The Events and Consequences of the Normative Commitment in Universities

The present study aims at examining and understanding the process of formating normative commitment and its effect on scientific production in Esfahan university.The study starts with the identification of the factors which are involved in normative commitment issue from the standpoint of a number of theorists in the field of scientific community (like Randall Collins, Hagstrom) and then evaluate the effect of normative commitment on scientific production from the standpoint of the theoretians in the field of normative structure of science (like Merton, Resnik, …). This study is designed as a survey gathered through quota sampling. the statistical population is comprised of all the full time academic members, PHD condidates and second-year M.A students who were present at Esfahan University the years 2010-2011 and yeilds a total number of 2865 individuals altogether. Among the population, a sample of 340 individuals has been selected as the actual participants of the study. of different departments, department of basic sciences showed the highest amount of scientific production, which is at sharp of contrast with the results obtained from technical and engineering department which showed the lowest amount of scientific production. there is a positive and significant relationship between normative commitment and scientific production.variables like “interactions and relations” and”emotional energy”, also, indicate a positive and meaningful relationship with normative commitment in Esfahan university.In the structural equation modeling, Fit indices shows that specified model confirms by ghathered data. Thus, this model suggested for increasing of normative commitment in Esfahan universitiy. with regard to the results of the study, the best suggestion is the encouragement of "interactions" and "emotional energy" between the academics which leads to the enhancement of the normative commitment, hence, their scientific production.