Three-Component Model of Organizational Commitment

The Three-Component Model (TCM) of organizational commitment, developed by John Meyer and Natalie Allen, is the dominant framework for understanding why employees stay with and bind themselves to their organizations. Its central claim is that commitment is not one thing but three distinguishable psychological states: affective commitment (an emotional desire to stay — you want to), continuance commitment (the perceived cost of leaving — you need to), and normative commitment (a felt obligation — you ought to). Each is measured by its own subscale and arises from different antecedents, and although all three reduce turnover, they relate very differently to performance, citizenship, and well-being. Allen and Meyer's 1991 paper laid out the conceptualization, and Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, and Topolnytsky's 2002 meta-analysis confirmed that the components are distinguishable and have systematically different correlates and consequences.