Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

2022

Abstract

Organizations of different types (large or small, for profit or not) associate in order to gain benefits from working together such as advocacy in the local business community, business expertise, access to markets, and more efficient operations through better communication and collaboration that drive the effectiveness of their leadership and innovation. The purpose of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the factors that drive member organizations’ commitment to membership in a local Chamber of Commerce. The research hypotheses look at how membership commitment is impacted by the chamber’s role in the community, member satisfaction, member organization size, membership length of time, and member participation. Membership commitment, defined as the members’ attachment to the association, includes three types: normative commitment, continuance commitment, and affective commitment. The advanced hypotheses are:

H1: Expectancies for the Chamber of Commerce’s role in the business community has a positive effect on commitment to Chamber of Commerce membership

H2: Satisfaction with the Chamber of Commerce’s performance of its core services has a positive effect on commitment to Chamber of Commerce membership

H3: Extent of participation in Chamber of Commerce activities has a positive effect on commitment to Chamber of Commerce membership

H4: Length of organization’s membership time in the Chamber of Commerce has a positive effect on commitment to Chamber of Commerce membership

H5: Organizational size has a positive effect on commitment to Chamber of Commerce membership

To test the advanced hypotheses the authors conducted a survey of 286 Chamber of Commerce members organizations located in a city of about 100,000 population in the Rocky Mountain Northwest in the U.S. The three dimensions of commitment were measured with 7-point scales reported in previous studies. Members’ expectancies for the chamber of commerce’s role and their satisfaction with the chamber’s performance of its core functions (advocacy, expertise, collaboration, leadership, connection, and innovation) were similarly measured on 7-point agreement or satisfaction scales. In addition, the data analysis included three categorical variables: level of participation or interaction with the chamber (high/medium/low), organizational size (small is less than 20 employees vs. large), and length of membership time in the chamber (short is less than 5 years vs. long). Data analysis was conducted in SPSS. The Multivariate General Linear Model included the three commitment dimensions as dependent variables; participation hours, membership time and organization size as fixed factors; and chamber expectancies and satisfaction as covariates.

The results indicate that, as hypothesized, chamber role expectancies, satisfaction with chamber performance of core service, and participation hours have significant effects on commitment. However, the effects of membership time and organization size are reflected only in their interactions with each other. Small organizations (20 employees and less) display increasing continuance and affective commitment as they engage in a higher level of participation and have longer membership time with the chamber. However, for larger organizations both forms of commitment display interesting patterns. While the effect of participation hours on commitment seems to be as predicted for those organizations that have longer membership time (over 5 years), for newer members (less than 5 years) commitment is relatively higher for organizations that invest either few hours or many hours in the chamber interaction (low or high participation hours). The results indicate the importance of understanding the factors that drive commitment and the necessity to better segment the membership base and understand the ways in which associations need to engage with their different types of member organizations.

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