Int. J. Emerg. Sci.

, 1(3), 324-340, September 2011

ISSN: 2222-4254
IJES

Career Commitment and Organizational

Commitment in for-Profit and non-Profit Sectors

Andrea M. Moscoso Riveros, Ted Shir-Tau Tsai

Graduate Institute of International
Human Resource Development
National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
andreamoscosor@hotmail.com, sttsai99@ntnu.edu.tw

Abstract. Career commitment has gained a lot of attention in human

resources management, since has been found to be a key factor for the
organization and employees outcomes. It has been also found that career
commitment and organizational commitment can be interrelated to each other.
However, there is not much investigation about whether employees are more
committed to their personal achievement in their careers or committed to the
organization itself.
The present study aimed to find this difference.
Moreover, the study sought to explore both organizational and career
commitment in two types of organizations: for-profit and non-profit. The
study utilized descriptive analysis, simple correlation and canonical
correlation as a statistical methodology. Results support the interrelation
between the two variables.
Keywords: Career Commitment, Organizational Commitment, For-Profit and
Non-Profit Organizations

1 INTRODUCTION
Finding the best way to motivate, retain and improve the performance of the
employees, have been always an issue for both for-profit and non-profit
organizations. But, the organizations in the non-profit sector might have more
difficulties in handling this circumstance; not only because of the lack of money to
offer a fair compensation system, but also because of their incapacity to rationalize
their services (Mirvis & Hackett,1983). According to Mirvis and Hackett (1986), in
NPOs is difficult to monitor and measure whether the beneficiaries are receiving
their rights and the services. Moreover, there is usually a doubt about the equity and
the efficacy of the implementation of those services. Although the non-profit
organizations look like they are not able to retain and motivate their employees
some studies present an unexpected result (Alatrista & Arrowsmith, 2004; Land,
2003; Mirvis & Hackett, 1983; Purdy, 2008). For example Mirvis and Hackett
(1983) found that only 45.8% of the employees in the non-profit sector wish to find
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Andrea M. Moscoso Riveros, Ted Shir-Tau Tsai

a different job, comparing with the 63.4% in the profit sector and the 58.9% in the
government sector. Land (2003) found that 60% of the employees had no intention
to leave regardless the leadership practices the organization present and that the
majority of them presented high level of job satisfaction and that 76% of the
response was linked to the meaningful work, rather that the compensation.
Maintaining the workforce motivated and improve the performance is one of the
most important objectives of HR professionals and the organization itself. But,
motivated employees would probably result in committed employees, whom in
return will be willing to improve their performance or decrease their desire to leave
the organization (Carden, 2007; Chang, 1996; Mrayyan2008). According to some
motivation theories, creating a positive reward system is the best way to deal with
employees satisfaction and high performance (Ramlall, 2004). The main purposes
of the rewards systems are to attract, retain and motivate qualified employees
(Griffin & Moorhead, 2007). Rewards can be divided into financial and
nonfinancial, but one of the most effective rewards that most of the companies have
been used is a high payment (Sonnesyn, 1994). For example, according to Brandl
and Guttel (2007) organizations attract competent employees and seek to retain
and to motivate them by the means of attractive compensation systems (p.178); but
their findings showed that only 2 out of 9 non-profit organizations are willing to
implement the pay-for-performance systems (PfP-systems). Non-profit sector is, in
this regard, in disadvantage compared with the for-profit sector, which means that
might be dealing with potential low performance and high turnover rates.
Peace (1994) also recognizes that staff recruitment and retention in the nonprofit sector has become a particularly critical issue, especially when special
retention processes like financial incentives are not likely due to limited financial
resources available (p.1). Therefore there is a possibility that the employees, who
are not getting enough or adequate compensation, will not perform well or even
worst they may leave the company. The company would lose talented and potential
employees. There, a significant problem has been revealed: turnover rate and the
incapacity to retain employees. This problem adds more pressure and become a
threat to the non-profit organizations.
Based on this scenario there is a question that should be answered: Why
employees in the non-profit sector seem to be much compromised to the
organization and to their jobs? And what is the main difference with the for-profit
sector? There are some motivation theories that could explain this phenomenon,
such as Herzbergs Hygiene theory; MacClellands Need theory; Vrooms
Expectancy theory; or Hackman and his colleagues Job Design Model (Ramlall,
2004). Motivation, as Terry Mitchell states is the psychological processes that
cause the arousal, direction and persistence of voluntary actions that are goal
directed (Werner & DeSimone, 2009, p.135). But, motivation is only the first step
that can produce a specific behaviour. There is not much explanation about the
strength of that motivation, which is usually called as commitment.

