Organizational/occupational commitment and ...

Personnel Review

Downloaded by COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY At 21:51 06 January 2016 (PT)

Organizational/occupational commitment and organizational/occupational turnover intentions: A happy marriage? Amna Yousaf Karin Sanders Qaisar Abbas

Article information: To cite this document: Amna Yousaf Karin Sanders Qaisar Abbas , (2015),"Organizational/occupational commitment and organizational/occupational turnover intentions", Personnel Review, Vol. 44 Iss 4 pp. 470 - 491 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/PR-12-2012-0203 Downloaded on: 06 January 2016, At: 21:51 (PT) References: this document contains references to 80 other documents. To copy this document: [email protected] The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 718 times since 2015*

Users who downloaded this article also downloaded: Ling Yuan, Yue Yu, Jian Li, Lutao Ning, (2014),"Occupational commitment, industrial relations and turnover intention: Empirical evidence from China", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 8 Iss 1 pp. 66-84 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/CMS-08-2011-0065 Wali Rahman, Zekeriya Nas, (2013),"Employee development and turnover intention: theory validation", European Journal of Training and Development, Vol. 37 Iss 6 pp. 564-579 http:// dx.doi.org/10.1108/EJTD-May-2012-0015 Baek-Kyoo (Brian) Joo, Sunyoung Park, (2010),"Career satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intention: The effects of goal orientation, organizational learning culture and developmental feedback", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 31 Iss 6 pp. 482-500 http:// dx.doi.org/10.1108/01437731011069999

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emeraldsrm:543666 []

For Authors If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.

About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.


*Related content and download information correct at time of download.


The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm

PR 44,4

Organizational/occupational commitment and organizational/ occupational turnover intentions

470

A happy marriage?

Received 12 December 2012 Revised 28 May 2013 18 March 2014 8 May 2014 Accepted 15 September 2014

Amna Yousaf Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan

Karin Sanders Work & Organizational Psychology, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands and School of Management, Australian School of Business (ASB), UNSW, Sydney, Australia, and

Qaisar Abbas Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to draw meaningful relationship between two foci of commitment (i.e. affective organizational and affective occupational) and two types of turnover intentions (i.e. organizational and occupational turnover intention). Design/methodology/approach – Using random sampling approach, the authors collected data from both academic and support staff of a Dutch university. An online questionnaire was developed and sent through electronic mail to 752 of the total employees. A total of 153 employees responded; yielding approximately 21 percent response rate. Findings – The results revealed that affective organizational commitment and affective occupational commitment were positively related to each other. Affective organizational commitment was negatively related to organizational turnover intention and this relationship was buffered by affective occupational commitment. Affective occupational commitment was negatively related both to occupational and organizational turnover intention. Last study hypothesis, however, could not gain support as affective organizational commitment did not moderate the affective occupational commitment-occupational turnover intention relationship. Research limitations/implications – Theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed in the end. Originality/value – The study poses some valuable contributions to the existing body of literature by exhibiting the role affective occupational commitment in the models of organizational turnover intention and that of affective organizational commitment in occupational turnover intention models which has been over looked so far. Keywords Quantitative, Affective occupational commitment, Affective organizational commitment, Occupational turnover intentions, Organizational turnover intentions Paper type Research paper

Personnel Review Vol. 44 No. 4, 2015 pp. 470-491 © Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0048-3486 DOI 10.1108/PR-12-2012-0203

Affective organizational commitment refers to an employee’s emotional attachment and identification to the organization (Allen and Meyer, 1990). In essence, affectively committed employees remain in the organization because they want to do so (Allen and Meyer, 1990, p. 1). The reason for a wide investigation on affective organizational


commitment has been attributed to the fact that it affects many individual attitudes and behaviors in the workplace. In addition to organizational commitment, employees can be affectively committed to other foci such as their occupation (Becker, 1992; Meyer et al., 1998; Morrow, 1993). Affective occupational commitment refers to an employee’s emotional identification with his/her work goals and occupation (Lee et al., 2000; Morrow and Wirth, 1989; Vandenberg and Scarpello, 1994). Thus, individuals with higher affective occupational commitment strongly identify with and have positive feelings about their occupation. Understanding the affective occupational commitment construct is important for several reasons. Given the recent workplace dynamics, including organizational restructurings, mergers, acquisitions increased job insecurity and contingency workforce growth (Carson and Bedeian, 1994; Cappelli et al., 1997; Hall and Moss, 1998; Nollen and Axel, 1996), several scholars (e.g. Johnson, 1996; Meyer and Allen, 1997) have suggested that employee commitment may be shifting from the organization to one’s occupation. These developments necessitate the study of employees’ affective occupational commitment, its relationships with organizational commitment and the consequences of this focus of commitment over and above affective organizational commitment (Kim and Mueller, 2010). Most of the existing research to date has focused on exploring the antecedents and outcomes of affective organizational commitment (Cohen, 2003; Griffin and Bateman, 1986); consequently, models investigating outcomes of occupational commitment remain less developed (Blau and Lunz, 1998). Understanding the two foci of commitment becomes relevant with respect to the group of professional employees. Extant literature suggests that professionals are more committed to their careers/ occupations than to their organization. Because professionals do not direct their expectation towards the organization but towards their occupation, the organization as an object of commitment is not as important for them (Cohen, 1992). Does this mean that professionals are not committed to their organization? It is unclear how occupational and organizational commitment are related to each other. Therefore the first research question is: RQ1. How is affective organizational and affective occupational commitment related to each other? Research on commitment suggests that among different behavioral outcomes of affective organizational commitment, the focus has been majorly on turnover intentions (Bartol, 1979; Blau and Boal, 1987; Huselid and Day, 1991; Cohen and Hudecek, 1993; Morrow, 1993; Porter et al., 1974; Steers, 1977). Organizational turnover intention is be defined as an employee’s decision to leave the organization voluntarily. Although turnover and turnover intention have been separately measured, turnover intention has been recognized as the final cognitive variable having an immediate causal effect on turnover (Bedeian et al., 1991). Individuals committed to organizations show less intention to exit the organization because they want to stay (Allen and Meyer, 1990). Unlike other behaviors in the workplace, turnover indicates a breach in the relationship between an individual and the organization. This separation incurs a significant amount of cost to the organization, and may be to the individuals. The cost of turnover may include opportunity costs, costs required for selection and training, and decreased level of morale of the remaining workers. These costs would become even more serious when the company loses valuable employees. Therefore, a better understanding of turnover intention in relation to commitment is warranted.

