Scale library · HRM & organizational behavior
Organizational commitment (OCQ): Mowday et al. (1979)
The OCQ measures attitudinal organizational commitment: belief in and acceptance of the organization's goals and values, willingness to exert effort on its behalf, and a desire to remain a member. Developed by Porter's group, it was published by Mowday, Steers and Porter (1979) with validation data from 2,563 employees in nine organizations. The authors treat it as a single construct, although some later studies split it into value commitment and commitment to stay. It fits theses on satisfaction, leadership, organizational support and turnover intention; if you need the affective, continuance and normative components, use a different instrument.
Cite the original, not the blog.
- Model or scale: OCQ
- Constructs: 1
- Items: 15 (6 reverse-coded)
Original English items
Items marked (R) are reverse-coded: recode them before computing reliability or scale scores. Replace bracketed placeholders such as [system] with the name of the system, brand or organization you study.
Organizational Commitment (OC, 15 items)
| Code | Item wording | Reverse-coded |
|---|---|---|
| OC1 | I am willing to put in a great deal of effort beyond that normally expected in order to help this organization be successful. | No |
| OC2 | I talk up this organization to my friends as a great organization to work for. | No |
| OC3 (R) | I feel very little loyalty to this organization. | Yes |
| OC4 | I would accept almost any type of job assignment in order to keep working for this organization. | No |
| OC5 | I find that my values and the organization's values are very similar. | No |
| OC6 | I am proud to tell others that I am part of this organization. | No |
| OC7 (R) | I could just as well be working for a different organization as long as the type of work was similar. | Yes |
| OC8 | This organization really inspires the very best in me in the way of job performance. | No |
| OC9 (R) | It would take very little change in my present circumstances to cause me to leave this organization. | Yes |
| OC10 | I am extremely glad that I chose this organization to work for over others I was considering at the time I joined. | No |
| OC11 (R) | There's not too much to be gained by sticking with this organization indefinitely. | Yes |
| OC12 (R) | Often, I find it difficult to agree with this organization's policies on important matters relating to its employees. | Yes |
| OC13 | I really care about the fate of this organization. | No |
| OC14 | For me this is the best of all possible organizations for which to work. | No |
| OC15 (R) | Deciding to work for this organization was a definite mistake on my part. | Yes |
Response scale
7-point agreement scale (1 = Strongly disagree … 7 = Strongly agree). Reverse-score the 6 negatively worded items, then average all 15 items.
Recoding reverse-coded items: 1–7 scale: new score = 1 + 7 − score = 8 − score; 1–5 scale: new score = 1 + 5 − score = 6 − score.
Licence and permission
The items are published in the original article in the Journal of Vocational Behavior. According to a validation study held in the White Rose repository, no permission is needed to use the OCQ because the authors deliberately did not copyright it, to encourage its use. Cite the original article.
Sources (APA 7)
- Al-Yami, M., Galdas, P., & Watson, R. (2018). Factor analysis and Mokken scaling of the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire in nurses. International Nursing Review, 66(1), 52–60. https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12454
- Henseler, J., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2015). A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based structural equation modeling. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(1), 115–135. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-014-0403-8
- Meyer, J. P., & Allen, N. J. (1991). A three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment. Human Resource Management Review, 1(1), 61–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/1053-4822(91)90011-Z
- Mowday, R. T., Steers, R. M., & Porter, L. W. (1979). The measurement of organizational commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 14(2), 224–247. https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-8791(79)90072-1
- Porter, L. W., Steers, R. M., Mowday, R. T., & Boulian, P. V. (1974). Organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover among psychiatric technicians. Journal of Applied Psychology, 59(5), 603–609. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0037335
Vietnamese translation
A Vietnamese translation of every item, with sample-size advice and studies that used the scale, is on the Vietnamese page for this scale.