First Advisor

Alan Cabelly

Date of Publication

1991

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Systems Science: Business Administration

Department

Systems Science: Business Administration

Language

English

Subjects

Commitment (Psychology), Job satisfaction

DOI

10.15760/etd.1377

Physical Description

3, x, 281 leaves

Abstract

The major purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between commitment to one's profession and commitment to one's employer and the role this relationship plays in predicting satisfaction, performance and turnover. In order to accomplish this purpose the antecedents and outcomes of the commitments were modeled and tested using covariance structural modeling techniques. The data source was the 1990 Kaiser Permanente, Northwest Region Employee Survey. The study included a wide range of occupations. The literature is ambiguous about the definition and measurement of professional and organizational commitment. Professional commitment is characterized either as a unidimensional or multidimensional construct where only members of the traditional professions are included. Organizational commitment is defined either as investments in the organization or as alignment of attitudes and goals. Organizational and professional commitment are rarely studied in unison and have never been modeled in unison as independent variables in a system of antecedents and outcomes. A first and second-order confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that measures of education, job demands, age tenure, organizational characteristics, rewards, professional commitment, organizational commitment, satisfaction, performance and turnover measures were reliable, valid and not redundant. A model of the relationships among the variables was tested using general maximum likelihood procedures in SAS. Organizational characteristics were the single best predictor of both commitments. When the commitments were modeled and tested in unison, the results indicate that organizational commitment plays a minor role in predicting outcomes. Professional commitment was the best predictor of satisfaction and performance. The structural model was unable to account for turnover. A regression analysis showed that organizational commitment was the most important variable for predicting turnover. The Analysis of Variance results supported differences across occupations for the professional commitment measure. Managers and professionals had the highest level of professional commitment.

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Comments

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Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/4497

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