Organizational/ occupational commitment 471


PR 44,4

472

A critical appraisal of the occupational turnover literature suggest that there has been less empirical research attention given to intentions to change one’s occupation compared to other types of transitions (Cotton and Tuttle, 1986). Occupational turnover intention is generally understood as an employee’s decision to leave the occupation. Occupational turnover intention is important because of its potential link to retention – in terms of both occupational and organizational membership. Whether the concern is society’s need to retain people in particular occupations or an organization’s need to maintain the optimal level of turnover, a link between the two foci of commitment and turnover intentions is expected to have important human resources management implications. In this paper, we aim to understand various relationships between affective organizational commitment, affective occupational commitment, organizational turnover intention and occupational turnover intention. In doing so, we specifically examine the contribution of occupational commitment – in addition to organizational commitment – in explaining organizational and occupational turnover intentions within a sample of professional employees within the academic sector of a Dutch university. The second research question of the study, therefore goes: RQ2. How are organizational and occupational commitment related to organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover intentions of employees? Furthermore, recent literature based on empirical findings argues that in general, although there is a relationship between affective organizational commitment and turnover intentions; this relationship is rather weak (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Randall et al., 1990). One explanation for this relationship is that the empirical relationship is not simply a direct effect but could have been moderated or influenced by third variables (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990). Little research has been conducted on potential moderators of the affective organizational commitment-organizational turnover intentions relationship (Cohen and Hudecek, 1993). The same can be said for the occupational commitment and occupational turnover intentions relationship. In order to develop a better understanding of these differential relationships, we examine the potential moderating role of occupational commitment on the organizational commitment and organizational turnover intention relationship as well as the moderating role of organizational commitment on the occupational commitment and occupational turnover intention relationship. Thus, our next set of research questions ask: RQ3. Does affective occupational commitment buffer the effects of the negative relationship between affective organizational commitment and organizational turnover intentions? RQ4. Does affective organizational commitment buffer the effects of the negative relationship between affective occupational commitment and occupational turnover intentions? Before examining the different relationships, it is important to clarify how we conceptualize occupation and occupational commitment. In this paper, we view occupation as an identifiable and specific line of work that an individual engages in to earn a living at a given point in time (Lee et al., 2000). It consists of a constellation of requisite skills, knowledge, and duties that differentiate it from other occupations


(Lee et al., 2000). Since typically occupational duties are often carried out in the context of the employing organization, employees tend to pursue their occupational goals at the organization and thus employee occupational commitment is expected to reinforce their commitment to the organization in which they have membership. The terms occupation, profession and career have been used somewhat interchangeably in the commitment literature (Lee et al., 2000). Although this may well be a matter of taste, we believe that occupation best fits the notion under consideration in this review. The term occupation has been preferred over other terms because it is more general, encompassing both professionals and non-professionals (Lee et al., 2000; Blau, 1989; Meyer et al., 1993). For example, a person with a strong occupational commitment will more strongly identify with, and experience more positive feelings about the occupation in contrast to an individual with weak occupational commitment (Meyer et al., 1993). The research is expected to significantly contribute to existing models of affective organizational commitment, affective occupational commitment and turnover intentions. Data for this study were collected from a Dutch university, the sample contains both professionals (academic staff) and non-professionals (administrative and support staff). Relationship between affective organizational commitment and affective occupational commitment Historically, it was believed that commitment to one value system was inherently incompatible with commitment to the other value system (Blau and Scott, 1962; Gouldner, 1957). Thus, individuals were viewed as psychologically attaching themselves either to the occupation or the organization, and an increase in attachment in one area was accompanied by a decrease in attachment in the other area. Lacking strong research support, this perspective developed later into a view that the two foci of commitment were completely independent, exerting unique influences on work-related attitudes and behaviors (Greene, 1978; Meyer et al., 1993). Rather than viewing them as independent, the contemporary perspective suggests that the two foci of commitment are although separate and distinct phenomena but positively related to each other (Wallace, 1993). This allows for the possibility that commitment to the organization does not necessarily occur at the expense of commitment to the occupation and vice versa (Wallace, 1995). This happens because individuals with high occupational commitment are expected to possess relatively high organizational commitment because the employment setting permits them to behave consistently with their occupational values and goals (i.e. to act upon their occupational commitment). There are more researches that further suggest that the two foci of commitment are positively associated (Bartol, 1979; Blau, 1989; Lachman and Aranya, 1986; Morrow and Wirth, 1989; Ayree and Tan, 1992; Cohen, 2000). In line with these results our first hypothesis is formulated as follows: H1. Affective organizational commitment is positively related to affective occupational commitment. Relationship between affective organizational commitment, affective occupational commitment and organizational turnover intentions Organizational commitment has been widely investigated because of several main reasons. Committed employees show positive attitudes towards their job (Bateman



PR 44,4

474

and Strasser, 1984). A number of empirical studies confirm the role of organizational commitment in the turnover process (Meyer et al., 1993, 2002; Blau and Lunz, 1998; Cheng and Stockdale, 2003; Ko et al., 1997). Since the employees that feel emotional attachment with the organization also tend to identify more with it and consider themselves more like a “part of family” their intentions to quit the organization are consequently low. Therefore, employees who are highly committed to their organization are less likely to leave than employees who are relatively low committed. Therefore, our next hypothesis predicts the following: H2. Affective organizational commitment is negatively related with organizational turnover intentions. It can be expected that if the employees are committed to their occupation, they would attempt to seek opportunities in their current organization to pursue their occupational goals, because it would not be easier for them to leave the organizational membership which is assumed to provide them an umbrella for flourishing their careers. Even if they do not find a better opportunity, they will be less willing to leave because of career concerns relating their occupational goals. Thus the relationship between organizational commitment and organizational turnover intentions will be weaker for such employees. On the other hand, a decision to leave the organization will be easier for employees who are also low in occupational commitment because they would perceive to start with another organization or maybe even in a new occupation. This is because when employees are not bounded by their current occupation, new chances and opportunities are not bounded by their current organization which increases the probability of leaving the current company. Further, occupational members are taught that adherence to occupational values throughout a career is strongly desired regardless of the type of employing organization (Lachman and Aranya, 1986). Since the terms career and occupation are used interchangeably, thus in order to elaborate on the moderating effect of occupational commitment we consider research on career commitment. A few studies report that individuals who are highly committed to their “careers” have been shown to spend more time in developing skills, and show less intention to withdraw from their careers as well as jobs (Aryee and Tan, 1992; Blau, 1989). Stated differently, an individual’s commitment to an organization results not only from identification with that organization but also from identification with a specific career the individual is pursuing within the organization (Bedeian et al., 1991). Therefore it can be expected that the affective organizational commitmentorganizational turnover intentions relationship is influenced from the degree of occupational commitment. Thus the relationship between organizational commitment and organizational turnover intentions will be stronger for employees low in occupational commitment and vice versa. Therefore, it is hypothesized that: H3. Affective occupational commitment weakens the negative relationship between affective organizational commitment and organizational turnover intention. Relationship between affective occupational commitment, organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover intentions The emotional connection that a person feels with the occupation has implications for various work behaviors and, importantly, for whether the person wants to remain in the occupation. There are a few studies that have shown that occupational commitment is strongly related to occupational turnover intention and moderately related to


