Abstract: Supervisory commitment, a branch of employee commitment theory, arose in 1980’s and developed based on organizational commitment. The scholars measured it using Allen & Meyer’s and O’Reilly & Chatman’s organizational commitment scales, while replacing the word “organization” with “supervisor”. Chen Zhen-xiong, from Hong Kong, has measured supervisory commitment most systematically. Culture, PSS (Perceived supervisory support) and LMX (Leader-member exchange) are the three antecedents of supervisory commitment scholars have found. And they all evidenced that supervisory commitment had more effects on job performance and organizational citizenship behavior than organizational commitment, but not all of them had the same views on job satisfaction and turnover intention. Hunt & Morgan evidenced that supervisory commitment lead to organizational commitment, but few scholars have followed this opinion. The authors point out four prospects for the future research.

Key words: supervisory commitment, organizational commitment, measurement methods, antecedents and outcomes