Building a worthy organization: The relationship between employee perceptions of organizational worthiness and organizational commitment, intent to remain and performance outcomes

This study explores the importance of an employee's perceptions of organizational worthiness and the relationship between how these perceptions affect an employees performance outcomes, their commitment to the organization and their intent to remain with the organization. Equity Theory is employed to create a framework by which this relationship can be analyzed. Equity Theory proves useful because it incorporates the concept of building a 'Worthy Organization' as part of its strategy for maximizing competitive advantage. By considering employee perceptions of organizational worthiness, an organization can gauge whether, or not, its members feel they are receiving an equitable return on their investment. By recognizing the importance of employee perceptions and its affect on an organizations worthiness significantly contributes to the importance of organizational psychology, human resource management and management in business strategy.; Using EQS, relationships were examined between employee perceptions of Organizational Worthiness and performance outcomes, along with organizational commitment and intent to remain with the organization. In addition, a post-hoc analysis was conducted to analyze the relationship between "feeling valued" and its effects on performance outcomes, organizational commitment and intent to remain with the organization. This analysis incorporated frequencies and descriptive statistics based on tenure, gender and region.; A survey was utilized to estimate employee perceptions of Organizational Worthiness, and a structural equation model was used to determine if the hypothesized model held up structurally. The hypothesized model was found significantly conclusive and therefore it was confirmed that the characteristics used to define Organizational Worthiness were found to be significant. These findings determined that high perceptions of Organizational Worthiness did contribute to higher levels of organizational commitment and intent to remain. Finally, the results show evidence that perceptions of Organizational Worthiness contributed positively to performance outcomes, though; it is possible that this could be explained because of the measurement of performance used in this particular study.