organizational turnover intention (Blau, 1989, 2003; Meyer et al., 1993; Hall et al., 2005; Snape and Redman, 2003; Lee et al., 2000). Just as organizational commitment predicts organizational turnover intentions, following the same line of reasoning, it could be inferred that individuals who are more committed to their occupation, will identify more with their occupation and will intent to stay in it, thus showing lower turnover intentions. Furthermore, although models of organizational turnover intentions have typically included such variables as job search behavior, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment (Price and Mueller, 1981), occupation-related variables have been largely ignored (Lee et al., 2000). Integrating occupational commitment into models of organizational turnover might be useful, given that the intention to change one’s occupation often emerges as a type of organizational turnover (e.g. when accountants tend to leave the accounting occupation they also intent to leave the accounting organization). This means that employees low on occupational commitment will not only show higher occupational turnover intentions but also higher organizational turnover intentions as then they will not be pursuing their career goals in their current organization. Furthermore, studies also show that occupational commitment and actual organizational turnover are negatively related (Bartol, 1979; Bedeian et al., 1991; Blau, 1989), suggesting that occupation-related attitudes are potentially important in the organizational turnover process. Following from these lines of reasoning and empirical evidence, we examine these relationships empirically by testing the following hypotheses: H4. Affective occupational commitment is negatively related with (a) occupational turnover intention and (b) organizational turnover intention. Along similar lines, organizational commitment may be expected to have a buffering effect on the negative relationship between occupational commitment and occupational turnover intentions. When an organization provides a vehicle for an individual to display his/her abilities and satisfy his/her career needs and thus provides an environment to promote the ideals and goals of a specific occupation, it enhances the organizational commitment of employees, and is logically expected to reduce the negative effects of occupational commitment on turnover. As noted earlier organizational commitment is reported to be positively related to occupational commitment (Ayree and Tan, 1992; Cohen, 2000). Therefore, negative work experiences at the organization (e.g. violating employees’ ideals relative to the occupation) may decrease employees’ commitment and attachment to their occupation and make the occupational commitment-occupational turnover intentions relationship stronger. If employees decide to leave their organization due to negative work experiences, they may also develop the intention to leave their occupation. London (1983) noted that organizational commitment should be a key individual variable explaining career commitment. Thus, the following hypothesis is: H5. Affective organizational commitment weakens the relationship between affective occupational commitment and occupational turnover intentions. Method Sample Using random sampling approach, we collected data from both academic and support staff of a Dutch university[1]. An online questionnaire was developed and sent through



PR 44,4

476

electronic mail to 752 of the total employees. Confidentiality was ensured to the respondents. After two weeks a reminder was sent through e-mail. A final reminder was sent at the end of the fourth week. Personal visits were also made to solicit higher response rate. Out of the total of 752 mails sent to the target sample, 18 mails remained undeliverable due to various reasons thus reducing the sample to 734. A total of 153 employees responded; yielding approximately 21 percent response rate. In all, 61 percent of the respondents were males, 56 percent were less than 40 years of age, 78 percent married, 79 percent of the respondents were faculty and 65 percent had an experience of less than ten years at the university. According to Armstrong and Overton (1977), late respondents may share similar characteristics and biases with non-respondents. Therefore, to check for non-response bias for both samples, we compared early with late respondents on demographic variables, including gender, age, marital status and tenure using t-tests and χ2 tests. No statistically significant differences were found on these demographic variables, indicating that although the threat of non-response bias cannot be totally excluded, on the whole, these results increased confidence in the representativeness of our samples. Measures A five-point Likert scale (1 ¼ completely not agree, to 5 ¼ completely agree) was used to measure the different constructs. Affective organizational and occupational commitment Four items were used from the scale developed by Allen and Meyer (1990) to measure affective organizational commitment with slight modification (Yousaf et al., 2013). Example item includes “I consider problems of the university (name of the university) my own problems”. Cronbach α for this construct was 0.82. We measured affective occupational commitment using a four items from the scale developed by Meyer et al. (1993). Example item includes “I am proud of my occupation”. Cronbach’s α for this construct was 0.86. Organizational and occupational turnover intentions Organizational turnover intention was slightly revised from Meyer et al.’s (1993) three item scale. An example item is “I frequently thought about leaving my current employer”. Cronbach’s α for this construct was 0.78. Occupational turnover intention was also slightly revised from Meyer et al.’s (1993) three item scale. An example item is “I frequently thought about getting out of academia”. Cronbach’s α for this construct was 0.85. Control variables Age, gender, marital status and experience (within the organization) were used as controls as they are generally used in studies of the antecedents and consequences of commitment (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990). Controls were coded as follows: males were assigned 0 and females 1; employees o 40 were assigned 0 while those above 40 were measured by 1; single respondents were categorized as 0 and married (and living together) as 1; employees having less than ten years experience at the current organization were categorized as 0 and the remaining 1. Since age and experience are not always linear related to commitment we examined their quadratic effects too. Both quadratic effects for age and experience were not related to the two foci of


commitment and the two types of turnover we did not take into account in the following analyses. Furthermore we used a dummy to differentiate between the academic (0) and the support staff (1) in order to explore the differences between the two sub samples. Mean organizational commitment, occupational commitment, organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover intentions for the sample of support staff was 3.05, 4.10, 1.91 and 2.03, respectively, while these means for academic staff were 3.00, 4.22, 2.23 and 2.23, respectively. Means of the two groups were compared using t-test and results suggested no significant differences in means across two samples with respect to organizational commitment, occupational commitment, organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover intentions (t ¼ 0.51, ns; t ¼ −1.13, ns; t ¼ −1.90, ns; t ¼ −1.10, ns). This means that no significant differences were found between the two categories of employees i.e. academic and support staff at the university. These non-significant differences in the means of the two groups lead us to treat them as one sample for simplicity in the analysis given below. Since data were collected from individual employees within five different faculties of the university, we computed interclass correlation coefficients (Bliese, 2000) to check for differences in organizational commitment, occupational commitment, organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover intentions of employees with respect to their faculty. The intra class correlations for organizational commitment, occupational commitment, organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover intentions were found to be 0.08, 0.06, 0.04 and 0.05 indicating that only 8, 6, 4 and 5 percent of the variance of organizational commitment, occupational commitment, organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover intentions, respectively, occurs between the different faculties, while at least around 92 percent of the variance is related to the individual level. Given these low intra class correlations, there is no sufficient justification for the use of multilevel analysis. Common method variance Because all data are self-reported and collected through the same questionnaire during the same time point, Harman’s one factor test (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986) was used to investigate the potential influence of common method variance. All study variables were entered in a principal factor analysis, using varimax rotation, to determine the number of factors that are necessary to account for the variance in the variables. The results showed four independent factors (organizational commitment, occupational commitment, organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover intentions) with an “eigenvalue” greater than 1, accounting for 69.43 percent of the variance. The first (largest) factor did not account for majority of the variance, nor was there a general factor that accounted for the majority of the covariance in these variables. This suggests that common method variance is not of great concern. In order to minimize multi-collinearity, the independent variable and moderated variable (both organizational commitment and occupational commitment) were centered (Aiken and West, 1991). Analytical strategy Given that there were multiple relationships between the dependent, moderating and independent variables, structural equation modeling (SEM) appeared to be the most



