The Impact of Multiple Commitments on Intentions to Resign: an Empirical Assessment

A number of authors have recently drawn attention to the need to explore, conceptually and empirically, the relationships between different types of employee commitment and work outcomes. Management, continually grappling with the challenge of organizational effectiveness, is often interested in outcomes such as the individual job-performance levels of employees and absenteeism as well as the number of resignations from the organization. One of these, turnover as measured by intentions to resign, and its relationship with multiple commitments in the organization, is the focus of this study. The first objective was to compare the impact of four constituent-specific commitments (commitment to the organization, job, profession and supervisor), termed 'employee commitment', on intentions to resign. Second, the 'key mediating construct' proposition of organizational commitment suggested by Hunt and Morgan (1994) was empirically evaluated. The empirical results show that the impact of commitment to the profession on intentions to resign is the most influential. In addition, the data suggest that neither the 'one of many' model nor the 'key mediating construct' theory of employee commitment can be described as superior in explaining intentions to resign.     

Business values in the Republic of South Africa and the United States: A tale of two countries

This paper reports on a study of the values of two samples of South African managers over a ten year period. It then compares those values to a group of U.S. entrepreneurs, using the same instrument, the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values, for both groups. The comparison with the early sample of South African managers noted similarities between the value systems of the two groups. The comparison with the most recent group of managers indicates a shift in the values of the South African managers. There appeared to be little difference between the values of the latter group of managers on the basis of age. This was similar to the findings in the U.S. sample as well as the earlier South African sample. There were differences in the strength of the values, but less of a difference in the pattern of values exhibited based on industry backgrounds. The reasons for these shifts are discussed, including the potential impact on the education process in South Africa.