Reference no: EM132942121

Organizational commitment (OC) and withdrawal behavior (WB)(e.g. absenteeism, daydreaming, taking long breaks etc.) are negatively correlated with each other. That is, an employee who has low (high) organizational commitment is more (less) likely to engage in WB or engages in WB more (less) often. While correlation and causation may exist at the same time, correlation does not necessarily imply causation. If two variables, X and Y, are negatively correlated with each other, either there is a causal relation between X and Y that results in the observed negative correlation, or, there is a third variable, Z, that causes X and Y to move in the opposite directions which again leads to the observed negative correlation. I think in the case of observed negative correlation between OC and WB all three possibilities are intuitive in their own way. That is, high (low) OC may cause low (high) WB, or high (low) WB may cause low (high) OC, or, as the third possibility, there may be a third variable which causes OC and WB to move in opposite directions. Your task in this assignment is to think more deeply about what you learned in Module 3 and Module 4 (e.g. values, attitudes, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, withdrawal behavior, cognitive dissonance) and provide logical explanations for all three possibilities mentioned above. That is, you should provide (1) an underlying causal mechanism that can explain how low (high) OC may cause high (low) WB, (2) an underlying causal mechanism that can explain how low (high) WB may cause high (low) OC and (3) find a third variable and explain how that variable moves OC and WB in the opposite directions and hence, causes the observed negative correlation.