is psychometrically sound, similar tests must be done across a broad
range of samples in order to more fully establish its validity and reliability as a
measure of team commitment.
Additionally, researchers might examine the team construct in a variety of settings.
It may be particularly interesting to investigate the impact of team commitment in
situations where professional or union employees are organized into teams. Other
settings of interest might include healthcare environments, service industries, and
military units.
Until the last decade or so, much of the research in work commitment still assumed
that the linkage occurs between the individual and the organization (Mathieu and
Zajac, 1990). The development of a more robust commitment construct than
organizational commitment could bring about a major shift in thinking with regard to
the domain of work commitment. This study, in conjunction with others (e.g. Bishop
and Scott, 2000; Bishop et al., 2000), suggests that team commitment represents a
viable construct within the domain of workplace commitment that warrants further
study. Given the continued deterioration of loyalty between organizations and their
employees (Zhao et al., 2007), and the likelihood that cognitive and emotional salience
of an employee’s self-directed team may offer a more salient target for commitment, we
believe team commitment may be a more potent construct than organizational
commitment, and that studies should be designed that can assess the comparative
utility of the two constructs (Flaherty and Moss, 2007).
In summary, we believe this research makes a significant contribution to our
understanding of the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational
citizenship behavior, a relationship that has long been known but the nature of which
has, nevertheless, not been well defined. It is our hope that this research will encourage
others to further examine the team commitment construct and its impact on the overall
domain of commitment in work organizations.

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Corresponding author
David A. Foote can be contacted at: [email protected]

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