Development of a hierarchical model of sport volunteers' organizational commitment

Abstract

The present study was an attempt to understand sport volunteers' commitment to an organization from a developmental perspective and propose a hierarchical model of volunteer commitment based on Kohlberg's moral development model. The proposed model includes five stages of attitudinal commitment which are developmental and distinct in nature with the following hierarchical sequence: primitive commitment, continuance commitment, external commitment, normative commitment, and affective commitment. By comparing Kohlberg's moral development model with the three components of Allen and Meyer's organizational commitment, we contend that the external commitment and the primitive commitment need to be included to view sport volunteers' commitment from the developmental perspective. Along with these two new commitment concepts, the characteristics and theoretical reasoning related to each stage of sport volunteers' organizational commitment were addressed.