Organisational Loyalty - The Relevance of Loyalty in a Military Environment

Loyalty is valuable because it infers an emotional bond between an organisation and employee that far exceeds the definition of commitment. Of particular interest to this study, is why loyal employees are inclined to remain with an organisation when it is at its worst – a notion explored through military organisations because of their strong ties to loyalty. The emotional lens of loyalty frames how commitment is experienced by an individual – how a person thinks, feels and reacts to situations that test commitment. This study explores whether the loyalty framework offers a better means of conceptualising the idea of organisational commitment. Military organisations will be incorporated through secondary source material applicable to the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and by vignettes supplied by 35 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) personnel. Data was analysed by examining congruent themes identified in these interviews. The findings confirm that loyalty is relevant to organisations but also suggests that its complexity has made it difficult for organisations to achieve a consistent Human Resource Management (HRM) benefit from emotions. Four key findings were made. First, personnel are unable to define loyalty and disloyalty. In this case, the inability of both the individual and organisation to define terms such as ‘above and beyond’, suggests a lack of unanimity between parties, and results in limited HRM functionality. Second, the organisation needs to understand the reciprocal nature of loyalty, how loyalty is lost and how it can be regained. Third, interactions between a supervisor and an employee have the greatest impact on an employee’s loyalty. Finally, an employee may be neither loyal nor disloyal and this is termed as being indifferent to the ‘other’. Indifferent employees are waiting for a specific social interaction to occur and can take part in both loyal and disloyal actions; however, these actions are unpredictable. The lived experience of loyalty is complex and even though it is used by organisations (and in commitment literature) there is a disparity between what the individual and organisation think. The amalgamation of loyalty and commitment therefore provides a better framework to understand organisational commitment