PR 44,4

478

appropriate method to address the research questions. SEM have the advantage of pointing out causal relationships, even in cross-sectional designs. Second, it is possible to calculate the error-free relationships between concepts, because in latent structure models SEM considers the reliability of the measures. A two-step procedure (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988) of SEM is applied to conduct data analysis after data collection. First, the measurement model was tested for the validity of the indicators and then structural model was evaluated. Table I presents the correlation matrix used for the analysis. Before conducting the moderation analysis, we followed procedures outlined in Aiken and West (1991) for splitting the organizational commitment and occupational commitment variables into high and low scores. Specifically, we conducted a tertile split on the data and retained all of the observations that fell one standard deviation above the mean and one standard deviation below the mean for both the moderators. To evaluate the fit of the model, χ2, goodness of fit indices and RMSEA, measures of model adequacy based on the population discrepancy were assessed (Arbuckle and Wothke, 1999). According to Hair et al. (1995), goodness of fit indices greater than 0.90 and RMSEA indices of less than 0.08 indicate a good model fit. To assess the moderating effects of the two moderating variables, the significance of the differences in individual parameter estimates was compared for high and low levels of each moderator using critical ratio (CR). CR is the z-test used to make comparison of differences between path coefficients across models. For the difference between paths to be statistically significant at p o 0.05, the value of CR should be greater than the absolute value of 1.96. The CR is calculated by dividing the unstandardized estimate by its standard error. Results Table I reports the descriptive statistics including means, standard deviations, α reliabilities and inter-correlations between the different measures. Age was negatively related to organizational and occupational turnover intentions (r ¼ −0.20, p o 0.05, r ¼ −0.21, p o 0.05, respectively). This result is consistent with previous findings (Cotton and Cuttle, 1986), older employees tend to stay with the organization compared to younger employees who frequently change jobs and even occupations. Significant negative relations were found between work experience and organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover intentions (r ¼ −0.19, p o 0.05, r ¼ −0.17, p o 0.05, respectively). This finding is consistent with previous studies in which it is suggested that individuals early in their career are more motivated to explore a satisfactory work or life structure (Levinson, 1996). Therefore, individuals are more likely to leave their present organization and occupation in their early career stages when they are less experienced. Important to note that no significant differences were found between the two categories of employees i.e. academic and support staff at the university. These non-significant differences in the means of the two groups lead us to treat them as one sample for simplicity in the analysis given below. Organizational commitment and occupational commitment were found to be positively related (r ¼ 0.47, p o 0.05). Organizational commitment was negatively related to organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover intentions (r ¼ −0.30, p o 0.01, r ¼ −0.16, p o 0.05, respectively). Occupational commitment was also found to be negatively related to organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover intentions (r ¼ −0.34, p o 0.01, r ¼ −0.29, p o0.01, respectively). Interestingly a high correlations was observed between organizational turnover

SD 0.49 0.50 0.42 0.56 0.39 0.86 0.75 0.99 1.06

Mean

1. Gender (1 ¼ female) 0.39 2. Age (1 ¼ W40 years) 0.44 3. Marital status (1 ¼ married) 0.22 4. Experience (1 ¼ W 10 years) 0.35 5. Sample (1 support staff) 0.41 6. Organizational commitment 3.0 7. Occupational commitment 4.13 8. Organizational turnover 2.08 9. Occupational turnover 2.1 Notes: n ¼ 153. **p o 0.01; *p o0.05

Variables −0.01 −0.17* 0.19* 0.14 −0.15 −0.14 −0.07 −0.06

1

−0.22** 0.46** 0.41 −0.00 −0.01 −0.20* −0.21*

2

−0.11 0.12 −0.04 0.06 0.05 0.03

3

0.23 0.12 0.05 −0.19* −0.17*

4

0.18 0.25 0.34 0.24

5

(0.82) 0.47** −0.30** −0.16*

6

(0.86) −0.34** −0.29**

7


9

(0.85)

8

(0.78) 0.80**


Table I. Means, standard deviations (α reliabilities) and inter item correlations

480

intentions and occupational turnover intentions (r ¼ 0.80, p o 0.01). To rule out the possibility of multi-collinearity among the two types of turnover intentions we examined the variance inflation factor (VIF) in the subsequent regression analyses. The largest VIF value was 2.91, which is much lower than the cut-off value of 10 (Chatterjee et al., 2000), thus multi-collinearlity did not seem to be a problem. Moreover, as noted in the results of Harman’s single factor analysis, organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover intentions turned out to be loaded on distinct factors. Measurement model A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess the measurement properties of the scales used in the study. Several fit criteria were used to assess the measurement model, including the χ2 and comparative fit index (CFI; Bentler, 1990), normed fit index (NFI; Bentler and Bonett, 1980), goodness of fit index (GFI) and adjusted goodness of fit index (AGFI; Joreskog and Sorbom, 1993). The measurement model fits well ( χ2(13; n ¼ 153) ¼ 98.2, p ¼ 0.03, CFI ¼ 0.99, NFI ¼ 0.95, GFI ¼ 0.97 and AGFI ¼ 0.98). In addition to the positive indices, factor loadings ranging from 0.71 to 0.89 supported the measurement properties of the model. Structural model Following the first step of measurement model testing, the second step is analyzing the structural models. Figure 1 illustrates the hypothesized model tested in the present study. The measurement model was tested by adding paths from independent variables (organizational commitment and occupational commitment) to the dependent variables (organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover

Affective Occupational Commitment

Low OCC = –0.52 High OCC = –0.21 Affective Organizational Commitment

Figure 1. Path model showing moderating role of affective occupational commitment in the relationship between affective organizational commitment and organizational turnover intentions

