What is normative commitment?

Normative commitment is a sense of responsibility employees feel for their job or organization that holds them back from quitting. It is a perceived moral obligation to stick with something through thick and thin.

People with high normative commitment:

• Believe they have a responsibility and obligation to stay in their job
• Are less likely to leave when a new opportunity arises
• Would feel guilty about leaving their organization
• Feel a strong loyalty
• Are more likely to go the extra mile in their work
• Feel like they owe the organization.

People can have normative commitment to their organization but also to their profession. For example, a nurse or soldier may feel very strongly about their responsibility to their profession and thus be less likely to switch to a different type of job. An employee who just completed a full trainee program may feel a similar commitment to their employer.

Normative commitment is one of the three components of organizational commitment. The other two components are affective commitment and continuance commitment.

Affective commitment refers to an employee’s emotional commitment to the organization they work for, while continuance commitment is about perceiving the cost of leaving the organization as too high.