A Study on the Level of Organizational Commitment of the Members of the Rotary Club of Cabuyao Circle (RCCC) and How is it Manifested in Group Performance

Abstract

Sometime June 1999, the Rotary Club of Cabuyao Circle (RCCC) planned to come up with a series of cable television shows on the importance of a college/vocational degree after high school as a part of their career-orientation program service for the community. This project proposal of the RCCC has led the students to study the community of Cabuyao as the subject for individual theses. This also prompted the researcher to study the members of the group of RCCC, mainly because of their voluntary work for RCCC. This paper tackles organizational commitment and how it is manifested in the performance of a group. Organizational commitment has been defined as a representation of agreement on the part of the employees with the goals and objectives of an organization and a willingness to work towards these goals. The main problem of this study is to know the level of commitment of the members of the Rotary Club of Cabuyao Circle (RCCC). Its subproblems include: (a) What are the indicators of the commitment of its members?; (b) How are these manifested in the group?(c) What are the factors contributing to the level of organizational commitment among its members?; and (d) Does it have an effect on group performance? The Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ), designed by Steers and Mowday in 1979, has been used to serve as a measuring tool for the level of commitment of the members of the RCCC. It has 15 items, each presenting statements about the respondents' sentiments towards the group they belong to, their relationship with its members and its impact on their personal lives. Five items are negatively phrased, thus the scoring is reversed. A Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with the members has also been done to get in-depth explanations of their responses in the questionnaire. To measure the data gathered from the questionnaire, the mean measure of central tendency has been employed. The questionnaire has been presented and analyzed on a per respondent and a per item level and verified with their responses from the FGD. A 5.00 result from the questionnaire means that the level of commitment is high and deviations from 5.00 signifies a lower level of commitment, depending on the points gained. This constant value is computed by adding the highest possible answers for all the items, divided by the number of items. Results show that the level of commitment is high, after getting a computed mean of 5.02 for the group. Factors contributing to this high commitment are what the group has coined their Anchors of Friendship which are: Open Communication, Feeling of Belongingness, Acceptance of Limitations, Being Positive in Outlook, Going the Extra Mile for Others, Flexibility, Trust, Resourcefulness and Sense of Humor. Furthermore, indicators of this high level of commitment are their sense. of pride in their affiliation with the group, loyalty to the group and synonymous personal values to that of the group's values. In return, the members level of commitment has directly contributed to the performance of the group for the past three years, which are evidenced by the number of awards and citations the group has received. On their first year of service, they have been fortunate to receive the Rookie Club of the Year. Thus, the level of commitment of members has an effect on the performance of the group, and in a macro sense, in the organization they are working for. The members have been willing to share and sacrifice what they have, both material and immaterial for the group to thrive.