THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL OWNERSHIP ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT

Abstract

Psychological ownership reflects an individual’s awareness, thoughts, and beliefs regarding the target of ownership (Avey et al, 2009). Locus of control defined as the general belief that individual’s successes, failures and outcomes are controlled by individual’s actions and behaviors (internal); or perhaps, people’s achievements, failures and outcomes are controlled by other forces like chance, luck and fate (external) (Rotter, 1966). Individuals with high internal locus of control experience higher levels of psychological ownership. Organizational commitment can be defined as a strong belief in and acceptance of an organization’s goals and values, a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and a strong desire to maintain membership in the organization (Allen and Meyer, 1990). Scholars examined the link between psychological ownership of the organization and positive employee attitudes as organizational commitment. The purpose of this study is to examine the mediating role of psychological ownership on the relationship between internal locus of control and organizational commitment. Allen and Meyer’s (1990) organizational commitment scale, Rotter’s (1966) locus of control scale and Avey and his colleagues’ (2009) psychological ownership scale were used to collect data for the study. The findings of this study is valuable from many aspects that psychological ownership is a new area in organizational behavior literature and this study indicates antecedent’s and consequence’s of psychological ownership in information technology sector.

Keywords

• Psychological ownership, Internal locus of control, Organizational commitment, Information technology sector

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