Relationship between health climate and affective commitment in the workplace

Objective: Organizational health climate reflects the health care efforts of a company, as perceived by its employees. The climate may operate as a beneficial job resource, supporting employees' affective commitment to the organization. This study examines the longitudinal relationship between health climate and affective commitment. Methods: A total of 851 German employees were surveyed at Time 1 (T-1) and five months later (Time 2, T-2) in 2011. Repeated measures analysis of variance and cross-lagged panel correlations were conducted to examine the longitudinal relationship between health climate and affective commitment, controlling for age and sex. Results: There were no main effects of time for health climate (F(1, 576) = 0.75, p = 0.39) or for affective commitment (F(1, 577) = 2.1, p = 0.15). Cross-lagged panel correlations indicated a predominance of health climate over affective commitment (z = 3.29; p < 0.001): the prediction of T-2 affective commitment by T-1 health climate was superior (r = 0.30) as compared to the opposite direction (r = 0.18). Conclusions: Health climate might be a valuable job resource factor with the potential to strengthen employees' affective commitment to the organization. Thereby, the importance to create and cultivate a healthy work environment is highlighted, and further research on mediating processes is suggested.