Examining Change In Organizational Commitment Mindsets Over Time Using a Latent Growth Modeling Approach

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore organizational commitment mindsets and how they develop, change, and interact with each other over time to create an overall experience of commitment. Change in individual and combined commitment trajectories and their relation to actual turnover behavior were explored over a period of two years using latent variable growth mixture modeling. Data were gathered from an incoming cohort of Freshman students who joined the Texas A&M University Corps of Cadets in the Fall of 2015, with commitment captured through online surveys administered three times a year to coincide with important socialization milestones. Individual and combined commitment mindset trajectories showed stability, growth, and decline. For individual commitment mindset trajectories, results revealed a recurring pattern of two cubic LCGM, one with high levels of the commitment mindset that are relatively stable and have a low probability of turnover and a second trajectory with moderate levels of commitment that increase and decrease over time, with a higher probability of turnover than the steady trajectory. Together, results showed one trajectory that described a large subpopulation of individuals with high stable levels of affective and normative commitment combined with unstable levels of continuance commitment with a lower probability of turnover. Another model described a smaller subpopulation of individuals with moderate unstable levels of affective and normative commitment, with stable levels of continuance commitment, and was associated with a higher probability of turnover. Across both latent trajectories and within each of the cross-sectional time periods, multiple commitment profiles can be found in the levels of commitment mindsets, oscillating between value-based, exchange-based, and weak commitment profiles across time. These findings extend the commitment profile approach from the traditional, cross-sectional research perspective to a more dynamic, longitudinal research perspective that may shift how organizational commitment researchers think about commitment profiles. Further, the results of this research inform practitioners of possible changes in organizational commitment that may be present in their employees, and the risk of turnover associated with said changes in organizational commitment such that they may design interventions to address it before it is likely to lead to turnover.