Affective Commitment[edit]
AC is defined as the employee's positive emotional attachment to the organization. Meyer and Allen pegged AC as the “desire” component of organizational commitment. An employee who is affectively committed strongly identifies with the goals of the organization and desires to remain a part of the organization. This employee commits to the organization because he/she "wants to". This commitment can be influenced by many different demographic characteristics: age, tenure, sex, and education but these influences are neither strong nor consistent. The problem with these characteristics is that while they can be seen, they cannot be clearly defined. Meyer and Allen gave this example that “positive relationships between tenure and commitment maybe due to tenure-related differences in job status and quality” [2] In developing this concept, Meyer and Allen drew largely on Mowday, Porter, and Steers's (2006)[3] concept of commitment, which in turn drew on earlier work by Kanter (1968) [4]