Organizational Turnover Intention

= –0.31

r = 0.47


PR 44,4

.27

=

Affective Occupational Commitment

–0

= –0.31

Affective Organizational Commitment

Occupational Turnover Intention


intentions) with additionally testing moderating role of organizational commitment and occupational commitment in direct paths. Pertinent to mention that no significant relationships were found between any of the control variables, sex, marital status, experience, except for a weak negative relationship between age and the two types of turnover intentions ( β ¼ −0.18, p o 0.05; β ¼ −0.19, p o 0.05 for organizational turnover intentions and occupational turnover intentions, respectively) and the model outcomes. Our first hypothesis examined the positive relationship between organizational commitment and occupational commitment. Table I indicates a significant positive relationship between organizational commitment and occupational commitment (r ¼ 0.47, p o 0.01) thus confirming H1. Results of the structural model as shown in Figure 1 indicate that organizational commitment was negatively related to organizational turnover intentions ( β ¼ −0.31, p o 0.05) thus confirming H2. H4a and b predicted the negative relationship between occupational commitment, occupational turnover intentions and organizational turnover intentions. Results of these models as depicted in Figure 1, confirmed our expectations as affective occupational commitment was negatively related occupational turnover intentions ( β ¼ −0.31, p o 0.01), confirming H4a was supported. Results also indicated a negative relationship between affective occupational commitment and organizational turnover intentions ( β ¼ −0.27, p o 0.01), thus confirming H4b. H3 and H5 related to the moderating role of organizational commitment in the occupational commitment-occupational turnover intentions relationship and the moderating effect of occupational commitment in the organizational commitment-organizational turnover intentions relationship. We examined the moderating effects of organizational commitment and occupational commitment on each of the paths in the model. To do so, SEM was conducted twice for both affective organizational commitment and affective occupational commitment – once with high levels of organizational commitment and occupational commitment and once with low levels of affective organizational commitment and affective occupational commitment. This allowed for the calculation of overall fit statistics and the assessment of critical differences between the paths on the model for high and low levels of affective organizational commitment and affective occupational commitment. An examination of the CR for difference among the paths for respondents high and low in occupational commitment revealed significant differences. Specifically, for high affective occupational commitment and for low affective occupational commitment), there was a weaker negative relationship between organizational commitment and organizational turnover intentions for those higher in occupational commitment (CR ¼ −2.98; β ¼ −0.21, β ¼ −0.52; high occupational commitment and low occupational commitment, respectively). This means H3 was confirmed. Moderating effects of occupational commitment in the organizational commitment-organizational turnover intentions relationship have also been shown in Figure 2. However, CRs for differences among the paths for participants high and low in affective organizational commitment revealed no significant differences (CR ¼ −1.103; β ¼ −0.11, β ¼ −0.17; high affective organizational commitment and low affective organizational commitment, respectively). Thus H5 could not be confirmed. Discussion Existing models of organizational and occupational commitment study organizational and occupational turnover intentions in separate studies and the linkages between the


PR 44,4

5 Low OCC

4.5

High OCC

482

Figure 2. Model showing buffering effect of OCC in the ORC – ORTI relationship

organizational turnover


4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 Low ORC

High ORC

two foci of commitment and turnover intentions tend to be ignored. This investigation was aimed to examine the interrelationships between the two foci of commitment (i.e. organizational and occupational) as well as the effects of these two foci on two important behavioral intentions (i.e. organizational and occupational turnover intentions). Furthermore, the moderating role of occupational commitment was studied in the relationship between organizational commitment and organizational turnover intentions and lastly the moderating role of organizational commitment was studied in the relationship between occupational commitment and occupational turnover intentions. According to our results, occupational commitment is distinguishable from organizational commitment. Similarly, organizational turnover intentions are distinct from occupational turnover intentions. The results mean that Dutch researchers and support staff also identify their occupations as being separate from the organization they are currently working for. In the sections below we discuss the different results in line with the hypotheses. The first hypothesis predicted the positive relationship between affective organizational commitment and affective occupational commitment. The results indicates both are highly related thus confirming H1 and providing further support to the contemporary findings on the positive relationship between organizational commitment and occupational commitment (Wallace, 1993, 1995). This research result might be further helpful in resolving the ongoing controversy in the commitment literature whether the two foci of commitment evolve independently of each other or whether they can co-exist. The results of the current study indicate that professionals and non-professionals can be committed to both their organization and their occupation at the same time. H2 examined the negative relationship between organizational commitment and organizational turnover intentions and was supported by the findings. This result is in line with previous studies indicating this relationship (Blau and Lunz, 1998; Meyer et al., 1993).


The third hypothesis examined the buffering role of occupational commitment in the relationship between organizational commitment and organizational turnover intentions. This hypothesis was also supported by the results of our study. This indicates that when individuals are committed to the organization they are less willing to leave the company, and the degree is stronger for those highly committed to their occupations. These individuals are likely to exit and tend to contribute to the company if their organizational commitment is increased. Furthermore, the intention and thus decision to leave the organization will be much easier for the employees with low occupational and organizational commitment. Therefore, considering that high occupationally committed employees spend more time in developing skills and pursuing their occupational goals in the organization in which they are a member of, they express less intention to withdraw from their occupations (Aryee and Tan, 1992). The fourth hypothesis predicted the negative relationship between occupational commitment and occupational turnover intentions and organizational turnover intentions. This hypothesis was also supported by the findings as occupational commitment significantly explained variance both in the occupational turnover intentions and organizational turnover intentions. While there are few researches indicating a relationship between occupational commitment and occupational turnover intentions (Lee et al., 2000), not much extant research examines the linkages between occupational commitment and organizational turnover intentions. This result suggests that lesser occupational commitment will lead not only to occupational turnover intentions but also to organizational turnover intentions as the occupational expectations of the employees will not be met at their current organization and they would tend to join another organization which falls in a different occupational domain. It is also interesting to note that the role of occupational commitment as a predictor of organizational turnover intentions was relatively stronger compared to organizational commitment. Last study hypothesis related to the buffering role of organizational commitment in the occupational commitment-occupational turnover intentions relationship. This hypothesis could not be supported. This result could mean that commitment with the occupation is more important determinant in shaping employee turnover intentions. Although occupational commitment buffer the relationship between organizational commitment-organizational turnover intentions organizational commitment does not play that role in the model of occupational commitment-occupational turnover intentions. Even if the employees are committed to their organization, this commitment cannot influence the degree of the relationship between occupational commitment and occupational turnover intentions. This result gathers strengths from past conclusions that occupational commitment is more important for employees than organizational commitment (Cohen, 2007). In conclusion, this research goes beyond existing research by pointing out the important role of occupational commitment in the organizational and occupational turnover process. Occupational commitment not only predicted organizational and occupational turnover intentions but was also found to moderate the organizational commitment-organizational turnover intentions relationship and additional analysis also suggested partial mediation of occupational commitment in organizational commitment-organizational turnover intentions model. Implications for management This study offers an interesting examination of the relationship between affective organizational commitment and occupational commitment within a single occupational area – higher education. It demonstrates that both organizational and occupational



