As early as 1960, but with little discernible uptake, Chris Argyris mooted the notion that a “psychological contract” representing unwritten, mutual expectations might set the dynamics of relationships between parties. (See Chris Argyris. 1960. Understanding Organizational Behavior. The Dorsey Press.) Commitment is something everyone can offer: but it cannot be forced by terms of reference; hence, early interest in psychological contracts. There are four dimensions to it: (i) cognitive (or intellectual)—thinking hard about one’s profession and how one might perform it better; (ii) emotional (or affective)—feeling good about doing a good job; (iii) social—taking opportunities to discuss work-related improvements with others; and, even if literature rarely mentions it, (iv) physical—mustering the stamina to “go the extra mile”. I would like to think that better understanding the dimensions of engagement and what drives or impede now helps organizations build and sustain workplace excellence. Engaging Staff in the Workplace, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254582894_Engaging_Staff_in_the_Workplace, discusses all this.

Article Engaging Staff in the Workplace

Dear Ali

Following links may be useful:

http://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:182488/datastream/PDF/view

https://business.uoregon.edu/files/media/madrigal-using-psychological-commitment_1.pdf

http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rbme/v18n4/en_v18n4a04.pdf

But I also feel that commitment definition must be more specific from your side. I mean what are you looking for because Psychological commitment may be towards team, towards organization, towards some task etc

As others are indicating, the commitment literature is really broad.  There is a lot of work continuing to be done.  Rather than look for books (although there are some recent books that are very good), it may be useful to look at some relatively recent review papers.  If you want to get familiar with the commitment literature, I strongly recommend reading the work of authos such as Howard Klein and John Meyer, amongst others.  Both Klein and Meyer are on ResearchGate, so it should be fairly easy to find some papers to read.

Thank you all,

You have given me great responses and links. Thanks a lot.

I can see that my question was not specific. I am, actually, looking at the commitment that people develop toward some issues, views or attitudes. Most of what I have seen was in organisational studies in particular which are not directly related to my topic.

You might be intersted in the goal commitment literature:

http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&uid=1999-15531-005

Otherwise, action commitments might be a useful approach:

Neubert, M. J., & Wu, C. (2009). Action commitments. In H. Klein, T. Becker, & J. Meyer (Eds.), Commitment in organizations: Accumulated wisdom and new directions

(pp. 179–213). New York, NY: Routledge.

Further, there is a target-neutral approach from Klein et al.:

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/apl/99/2/222/

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/apl/99/2/222/

http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&uid=1999-15531-005