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2 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

Based on the above introduction, this study aimed to compare the career
commitment and organizational commitment in both for-profit and non-profit
sectors. Based on this comparison the study also intended to find the causality
between both types of commitment.

3 QUESTIONS OF THE STUDY

The study has three questions that have been generated from the purposes, which
are
What is the significance of career commitment and organizational
commitment of employees in both for-profit and non-profit sectors?
What is the causal relationship between career commitment and
organizational commitment?
What is the difference, in regards to causality of career commitment and
organizational commitment, between for-profit and non-profit sectors?

4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

By comparing the career commitment and organizational commitment in for-profit
and non-profit organizations, is expected that the results might help organizations to
understand their employees interests in relation to their careers and their place
within their organization. This study might show organizations the vital role that
they play related to the employees career advancement. The findings of the study
will probably reveal aspects that organizations should consider in relation to their
career management practices and policies in countries with similar contextual
characteristics. By studying the extent to which the organization influences
employees career commitment and the way the career commitment influences
employees commitment to the organization might show how significant the
employees and organization mutual responsibilities are towards business success.

5 LITERATURE REVIEW
5.1 Non-profits vs. For-profits

To clearly understand the definition of Non-profit Organizations is important to talk

about the independent sector and make the difference with the for-profit
organizations. When John W. Gardner (2004) talks about the Independent Sector, he
says that in countries that are totalitarian, most of the activities are influenced by the
government, but the nations that have democratic inclination, show a large area of

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activity outside of government (Fishman & Schwarz, 2006). The second group is
called private sector. Private sector includes both for-profit organizations and nonprofit organizations. Legally, both types have the same characteristics. They have
managers, officers and employees and thus they provide pay compensation. They
must face expenses, make investments, handle contract issues, produce goods or
services and thus produce profits (Hopkins, 2007). Hopkins states that the main
difference between these two entities is that for-profit organizations have owners;
they operate in benefit of themselves and so they will keep the earned money. A
for-profit organization is one that is designed to generate a profit for its owners
(Hopkins, 2007, p.4).
In contrast, non-profit organizations do not have owners. The person in charge
is not permitted to take the profits they produce. The profits benefit the society by
the services they offer. Although both organizations are legally allowed to produce
profits, the distinction is the purpose that they have. Non-profit organizations have
an altruistic purpose, it means they produce social service by charity. The major
portion of the private sector consists of activities to get profits. This type of
organizations usually works for earning money. The minor portion of the sector is
called non-profit organizations. Both types of organizations depend on their own to
remain alive. Here comes the first question, where the non-profit organizations get
its funds from?
Julia Brandl and Wolfgang H. Guttel (2007) in their study of Organizational
Antecedents of Pay-for-Performance Systems in Nonprot Organizations stated
that NPOs dont focus on the achievement of prot goals. Therefore, it is often
presumed that the primary motivation of employees and managers is driven by nonmonetary and altruistic goals rather than by financial ones. Even though NPOs dont
seek for profits, they have to think of the best way to ensure that they are getting
enough incomes to survive and succeed. Managers often express their risk
management goals as focusing on eliminating or avoiding risk (Herman, Head,
Jackson & Fogarty, 2004, p.3). This risky field pushes the organization to increase
the quality of the services they provide, in order to attract not only more clients, but
also more donors, supporters and volunteers. If this happened they are at least
minimizing or avoiding the risk. This way of thinking and acting is already
happening, although NPOs are not conscious of this behaviour. In 1997, United
States showed that nonprofits organizations get 37% of their funds from dues, fees,
charges for the services they provide and other commercial income. 31% comes
from the government as a partnership pattern. The 20% of the income belongs to
contributions or private giving, such as donations (Fishman & Schwarz, 2006).
Somehow, non-profit organizations get the money as profit enterprises because they
are selling services instead of products and they are getting certain amount of profits
from that activity.
5.2 Career commitment