PR 44,4

484

commitment are important predictors of turnover intention. While there is considerable research on organizational commitment, there is substantially less work focusing on occupational commitment. The contribution of this study is the examination of both of these constructs and their influence on turnover intentions. Given the changes in higher education and in other industries, it is timely to consider occupational turnover, as well as organizational turnover. Our investigation of outcome variables provided some particularly interesting findings supporting the idea that occupational commitment has the predictive power to determine organizational and occupational turnover intentions and also buffers the negative organizational commitment-organizational turnover intentions relationship. Thus occupational commitment played a pivotal role in organizational turnover process. A deeper understanding of this construct can assist employers in devising appropriate management strategies to increase favorable outcomes, including better management of the variables that may affect occupational commitment. It appears that our ability to predict organizational turnover is enhanced when both occupational and organizational variables are considered simultaneously. Getting back to the ongoing changes in nature of careers, Hall et al. (2005) suggested that in the transactional relationship, organizations do not provide life-time employment, and the relationship is based on short-term contributions. In this situation, it becomes difficult for organizations to expect the same previous levels of attachment or loyalty from the employees because individuals become more concerned with their own occupational goals and feel detached from the current company. Therefore, organizations need to develop management techniques or strategies which also pay attention to developing their employees’ career needs which in turn can lead to the employees’ devotion to the company and buffer the negative effects of organizational commitment on organizational turnover intentions. Therefore, by concentrating on other human resource practices such as internal promotion, training programs, and supervisory support, the organizations could potentially strengthen the level of affective commitment of their workforce not only with the organization but also with the occupation, because occupational commitment has also (at least) equal predictive power in determining organizational turnover intentions. This management strategy will work to reduce organizational and occupational turnover intentions of strongly occupationally committed researchers. It is also useful to adopt policies that enhance employees’ occupational identities (Lee et al., 2000). Taking the case of academic researchers these could include encouraging occupational activities (e.g. attending conferences or publishing papers), providing valued rewards (e.g. better benefits), promoting their occupations or sponsoring training opportunities to shape employees’ emotional attachment to the occupation (Blau et al., 2003). This means that managers should take both types of employees’ intentions into consideration at the same time as they seem to be reciprocally related. The study findings also report that both types of turnover intention are determined by occupational commitment. One clear implication for organizations is to expand their employee survey to probe both organizational and occupational commitment. However, it is conceivable that context plays a role in this study’s finding that employees are more committed to their occupation than to their employers. Globalization, competition and economic crises fuel the permanent attention for the worth of the educational system, its structure, its quality and its outcomes more than ever (Schwab, 2011). Especially the effectiveness of higher education as the final keystone of educational systems, is put under a magnifying glass to examine critical aspects such as accessibility, study


success, cost benefit ratio’s and the quality of graduates (OECD, 2005, 2011; Education Inspectorate of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, 2011). It should be noted that these relationships should be examined in different contexts where the occupational identification may be weaker than in higher education. Managing within higher education might be a different story than managing within telecommunications or other industries. Limitations and research perspective A few limitations of this study should be noted. First, all variables in this study were measured with self-reports and from the same source, thus the problem of common method variance may have influenced the results (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). During questionnaire development we adopted the psychological separation method (Podsakoff et al., 2003) to reduce this problem. That is, we excluded the introduction of each variable, and tried to make it appear that the measurement of both the predictor and the criterion variable were not connected. After data collection, we adopted Harman’s one factor test (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). Common method variance is likely to exist if a single factor emerges from the factor analysis and accounts for most of the variance (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). As noted before, results of the factor analysis did not indicate existence of this problem although of course the issue cannot be entirely ruled out. Second, since this study is one of the few studies which simultaneously examined outcomes of occupational and organizational commitment in terms of turnover intentions, a larger sample with diverse vocations and occupations would provide more robust findings and enable greater generalizability. Factors related to individual careers are gaining importance with changing patterns of management. With increasing mergers, downsizing, and layoffs, individuals become unable to depend on a single organization for their entire careers, and commitment to one’s own career accordingly becomes an important source of occupational meaning. Therefore, more studies regarding individual careers or an individual’s attitude toward his/her career are required to better understand the behavior or attitude of an individual. Future research should also explore additional moderators for instance cultural differences. From Hofstede (1980, 1984, 1997) viewpoint, employees in high uncertainty avoidance societies express their intention to stay with the organization for a long-term career. Uncertainty avoidance is defined as the extent to which individuals accept uncertainty and ambiguity in various situations. Individuals in low uncertainty avoidance countries, for instance, are more tolerant of uncertainty than those in high uncertainty avoidance societies (Hofstede, 1980a). From turnover perspective, low uncertainty avoidance could imply higher intentions to quite the current organization or even occupation and to accept an uncertain future. In comparison, employees in high uncertainty avoidance cultures, where a stable and structured work environment is preferred, might show lesser intentions to leave the organization and occupation even if they are not “really” committed to the respective commitment foci. Another dimension over which Hofstede (1984) distinguished different cultures is individualistic and collectivist dimension. Individualism-collectivism is also expected to play a moderating role in the commitment and turnover relationship as many studies show the impact of culture with specific relevance to organizational commitment. Career stage is also a possible moderator. In different career stages, individuals have unique demands and needs within their careers, jobs and organizations (Noe et al., 1988). Reilly and Orsak (1991) argued that commitment would be stronger in the latter period of individual’s career stage (e.g. maintenance stage) due to accumulated



PR 44,4

486

organizational investments, few alternative jobs, and a sense of obligation and loyalty to their current organization. Given these perspectives, it would be useful to analyze the different studied relationships between commitment and turnover intentions at different career stages. Conclusion Turnover of scientific staff is observed in the Netherlands in past few years (De Weert, 2001; Education Inspectorate of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, 2011). Faculty organizational turnover intentions have been reported to be related to their organizational commitment, job satisfaction, pay satisfaction, research productivity, participation and influence in governance matters (Cotton and Cuttle, 1986). Thus it could be stated that so far only personal, contextual and organizational factors were studied with respect to faculty turnover. The current study highlights the role of occupational commitment in models of organizational turnover and also showed the role of occupational commitment as a moderator to the organizational commitment-organizational turnover intentions model. The model in this study presents an initial effort to explore the relative importance of these influences on faculty turnover intentions and subsequent behavior and also tries to identify the dynamic process by which these influences are exerted. Since the faculty working in universities is professionals; their occupational commitment cannot be ignored and the findings from the current study call for future research in this area. The retention of academics should be a strategic priority as it is difficult to replace the knowledge, skills and experience of academic staff (Simmons, 2002). These skills are only acquired over a long period of time and are accompanied by extensive experience. Organizations will continue to lose valuable employees to their competitors unless practicing managers are able to identify and apply appropriate commitment strategies that will help in reducing the turnover of key employees. Note 1. We are thankful to Jordy Jorritsma who helped us in data collection for this sample. References Aiken, L. and West, S. (1991), Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions, Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA. Allen, N.J. and Meyer, J.P. (1990), “The measurement and antecedents of affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization”, Journal of Occupational Psychology, Vol. 63 No. 1, pp. 1-18. Anderson, J.C. and Gerbing, D.W. (1988), “Structural equation modeling in practice: a review and recommended two-step approach”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 103 No. 3, pp. 411-423. Arbuckle, J.L. and Wothke, W. (1999), Amos Users’ Guide, Version 4.0, SmallWaters Corporation, Chicago, IL. Armstrong, J.S. and Overton, T.S. (1977), “Estimating nonresponse bias in mail surveys”, Journal of Marketing Research, pp. 396-402. Aryee, S. and Tan, K. (1992), “Antecedents and outcomes of career commitment”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 288-305. Bartol, K. (1979), “Professionalism as a predictor of organizational commitment, role stress, and turnover: a multidimensional approach”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 815-822.


