A Model For Investigating The Influence Of Leadermember Exchange On Employees’ Affective Commitment In Saudi Universities

Abstract

Employee’s emotional attachment to their workplaces (referred to as affective commitment) plays crucial roles in their long-term performance and interactions. The literature on employee commitment to their works advances several factors that explain the nature, directions, and implications of employees’ affective commitment. However, most of these studies were carried out within private industrial settings. Relatively few of such studies investigate leader-member exchange (LMX) as a multi-dimensional antecedent to employees’ affective commitment in knowledgeintensive industry context such as the academia. Specifically, relatively few studies were done that were grounded on established empirical literature and sound theoretical grids investigate about the influences of employees’ affect, loyalty, contribution, and professional respect on the affective commitment. In this paper therefore, we traced the multi-dimensional LMX antecedents of the affective commitment of administrative employees in Saudi Arabian Universities and then develop a model for investigating the impact in such relationship between these two important variables