To understand the literature of career commitment is necessary to define some

terminology; career commitment had been defined as the strength of ones
motivation to work in a chosen career role. This definition focuses on motivation
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International Journal of Emerging Sciences, 1(3), 324-340, September 2011

and goals achievement within a specific career field. The definition is based on
Colarelli (1990) and Hall (1971).
Londons (1983) career motivation theory examined the effects of individual,
situational and extra-work variables on career commitment. These three types of
determinants are defined as follow:
Individual variables: That London (1983) defined as needs, interests, and
personality variables potentially relevant to ones career. These dimensions are
clustered into three domains: career identity, career insight, and career
resilience.(p. 620).
Situational variables: According to London (1983), work environment factors
can influence career motivation, such as staffing policies and procedures,
leadership style, job design, group cohesiveness, career development programs,
and the compensation system (p.621).
Extra work variables: These are mostly related to the demands of work and
family (p.621).
According to Goulet and Singh (2002), previous studies that also used Londons
theory, Have limited themselves to a few of these traditional factors (p.74) but
Goulet and Singh (2002) included some factors that were not deeply studied before.
They studied some variables in the individual category: job involvement that is
defined as the individual is attached to the job itself (p.77); organizational
commitment is defined as one is attached to the organization (p.77); and job
satisfaction as employees positive feelings toward their jobs (p.79). The three
variables are positively related to career commitment, which means that if an
individual is attached to his job and organization, and he likes what he does in that
position, he is more likely to present a high level of career commitment. They also
concluded that the need for an achievement variable, which is defined as the
personal striving of individuals to attain goals within their social environment
(p.79), will influence career commitment because while the individual is more
focused on need and goal achievement, he will have a long-term work orientation
and plan and be committed to his or her career (p.79).
Due to the high interest in this theme researchers persevere in the purpose to
create and therefore reinforce the instruments to measure career commitment. In
1994 Carson and Bedeian published the paper Career commitment: Construction of
measure and examination of its psychometric properties. They built up a
measurement as a result of a very in deep evaluation of Blau (1985) and Colarelli
(1990) scales. The new creation was called Career Commitment Measure,
abbreviated as CCM. This CCM 12 items scale had been chosen as another
theoretical base for the present research. The study was conducted in three phases:
two pilot tests and one field test, in which the CCM was evaluated. The study used a
sample of 476 respondents that were employed in various work settings (p.237)
including human resources managers and supervisors. These two aspects mentioned
above, make the research highly valuable and reliable because they demonstrates
that the results can be generalized to different career fields. Three dimensions had
been studied by Carson and Bedeian (1994), which are: career identity, career
planning and career resilience. According to Carson and Bedeian (1994), their study
presented that The coefficient alpha reliabilities for the three dimensions ranged
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Andrea M. Moscoso Riveros, Ted Shir-Tau Tsai

from .79 to .85 (p.237). They revised Londons dimensions definitions and
adapted them to the concern of career commitment. The revised definitions are:
Career Identity, establishing a closed emotional association whit ones career
Career planning, determining ones developmental needs and setting career
goals
Career resilience, resisting career disruption in the face of adversity (p.240)
5.3

Organizational Commitment
Organizational commitment has been broadly studied for several authors and
has been related to different variables in the field of human resources management
(Allen & Meyer, 1990; Brooke, 1988; Chang, 1999; Colarelli, 1990; Cohen, 1999;
Goulet and Singh, 2002; Vandenberg and Scarpello, 1994; Lee et al., 2000). One of
the most famous studies about organizational commitment is Modway, Steers and
Porter (1979), who developed a measure that has been broadly utilized since then.
This instrument is called Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ). The
instrument presents 15 items, which had been tested and retested in regards of its
reliabilities and internal consistency (mentioned in Allen & Meyer, 1990; Brooke et
al., 1988). Based on that, it is also important to clarify the differences between
career commitment, job commitment and organizational commitment. Colarelli and
Bishop (1990) clearly explained the distinction among them.
Job commitment suggests commitment to a relatively short-term set
of objective task requirements, while organization commitment
suggests commitment to an institution and organizational goals.
Career commitment involves longer-term perspective and more
internal, subjective and individual set-mind (p. 159).
Moreover, Allen and Meyer in 1990 developed another well known
measurement of organizational commitment. They based his theory on the different
views for defining and studying organizational commitment. They concluded that
this variable should be analyzed from three different points of view: the affective
attachment, the perceived costs and the obligation with the organization. Therefore,
the instrument reflects a model of three organizational commitment components: (1)
affective, (2) continuance and (3) normative.
The affective component of organizational commitment, proposed by
the model, refers to employees' emotional attachment to, identification
with, and involvement in, the organization. The continuance
component refers to commitment based on the costs that employees
associate with leaving the organization. Finally, the normative
component refers to employees' feelings of obligation to remain with
the organization (p. 1).
Allen and Meyer (1990) proved that these three types of OC are distinguishable
and depend on the person psychological state and may be presented in different
degrees. They stated that these components present some antecedents. The affective
commitment antecedents are those experiences that fulfill employees'
psychological needs to feel comfortable within the organization and competent in
the work-role (p.4). The continuance commitment involves two factors: the