Bateman, T.S. and Strasser, S. (1984), “A longitudinal analysis of the antecedents of organizational commitment”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 95-112. Becker, T.E. (1992), “Foci and bases of commitment: are they distinctions worth making?”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 232-244. Bedeian, A., Kemery, E. and Pizzolatto, A. (1991), “Career commitment and expected utility of present job as predictors of turnover intentions and turnover behavior”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 39 No. 3, pp. 331-343. Bentler, P.M. (1990), “Comparative fit indexes in structural models”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 107 No. 2, pp. 238-246. Bentler, P.M. and Bonett, D.G. (1980), “Significance tests and goodness of fit in the analysis of covariance structures”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 88 No. 3, pp. 588-606. Blau, G. (1989), “Testing the generalizability of a career commitment measure and its impact on employee turnover”, Academy of Management Proceedings, Vol. 1989 No. 1, pp. 53-57. Blau, G. and Lunz, M. (1998), “Testing the incremental effect of professional commitment on intent to leave one’s profession beyond the effects of external, personal, and work-related variables”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 52 No. 2, pp. 260-269. Blau, G., Tatum, D.S. and Ward-Cook, K. (2003), “Correlates of professional versus organizational withdrawal cognitions”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 63 No. 1, pp. 72-85. Blau, G.J. and Boal, K.B. (1987), “Conceptualizing how job involvement and organizational commitment affect turnover and absenteeism”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 288-300. Blau, P.M. and Scott, W.R. (1962), Formal Organizations, Chandler, San Francisco, CA. Bliese, P.D. (2000), “Within-group agreement, non-independence, and reliability: implications for data aggregation and analysis”, in Klein, K. and Kozlowski, S.W. (Eds), Multilevel Theory, Research and Methods in Organizations, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, pp. 349-381. Cappelli, P., Bassi, L., Katz, H., Knoke, D., Osterman, P., and Useem, M. (1997), Change at Work, Oxford Univ. Press, New York, NY. Carson, K.D. and Bedeian, A.G. (1994), “Career commitment: construction of a measure and examination of its psychometric properties”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 44 No. 3, pp. 237-262. Chatterjee, S., Hadi, A.S. and Price, B. (2000), Regression Analysis by Example, John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, NY. Cheng, Y. and Stockdale, M.S. (2003), “The validity of the three-component model oforganizational commitment in a Chinese context”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 62 No. 3, pp. 465-489. Cohen, A. (1992), “Antecedents of organizational commitment across occupational groups: a meta‐analysis”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 13 No. 6, pp. 539-558. Cohen, A. (2000), “The relationship between commitment forms and work outcomes: a comparison of three models”, Human Relations, Vol. 53 No. 3, pp. 387-417. Cohen, A. (2003), Multiple Commitments in the Workplace: An Integrative Approach, Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ. Cohen, A. (2007), Dynamics between Occupational and Organizational Commitment in the Context of Flexible Labor Markets: A Review of the Literature and Suggestions for a Future Research Agenda, ITB-Forschungsberichte, Bremen. Cohen, A. and Hudecek, N. (1993), “Organizational commitment-turnover relationship across occupational groups a meta-analysis”, Group & Organization Management, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 188-213.



PR 44,4

488

Cotton, J.L. and Tuttle, J.M. (1986), “Employee turnover: a meta-analysis and review and implications for future research”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 55-70. De Weert, E. (2001), “Pressures and prospects facing the academic profession in the Netherlands”, Higher Education, Vol. 41 Nos 1-2, pp. 77-101. Education Inspectorate of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (2011), “The State of Education in the Netherlands”, Education Report 2009-2010, available at: www. onderwijsinspectie.nl (accessed January 12, 2012). Gouldner, A.W. (1957), “Cosmopolitans and locals: toward an analysis of latent social roles. I.”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 281-306. Greene, C.N. (1978), “Identification modes of professionals: relationship with formalization, role strain and alienation”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 21 No. 3, pp. 426-492. Griffin, R.W. and Bateman, T.S. (1986), “Job satisfaction and organizational commitment”, in Cooper, C.L. and Robertson, I. (Eds), International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Wiley, New York, NY, pp. 157-188. Hair, J., Anderson, R., Tatham, R. and Black, W. (1995), Multivariate Data Analysis with Readings, 4th ed., Prentic-Hall, NJ. Hair, J.F.J., Anderson, R.E., Tatham, R.L. and Black, W.C. (1998), Multivariate Data Analysis with Readings, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Hall, D.T. and Moss, J.E. (1998), “The new protean career contract: helping organizations and employees adapt”, Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 22-37. Hall, M., Smith, D. and Langfield-Smith, K. (2005), “Accountant’s commitment to their profession: multiple dimensions of professional commitment and opportunities for future research”, Behavioral Research in Accounting, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 89-109. Hofstede, G. (1980), Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, CA. Hofstede, G. (1984), “Cultural dimensions in management and planning”, Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 81-99. Hofstede, G. (1997), Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Huselid, M.A. and Day, N.E. (1991), “Organizational commitment, job involvement, and turnover: a substantive and methodological analysis”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 76 No. 3, pp. 380-391. Johnson, R.A. (1996), “Antecedents and outcomes of corporate refocusing”, Journal of Management, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 439-483. Joreskog, K.G. and Sorbom, D. (1993), LISREL VIII: User’s Reference Guide, Scientific Software International, Chicago, IL. Kim, S.W. and Mueller, C.W. (2010), “Occupational and organizational commitment in different occupational contexts: the case of South Korea”, Work and Occupations, Vol. 38, pp. 3-36, 0730888410383367. Ko, J., Price, J.L. and Mueller, C.W. (1997), “Assessment of Meyer and Allen’s three-component model of organizational commitment in South Korea”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 82 No. 6, pp. 961-973. Lachman, R. and Aranya, N. (1986), “Job attitudes and turnover intentions among professionals in different work settings”, Organization Studies, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 227-243. Lee, K., Carswell, J.J. and Allen N.J. (2000), “A meta-analytic review of occupational commitment: relations with person and work related variables”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 85 No. 5, pp. 799-811.


