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TCM Employee Commitment Survey (Allen & Meyer)

The dominant three-component measure of organizational commitment — wanting to stay, needing to stay, and feeling obliged to stay.

OBJob Attitudes & CommitmentPermission needed also known as: Three-Component Model commitment scales, ACS / CCS / NCS

At a glance

Construct measured	Organizational commitment (affective, continuance, normative)
Developed by	Allen & Meyer (1990)
Original publication	Allen, N. J., & Meyer, J. P. (1990). The measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 63(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8325.1990.tb00506.x
Number of items	24 (original: 8 per component); the 1993 revision has 18 (6 per component)
Response format	7-point agreement scale (1 = Strongly disagree to 7 = Strongly agree)

Dimensions & subscales

Affective commitment (8 items; 6 in the revised form) — emotional attachment to the organization
Continuance commitment (8 items; 6 revised) — perceived cost of leaving
Normative commitment (8 items; 6 revised) — felt obligation to remain

Reliability (commonly reported)

Meta-analytic and primary studies commonly report alphas around .82–.88 for affective, .73–.80 for continuance, and .73–.80 for normative commitment.

Validity evidence

Extensive construct-validity evidence: CFA consistently distinguishes the three components; affective commitment shows the strongest criterion links with turnover, OCB and performance. Debates persist about the dimensionality of continuance commitment (sacrifice vs. lack of alternatives) and the overlap between affective and normative commitment.

Populations & contexts

Employees across industries, occupations and dozens of countries; the standard commitment measure in OB/HRM research.

Origin, translations & adaptations

Canada. Translated into many languages with generally supportive measurement-invariance evidence; cross-cultural studies suggest the normative component behaves differently in collectivist contexts.

Licensing & permission

Free academic license required (register with the authors)
The TCM Employee Commitment Survey is distributed under an academic-use license, free for non-commercial research upon registration (via the authors' university site); commercial or consulting use requires a paid license.

How to cite (APA 7)

Allen, N. J., & Meyer, J. P. (1990). The measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 63(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8325.1990.tb00506.x

Short versions & notable variants

Revised 18-item version (Meyer, Allen, & Smith, 1993, Journal of Applied Psychology) — 6 items per component; the most used form today

Related constructs

Turnover intentionOrganizational identificationJob satisfactionPerceived organizational support

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