ارتباط تحرک شغلی با وفاداری سازمانی : چگونه تغییر شغل به تعهد سازمانی مربوط می شود؟

Today's organizations are undergoing constant and substantial change due to many internal and external forces. These changes are impacting on the inter- and intra-organizational career mobility of managers and employees. This research assessed the relationship between career mobility history and a recent internal or external job change on organizational commitment using (Allen & Meyer, 1990) three-dimensional model. Professional-level employees participated in three survey administrations over an 18-month timeframe. External career mobility history (i.e., number of external job moves over one's career) was negatively related to normative commitment, but not to affective and continuance commitment. Affective and continuance commitment were significantly lower for external movers prior to a move when compared to nonmovers over the same period. In contrast, only continuance commitment was significantly lower for internal movers prior to a move when compared to nonmovers over the same period. Affective commitment increased significantly after the move for both internal and external movers. Implications for research with respect to career mobility and organizational commitment are discussed.

Historically, workers and organizations expected stable and long term employment relationships, reflecting a “cradle-to-grave” attitude toward organizational careers (Mirvis, 1992). However, in response to dramatic economic change in recent years (Dufficy, 2001), organizations are now often sending mixed signals to their managers and employees with respect to career opportunities (Conlon, Coy, Palmer, & Saveri, 1999; Coy, Conlin, & Thornton, 2002; Jamrog, 2002). For example, organizations are laying off some employees at the same time as they invest considerably to retain those identified as having potential (Jamrog, 2002; Miller, 2001). Such trends have prompted a number of researchers to suggest that traditional career models, wherein individuals become employed by and promoted within a single organization over the course of their careers, are being replaced with new career models that are typified by increased job (internal) and company (external) mobility (e.g., Arthur & Rousseau, 1996; Hall, 1996). There is growing speculation about how such changes will impact work attitudes such as employee commitment to organizations, which has often been referred to as loyalty in both the popular media (e.g., Moskal, 1993), and academic literature (Meyer & Allen, 1997). Interestingly, despite such commentary, very little empirical evidence has been accrued with respect to the impact of career mobility patterns on organizational commitment (Kalleberg & Mastekaasa, 2001; Murrell, Frieze, & Olson, 1996). This paucity of research is particularly surprising given the well-established relationships between organizational commitment and a variety of key organizational and individual outcomes, including withdrawal cognitions (Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002), voluntary employee turnover (for reviews see Allen & Meyer, 1996; Mathieu & Zajac, 1990; Meyer et al., 2002), absenteeism (e.g., Hackett, Bycio, & Hausdorf, 1994; Meyer, Allen, & Smith, 1993; Meyer et al., 2002), job performance (e.g., Bashaw & Grant, 1994; Meyer et al., 2002), organizational citizenship behaviour (Meyer et al., 1993; Meyer et al., 2002; Organ & Ryan, 1995), stress (Begley & Czajka, 1993; Meyer et al., 2002), and work–family conflict (Meyer et al., 2002). As such, the purpose of the present research is to further explicate the relationship between career mobility and organizational commitment through both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. The present investigation also extends previous research, which has focused on mobility and affective commitment, to the three-dimensional model of organizational commitment (Allen & Meyer, 1990; Meyer & Allen, 1991). As labour shortages create more career instability, understanding the relationship between commitment and career mobility will become extremely important for both organizations and workers.

In order to examine changes in three facets of commitment for individuals who had changed jobs as compared to those who had not, a 3 (job, company or no change) × 2 (time) × 3 (commitment) repeated measures MANCOVA was used. Time and commitment were the within-subjects factors, while change was the between-subjects factor. Participants' age, education level, and survey wave were included as covariates. At each level of time, the commitment measures were entered into the MANCOVA in the following order: affective, continuance, and normative. A significant main effect for job/company change was found, F(2,474)=7.90, p<.001. The effects of age, F(1,474)=21.71, p<.001, education, F(1,474)=37.00, p<.001, and survey wave, F(1,474)=4.53, p<.05, were all significant. There was a significant interaction between job/company change and commitment (Wilks' Lambda=.97, F[4,474]=3.06, p<.05). Separate MANCOVAs were conducted for Hypothesis 2a and Hypothesis 2b. Hypothesis 2a was supported for continuance commitment only (F[1,426]=7.05, p<.01). Hypothesis 2b was supported for affective commitment (F[1,335]=18.15, p<.001) and continuance commitment (F[1,335]=17.70, p<.001). As shown in Table 2, all facets of commitment were lower for internal and external movers before the move (Time 1), as compared with nonmovers. In summary, partial support was found for Hypothesis 2a and Hypothesis 2b.With respect to Hypothesis 3a, a significant interaction was found for Time × Job Change (Wilks' Lambda=.99, F[1,426]=6.71, p<.05). Affective commitment increased for internal movers across time (M=3.19 before to M=3.26 after), and decreased for nonmovers (M=3.27 before to M=3.18 after). Continuance and normative commitment did not increase for internal movers after their change. With regard to Hypothesis 3b, a significant interaction was found for Time × Job Change (Wilks' Lambda=.90, F[1,335]=36.12, p<.001). As can be seen in Table 2, affective commitment increased for external movers across time (M=2.65 before to M=3.21 after), and decreased for nonmovers (M=3.27 before to M=3.18 after). Continuance and normative commitment did not increase for external movers after their company change. Therefore, Hypothesis 3a and Hypothesis 3b were supported (i.e., affective commitment increased after both internal and external moves).