Levinson, K. (1996), “Codetermination in Sweden: from separation to integration”, Economic and Industrial Democracy, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 131-142. London, M. (1983), “Toward a theory of career motivation”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 620-630. Mathieu, J.E. and Zajac, D.M. (1990), “A review and meta-analysis of the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of organizational commitment”, Psychosociaal Bulletin, Vol. 108 No. 2, pp. 171-194. Meyer, J.P. and Allen, N.J. (1997), Commitment in the Workplace: Theory, Research, and Application, Sage Publications. Meyer, J.P. and Herscovitch, L. (2001), “Commitment in the workplace: toward a general model”, Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 299-326. Meyer, J.P., Allen, N.J. and Smith, C.A. (1993), “Commitment to organizations and occupations: extension and test of a three-component conceptualization”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 78 No. 4, pp. 538-551. Meyer, J.P., Becker, T.E. and Vandenberghe, C. (2004), “Employee commitment and motivation: a conceptual analysis and integrative model”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 89 No. 6, pp. 991-1007. Meyer, J.P., Irving, P.G. and Allen, N.J. (1998), “Examination of the combined effects of work values and early work experience on organizational commitment”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 29-52. Meyer, J.P., Stanley, D.J., Herscovitch, L. and Topolnytsky, L. (2002), “Affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the organization: a meta-analysis of interrelations and outcomes”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 61 No. 1, pp. 20-52. Morrow, P. (1993), The Theory and Measurement of Work Commitment, JAI Press, London. Morrow, P.C. and Wirth, R.E. (1989), “Work commitment among salaried professionals”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 40-56. Noe, R., Steffy, B. and Barber, A. (1988), “An investigation of the factors in influencing employee’s willingness to accept mobility opportunities”, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 41 No. 3, pp. 559-580. Nollen, S.D. and Axel, H.A. (1996), Managing Contingent Workers: How to Reap the Benefits and Reduce the Risks, Am. Mgmt. As-soc, New York, NY. OECD (2005), “Teachers matter: attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers”, available at: www.oecd.org (accessed January 13, 2012). OECD (2011), Education at a Glance, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (ISBN 9789264114203), Paris, available at: www.oecd.org (accessed January 12, 2012). Podsakoff, P.M. and Organ, D. (1986), “Self-reports in organizational research: problems and prospects”, Journal of Management, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 531-544. Podsakoff, P.M., MacKenzie, S.B., Lee, J.Y. and Podsakoff, N.P. (2003), “Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 88 No. 5, p. 879. Porter, L.W., Steers, R.M., Mowday, R.T. and Boulian, P.V. (1974), “Organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover among psychiatric technicians”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 59 No. 5, pp. 603-609. Price, J.L. and Mueller, C.W. (1981), Professional Turnover: The Case of Nurses, Spectrum, New York, NY. Randall, D.M., Fedor, D.B. and Longenecker, C.O. (1990), “The behavioral expression of organizational commitment”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 210-224.



PR 44,4

490

Reilly, N.P. and Orsak, C.L. (1991), “A career stage analysis of career and organizational commitment in nursing”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 39 No. 3, pp. 311-330. Schwab, K. (2011), The Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012, World Economic Forum, Geneva. Simmons, J. (2002), “An ‘expert witness’ perspective on performance appraisal in universities and colleges”, Employee Relations, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 86-100. Snape, E. and Redman, T. (2003), “An evaluation of a three-component model of occupational commitment: dimensionality and consequences among United Kingdom human resource management specialists”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 88 No. 1, pp. 152-159. Steers, R.M. (1977), “Antecedents and outcomes of organizational commitment”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 46-56. Vandenberg, R.J. and Scarpello, V. (1994), “A longitudinal assessment of the determinant relationship between employee commitments to the occupation and the organization”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 15 No. 6, pp. 535-547. Wallace, J.E. (1993), “Professional and organizational commitment: compatible or incompatible?”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 42 No. 3, pp. 333-349. Wallace, J.E. (1995), “Organizational and professional commitment in professional and nonprofessional organizations”, Administrative Science Quarterly, pp. 228-255. Yousaf, A., Sanders, K. and Shipton, H. (2013), “Proactive and politically skilled professionals: ‘what is the relationship with affective occupational commitment?’”, Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 211-230. Further reading Mobley, W.H. (1977), “Intermediate linkages in the relationship between job satisfaction and employee turnover”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 62 No. 2, pp. 237-240. Mobley, W.H., Horner, S.O. and Hollingsworth, A.T. (1978), “An evaluation of the precursors of hospital employee turnover”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 63 No. 4, pp. 408-414. Mobley, W.H., Griffeth, R.W., Hand, H.H. and Meglino, B.M. (1979), “Review and conceptual analysis of the employee turnover process”, Psychological bulletin, Vol. 86 No. 3, p. 493. Talaga, J. and Beehr, T.A. (1989), “Retirement: a psychological perspective”, in Cooper, K. and Robinson, I.V. (Eds), International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Wiley, New York, NY, pp. 185-211. About the authors Dr Amna Yousaf (PhD, University of Twente, the Netherlands) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan. Her research interests include but are not limited to organizational and occupational commitment, high-performance work systems, employee personality traits, employability, and LMX relationships. She has published in reputed journals such as the International Journal of Human Resource Management, Asia Pacific Journal of Management, and Thunderbird International Business Review. She has been a Management Banker in the past. Dr Amna Yousaf is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: amna.yousaf@ comsats.edu.pk Karin Sanders is a Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management (HRM) at the School of Management, Australian School of Business (ASB), UNSW, in Sydney, Australia. In her research, she is interested in the process approach of HRM, in particular the impact of employees’ perceptions and attributions of HRM on their attitudes and behaviors. To test the different theoretical models she is using advanced statistical research methods.


She is (co)author of more than 60 international articles in high-impact journals, and she is co-editor, with Dr Helen Shipton and Dr Jorge Gomes, of a special issue of HRM, “Are HRM processes important?”. She is an Associate Editor of Evidence Based HRM. Qaisar Abbas is a Full Professor holding his PhD Degree in Human Resource Development from the Nankai University Tianjin China in May 2000. He performed Post-Doctoral Research at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, UK in September 2007. Professor Abbas is a prolific researcher who has produced a consistent stream of research output that includes 11 journal publications in just the last three years. He has to his credit 22 publications in international and national journals, eight conference proceedings and seven conference presentations. He was instrumental in launching a new international research journal South Asian Journal of Global Business Research published by Emerald publications.

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website: www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm Or contact us for further details: [email protected]
