AUTHOR=Santana-Martins Marisa , Nascimento José Luís , Sánchez-Hernández Maria Isabel 

TITLE=Employees’ emotional awareness as an antecedent of organizational commitment—The mediating role of affective commitment to the leader

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.945304

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.945304

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=Commitment in the workplace has been perceived as a strategic topic in organizations due to its positive effect on retaining talent, increasing performance, and boosting employees’ innovative behaviour. This is fundamental for guaranteeing businesses’ sustainability. For all these reasons, recent research has suggested a need to conduct studies about antecedents of commitment and the relationship between different targets of commitment in order to understand the dynamic and directionality between them. Hence, the purpose of this work is to analyse employees’ emotional awareness as an antecedent of two targets of commitment (the leader and the organization) and assess the mediating role of affective commitment to the leader in the relationship between employees’ emotional awareness and organizational commitment. The study uses structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses, with a sample of 403 employees in two multinationals, and a random group employees from different sectors in Portugal. The results provide empirical evidence about the mediating role of affective commitment to the leader and the employees’ emotional awareness as an antecedent of commitment. The implications for theory and practice in strategic talent management are discussed.