The Stability of Organizational Commitment

Whereas a number of longitudinal studies have examined organizational commitment (OC), a more comprehensive examination of the forms of consistency in OC has never been conducted. Consistent with the dispositional view of commitment (Becker, 1960), adaptation-level theory (Helson, 1948), and opponent process theory (Solomon & Corbit, 1973, 1974), a meta- analytic examination of 78 studies revealed that all three OC mindsets have a relatively high level of rank-order consistency: affective (AC, = .75, N = 14,758, k = 50), continuance (CC, = .72, N = 538, k = 4), and normative (NC, = .79, N = 706, k = 2). In contrast, meta-analytic analyses of mean-level consistency revealed a small negative trajectory for AC ( = -.17, N = 35, 272, k = 76), a slight positive trajectory for CC ( = .11, N = 1,108, k = 3), and less mean-level change for NC ( = -.06, N = 1, 504, k = 2). Several potential moderators for AC stability were tested including age, tenure, and measure. In addition, a unique survey archive allows for a...