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magnitude and/or number of investments (or side-bets) individuals make and a

perceived lack of alternatives (p.4). And the normative component will be
influenced by the individual's experiences both prior to (familial/cultural
socialization) and following organizational socialization) entry into the
organization (p.4). After the study Allen and Meyer proposed an instrument of 24
items. Their main contribution made by Meyer and Allen was The development of
reliable measures of affective, continuance, and normative commitment to
occupations (p. 546). In 2001 Allen and Meyer, presented the study The ThreeComponent Model of Organizational Commitment: An Application to South Korea,
the authors tested whether the three-component model of organizational
commitment that they developed in 1991, could be generalized to a non-western
culture. The results showed a reliability of the results (Cronbach's alphas:
ACS=0.86, CCS=0.61, NCS=0.74) (p.600), were very significant, proving that the
measurement was trustfully and can be used to measure the organizational
commitment in different cultural contexts.
Regardless to the measurements of organizational commitment, studies that
investigated the relationship between OC and career matter, are relevant to the
present study. Chang (1999) found that career commitment has a significant
influence on organizational commitment. She hypothesized that career commitment
moderates the effect of employees perception of supervisory support on
organizational commitment. She affirmed that supervisors can obtain more
information on career opportunities than subordinates (p. 1261). Therefore, if the
employees perceived that their organization is more interested in their careers and
its employment practices are based on that; thus the psychological attachment to the
organization increases. Lee and his partners confirmed this notion by proving that
as high occupational commitment an employee has, more committed to the
organization he will be (Lee et al., 2000). In contrast, Goulet and Singh (2002)
found that job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment are
significant determinants of career commitment meaning that an employee who is
very committed to his or her organization, and who is satisfied with his or her job, is
most likely in a rewarding job situation and in line with career aspirations, thus the
higher career commitment (p.86). These studies confirmed the fact that both types
of commitment, career and organizational, are interdependent.

6 METHODOLOGY
The study followed a quantitative approach. The rationale for choosing this method
is because the research intends to contribute to those quantitative studies that had
been done about career and organizational commitment, but limited its scope to forprofit organizations.
6.1 Hypotheses of the study

The study presents four hypotheses, which are stated as follow:

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H1: There is a significant difference between employees career commitment and

organizational commitment in both for-profit and non-profit sectors.
H2: Career commitment is significantly correlated to Organizational commitment.
H3: Career commitment will be able to predict organizational commitment of
employees in the for-profit sector.
H4: Organizational commitment will be able to predict career commitment of
employees in the non-profit sector.
6.2 Sample

The for-profit companies were selected by convenient sampling among companies

rated as The biggest companies in Bolivia 2009 (New Economy, 2010). The
companies were mostly private nationals and internationals; and have operations in
at least three locations distributed in Bolivia, such as La Paz, Cochamba and Santa
Cruz. The non-profit organizations were also selected by convenient sampling
among the 182 Non-profit Organizations in La Paz-Bolivia (National Institute of
Statistics, 2011). In addition, the respondents in this study were purposively
sampled. In order to ensure that the employees responses are accurate in the sense
of their commitment, they had to present at least 2 years of working experience
within the organization.
Table 6.1 shows the demographic characteristics of the sample, which includes
gender, age, marital status, educational degree, major of education and the type of
organization. According to the descriptive analysis, 45 people represent 39.8% of
male respondents and the 68 represent 60.2% of female respondents. For age,
around 50% of the sample are 31 to 40 years old, 36.3% are 30 or below, and 13.3%
are 41 or above. For marital status, the majority of the sample falls in the category
of married (65.5%), while 30.1% of the respondents were single. Statistical analysis
was focused on single and married categories. In regards to the educational degree,
69% of the respondents finished the University and present a Bachelor Degree. The
major of education appears to be equally distributed, 45% of the sample belongs to
Business and Management and 31% belong to Social Science. Finally, 73 persons
(64.6%) are working in the sector of for-profit organization, when 40 people
(35.4%) are working in the non-profit sector.
Table 6.1 Demographic Characteristics of Sample (N=113)

