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An Examination of Organizational Commitment and Professional Commitment and the Relationship to Work Environment, Demographic and Organizational Factors

Long Island University, USA, elissa.giffords{at}liu.edu

• Summary: This study examines organizational commitment and professional commitment among a sample of social workers. It empirically explores the relationship between social workers’ commitment and nine work environment variables (collegiality, promotional opportunity, job security, organization and profession-specific skills, autonomy, legitimacy of promotions, distributive justice and supervisor recognition), six demographic or background variables (gender, relationship status, age, employment status, years in social work (profession tenure) and years employed in the current organization (job tenure). It also includes 16 organizational variables (organizational auspices, organizational type, job position, yearly earnings and various types of job benefits, that is, medical, dental, vacation time, sick leave, flex-time, child care, maternity/paternity leave, disability insurance, life insurance, university education/degree programs, employer-paid professional development opportunities and other benefits.

• Findings: Based on a sample of the members of the National Association of Social Workers, the findings suggest that work environment and organizational factors contribute to social workers’ organizational and professional commitment, though the results suggest that organizational commitment is noticeably easier to explain than professional commitment.

• Applications: In today’s changing social service environment it is especially prudent for administrators to promote factors associated with employee commitment. This study suggests that social work managers ought to develop a greater understanding of organizational and professional commitment because of its link to organizational effectiveness and consequently how social workers work toward accomplishing their organizational or program mission.

Key Words: demographic and organizational variables • organizational commitment • professional commitment • social workers • work environment

This version was published on October 1, 2009

Journal of Social Work, Vol. 9, No. 4, 386-404 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1468017309346232


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