Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Appliquées à la Gestion

This article aims to respond to the following question: Under which circumstances organizational commitment fails to protect individuals from ill-being in difficult work situations?A qualitative study was conducted to discover an answer. The life stories of ten executives were examined. The findings of this exploratory research study show that organizational commitment, and more specifically the ensemble of its dimensions (affective, continuance, normative) can co-exist with ill-being situations at work. Specifically, the results reveal the potentially protective effect of affective commitment on ill-being up to a certain threshold, and more precisely, up to its transformation into organizational identification.