Item
Gender

Age

Description

Frequency

Percent

Male

45

39.8

Female

68

60.2

Total

113

100

30 and less

41

36.3

31 to 35

25

22.1

36 to 40

32

28.3

41 and more

15

13.3

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Marital Status

Education
Degree

Major of Education

Organization Type

Total

113

100

Single

34

30.1

Married

74

65.5

Divorced

3.5

Widowed

0.9

Total

113

100

High School

5.3

University

78

69

Graduate

29

25.7

Total

113

100

Business and Management

51

45.1

Social Sciences

35

31

Others

27

23.9

Total

113

100

For-Profit

73

64.6

Non-Profit

40

35.4

Total

113

100

6.3 Instrument

To achieve the purposes of the present study, a questionnaire had been developed.
The questionnaire includes items from previous measurements that have been
utilized to evaluate career commitment and organizational commitment. The
measurements are described as follow:
1)
Career Commitment (12 items): The Carson & Bedeians (1994) career
commitment measure (CCM) had been used to measure the three dimensions of
career commitment (career identity, career planning and career resilience). In
Carson & Bedeians (1994) study, the coefficient alpha for the 12 items remaining
in their model, ranged from .79 to .85 (p.253). 5 Likert scale of agreement (1=
disagree; 5= strongly agree) will be utilized for this variable.
2)
Organizational Commitment (18 items): Allen and Meyer (2001)
measurement had been applied in the present studied. The reliability estimated for
the three scale scores were found to be significant (Cronbach's alphas: ACS=0.86,
CCS=0.61, NCS=0.74). The 5 Likert scale concerning to their agreement (1=
disagree; 5= strongly agree) will be utilized.
6.4 Data collection

Two methods have been used to conduct the data collection. The first one presents
three steps: obtaining permission from the organizations; establishing the data
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Andrea M. Moscoso Riveros, Ted Shir-Tau Tsai

collection deadline and choosing data collection mode (paper based or online
survey). Responses from the study sample are obtained through a request to the
organizations human resources managers, who were in charge of collecting the data
from their employees. The employees followed the sampling criteria. The second
method followed the snowball sampling strategy. This method also presents three
steps: to identify potential subjects, to contact and send a request to the potential
subjects, to ask the subjects to nominate another person with the same
characteristics. For this process only an online survey was utilized. The number of
completed and valid questionnaires was 113 out of 131, which corresponds to a
response rate of 86.26 percent.

7 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The quantitative analysis was conducted to respond the questions of the study and to
test the hypothesis. The results are divided into three parts: Descriptive analysis,
correlation and canonical correlation analysis. As part of the descriptive analysis,
the comparison of means, Independent-sample t-test and One-way ANOVA,
explains the differences in regards to career commitment and organizational
commitment within the demographic groups of the sample. The second part
involves the correlation analysis, which describes the relationship between the
variables. The third part includes the canonical correlation analysis, which explains
the causal relation between career commitment and organizational commitment.
The statistical analysis shows that there is a significant difference between female
and male in regards to career commitment, specifically career planning, see Table
7.1. According to the means female respondents present a clearer career planning
comparing with male subjects.
Table 7.1 Descriptive Analysis Comparison of means t-test for Gender
Mean

Std.
N
Mean
Deviation
Female

Std.
Deviation

F-value
Sig.
(2-tailed)

