The Development of Regulatory Foci Characters and Moderation Effects on Satisfaction and Commitment

Regulatory Focus Theory is used to derive specific predictions regarding the differential relationships between regulatory focus and commitment. This study develops – for the first time – a conceptual framework based on Regulatory Focus Theory and its two underlying traits of promotion focus and prevention focus. This framework proposes four regulatory focus characters: “Achiever”, “Conservative”, “Rationalist” and “Indifferent”. As well as constructing four distinguishable personality characters, it also proposes how these characters moderate the relationship between two prominent work-related attitudes: job satisfaction and organizational commitment; and in particular extrinsic satisfaction, normative commitment, and continuance commitment. Regression analyses and regression lines are constructed in order to examine the research hypotheses, in the private sector and public sector. The statistical analyses support the hypothesized relationships that regulatory focus moderates differently the relation between satisfaction and commitment according to the type of employment, i.e., there is a dual moderation: one based on self-regulation and another based on the economic sector. As far as, the development and examination of the four regulatory focus characters, only “Conservatives” exhibit a stronger relationship between extrinsic satisfaction and continuance commitment(for the private sector) and between extrinsic satisfaction and normative commitment(for the public sector). The paper concludes with a discussion of the managerial implications of this approach to regulatory focus, implications of these findings are discussed concerning the functioning of the regulatory foci characters, and suggestions for further research are proposed.