The purpose of the present study was to integrate findings from commitment (organizational and professional commitment), its antecedents (especially in terms of personal characteristics), and pay satisfaction literature into a more comprehensive model that would further enhance the understanding of the full concept of commitment, which has been regarded as an important variable in appreciating the work behaviour of employees in organizations. The present study contributed to the literature on commitment in five important ways: (1) Consideration of multiple commitments was included in this study; organizational and professional commitment were examined in a multidimensional way; (2) Since different organizational and professional commitment varied across occupations (Wallace, 1993), it was worthwhile to explore the commitment orientation of R&D engineers in the electronics industry of Taiwan; (3) Direct effects of personal characteristics on two forms of commitment were measured; (4) Moderating effects of pay satisfaction on the relationship between personal characteristics and commitment were observed; (5) Whether there was a complementary or incompatible association between organizational commitment and professional commitment was examined. Several significant and interesting findings of this study are presented as follows.
(1)Given that a higher education level has been considered to predispose individuals to lower organizational commitment, but stronger professional commitment, this idea was tested, and as hypothesized, R&D engineers with higher levels of education did report lower commitment to stay in the same organization but stronger value commitment to their profession, as well as stronger commitment to stay in the same profession. However, higher education levels did not cause lower value commitment to the organization. Indeed, it was found in this study that pay satisfaction moderated respectively, the relationship among different education levels, the commitment to stay in the same organization, the value commitment to the profession, and the commitment to stay in the same profession.
(2)It was supported that a higher position demonstrated stronger commitment to stay in the same organization. Pay satisfaction moderated the relationship between different position level and commitment to stay in the same organization, as well as commitment to stay in the same profession.
(3)As hypothesized, increased age correlated with stronger organizational commitment. It was also confirmed that pay satisfaction moderated the relationship between age and organization commitment. However, there was no significant relationship between increased age and professional commitment. Nor did pay satisfaction influence the relationship between age and professional commitment.
(4)The hypothesis that increased organization tenure led to increased organizational commitment but decreased professional commitment was rejected. However, the hypothesis that pay satisfaction moderated the relationship between organizational tenure and organizational commitment was supported.
(5)The hypothesis that women tended to demonstrate lower organizational and professional commitment was partially supported. Women reported lower value commitment to the organization, lower value commitment to the profession and lower commitment stay in the same profession, than their male counterparts. However, the relationship between gender and commitment to stay in the same organization was not supported, but pay satisfaction was found to moderate the relationship between gender and commitment to stay in the same organization.
(6)This study confirmed that married engineers had stronger commitment to stay in the same organization and that pay satisfaction moderated the relationship between marital status and organizational and professional commitment, except for the value commitment to the profession.
(7)In spite of the value commitment to the organization, however, it was found that the more dependents, the higher organizational commitment and the less professional commitment was demonstrated. That pay satisfaction moderated the relationship between number of dependents and organizational commitment was approved in this study.
(8)The hypothesis that the more income an individual received, the higher organizational and professional commitment s/he demonstrated, was supported. However, a negative relationship was found between income and commitment to stay in the same organization. As anticipated, pay satisfaction moderated the relationship between salary level and organizational commitment.
(9)A positive relationship between organizational and professional commitment was found in this study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0127105-151238 |
| Date | 27 January 2005 |
| Creators | Kuo, Shu-fang |
| Contributors | none, Chin-kang Jen, Ph.D, none |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0127105-151238 |
| Rights | unrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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