The analysis of corporate downsizing and its impact on organizational commitment of the survivors.

Abstract

Nowadays, many organizations are facing with challenges to maintain competitiveness. Downsizing is one of strategy to improve financial performance. On the other hand, it does have an impact on organizational commitment of employees who remain in the company or “survivors”. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine the impact of downsizing on organizational commitment of the survivors and explore the key factors that have an effect on the organizational commitment. The data is collected from employees of a company in Thailand that has just passed many downsizings by using explanatory sequential mixed method. This research found out that downsizing had a significant impact on affective commitment and small impact on continuance commitment and normative commitment. This decline of commitment was contributed from several factors including, level of justice, job satisfaction, workload and stress, perceived organizational support (POS), job security, long-term career, opportunity to promote, trust, and hope. This study also suggested that job satisfaction, POS, workload and stress, role clarity, and justice were important keys of organizational commitment. KEY WORDS: Restructuring / Downsizing / Organizational Commitment