Item

Gender

Male

Career Identity

68

3.7721

0.51604

45

3.8111 0.48016

.686

0.894

Career Planning

68

2.3346

0.41791

45

2.6667 0.71111

.006**

8.915**

Career Resilience

68

2.7868

0.82211

45

2.9833 0.85347

.223

0.535

Career Commitment
68
Overall

2.9654

0.3243

45

3.1538 0.46353

.021**

5.498**

Affective OC

68

2.9068

0.47329

45

3.0482 0.4793

.125

0.003

Continuance OC

68

2.8728

0.74021

45

3.0664 0.75063

.179

0.000

Normative OC

68

3.4824

0.59704

45

3.2638 0.58347

.057

0.301

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International Journal of Emerging Sciences, 1(3), 324-340, September 2011

Organizational
Commitment
Overall

68

3.0862

0.4305

45

3.1262 0.4529

.636

0.085

Posthoc = Scheffe alpha (0.05)

*p<.05, **p<.01

On the other hand, the One-way ANOVA analysis demonstrates that there is
also a difference between the younger respondents (30 and less years old) and the
oldest ones (41 and more years old). According to Table 7.2, older employees
appear to be more identify with their careers than younger employees.
The hypothesis one responds to the first question of the study, which is: What is
the current significance of career commitment and organizational commitment of
employees in both for-profit and non-profit sectors? According to this hypothesis,
there is a significant difference between employees career commitment and
organizational commitment in both for-profit and non-profit sectors. The statistical
analysis does not present any evidence of such a difference. The type of
organization does not affect the strength of career commitment or organizational
commitment of its current workers. Therefore hypothesis one is not supported.
This fact might be explained by a contextual issue, Bolivia has not probably
developed policies to manage career development of employees neither in the forprofit nor in the non-profit sector. Moreover, organizations might not be focused on
employees commitment, but business itself. As Allen and Meyer (1990) stated
previously, the affective commitment antecedents are those experiences that fulfil
employees' psychological needs to feel comfortable within the organization and
competent in the work-role (p.4). Therefore, there are other aspects such as type of
major, which refers to career field; or degree of education; which do not appear to
be different in regards to commitment either. This might be also explained that
employees are not focused on their careers. The fact that both types of commitment
present difference only within gender and age is a probably a proof of this.
Table 7.2 Descriptive Analysis Comparison of means One-way ANOVA for Age

Item
Career Identity
Career Planning

N
113

Mean
3.1021

Std. Dev.
0.50025

F-value
3.591

Sig. (2-tailed)
0.016**

Scheffe a < d
113

2.4668

0.57429

0.154

0.927

Career Resilience
113
Career
Commitment
113
Overall
Affective OC
113

2.865

0.83655

1.903

0.133

3.0404

0.39484

0.834

0.478

2.9631

0.47863

0.408

0.748

Continuance OC

113

2.9499

0.43799

2.663

0.052

Normative OC

113

3.3953

0.59878

0.247

0.863

Organizational

113

3.7876

0.74712

1.535

0.209

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Andrea M. Moscoso Riveros, Ted Shir-Tau Tsai

Commitment Overall
a: 30 and less, d:41 and more
*p<.05, **p<.01

The second step in the process of studying the data was to run a correlation
analysis, Table 7.3 presents the results. As the table shows, career identity has a
negative relationship with career resilience (-.192, p<.05); while career planning is
positive related to it (.304, p<.01). This means that as higher emotional association
one has to his career, less capability of resisting career disruption in the face of
adversity; but in contrast as clear establishment of goals towards ones career, much
capability of resisting the disruption. Career resilience appears to be the most
significant determinant of career commitment as overall (.773, p<0.1). On the other
hand, affective OC is positive related to continuance OC and normative OC (.200,
p<.05;.268, p<.01). This means that employees who present a strong emotional
attachment to their organization will be more likely to remain in the organization
because they feel an obligation with it and because they might be afraid of the costs
that leaving the company involves. In regards to the commitment to ones
organization, the continuance component appears to be the more significant
influence overall (.786, p<.01).
In regards to the correlation among career commitment and organizational
commitment, the results support that career identity is positive related to normative
organizational commitment (.288, p<.01) and affective OC (.210, p<.05). Career
planning and career resilience are significantly correlated to continuance OC (.290,
p<.01). This result supports the hypothesis two since employees who present high
emotional attachment to their career will also present high identification with the
organization; and will increase their sense of obligation to remain in it. Furthermore,
employees who present a clear career plan and high capability to resist the career
disruption will be more willing to continue in the organization based on the costs
that they might take, in regards of career, if they leave the organization. Overall,
career commitment has a strong positive relationship with affective and continuance
OC (.270 and .319, p<.01).
Table 7.3 Descriptive Analysis Correlation of Career Commitment and Organizational
Commitment

Variables

Mean SD

1.Career Identity 3.7876

2.Career Planning 2.4668
3.Career
Resilience
2.865
4.Career
Commitment
3.0404
5.Affective OC 2.9631

0.50025
0.57429 -0.015
0.83655 -.192* .304**
0.39484 .279** .694** .773**
0.47863 .210* .193* 0.124

335

.270**

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6.Continuance OC 2.9499 0.74712 -0.062 .290** .290** .319**.200*

7.Normative OC 3.3953 0.59878 .288** 0.122 -0.109 0.104 .268** .316**
8.Organizational
Commitment
3.1021 0.43799 0.171 .291** 0.16
.327**.600** .786** .733**

The second hypothesis stated that career commitment is significantly correlated

to organizational commitment. The statistical analysis demonstrates that the three
components
nts of career commitment are related with some components of
organizational commitment. Moreover, career commitment has a strong relationship
with two of the main components of OC. Based on these issues, the hypothesis two
is supported.
Table 7.4 Canonical Correlation

Wilk's

Chi-SQ

DF

Sig.

Canonical
Correlation

0.704

38.073

9.000

0.000

0.422

0.857

16.76

4.000

0.002

0.371

The third part of the statistical analysis involves the canonical correlation
analysis, which explains the causal relation between career commitment and
organizational commitment. According to Table 7.4 the canonical analysis presents
only two significant sets of relationships between variables (.000, p<.01; 0.002,
p<.01). Figure 7.1 show the detailed values of correlation between variables Set 1,
which corresponds to career identity, career planning and career resilience; and Set
2, which corresponds to affective
affective organizational commitment, continuance
organizational commitment and normative organizational commitment.

Figure 7.1 Canonical Correlations 1

According to Figure 7.1 career commitment and organizational commitment

present a medium correlation between them (.422, p<0.01). Career commitment
appears to be mostly explained by career resilience and career identity (0.871, 0.578). On the other hand, organizational commitment is mostly explained by
continuance and normative commitment (0.734, -0.403).
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Andrea M. Moscoso Riveros, Ted Shir-Tau Tsai

As seen in the canonical correlation, sometimes too much of emotional

attachment and too much of planning might cause a negative effect on commitment,
which means less motivation. In contrast, in the face of no other opportunities;
taking in consideration the investments already made, and the obligation towards
the organization, commitment might be increased.
Table 7.5

Proportion of Variance explained by Opposite Canonical Variable

Can. Corr. 1

Can. Corr. 2

CV1-1

0.042

CV1-2

0.067

CV2-1

0.079

CV2-2

0.046

Hypothesis 3 in this research states that career commitment will be able to

predict organizational commitment of employees in the for-profit sector; and
hypothesis 4 states that organizational commitment will be able to predict career
commitment of employees in the non-profit sector. According to the data analysis,
there is no difference between for-profit and non-profit sector, but there is some
evidence supporting the idea that career commitment is able to predict
organizational commitment (0.067) and also that organizational commitment
predicts career commitment in some proportion (0.079). See table 7.5. Vandenberg
and Scarpello (1994) also found that career commitment and organizational
commitment have causal priority (p.543) relationship, which means that career
commitment, is an antecedent of organizational commitment; but the present
research found that organizational commitment can also be an antecedent of career
commitment. Therefore, hypotheses 3 and 4 are partially supported.

8 MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS
At the beginning of this study, the authors found that there is not much
investigation about whether employees are more committed to their personal
achievement in their careers or committed to the organization itself. Overall, the
findings show that career commitment has a strong positive relationship with
affective and continuance OC; meaning that employees who are career focused
might develop strong involvement with the organization and would probably
increase their desire to remain in the company, if the organization is also paying
attention to employees career development. This is something that organizations
should take in consideration. But, there is also evidence of the idea that emotional
attachment is not actually something that increases the commitment towards ones
career, but the investments made in the process of their career path. This is also an
issue that organizations should consider when they are planning their training
programs or other type of strategies regarding to career management. It might be

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International Journal of Emerging Sciences, 1(3), 324-340, September 2011

useful to open spaces where employees can actually put in practice what they like to
do and what they can do better.
On the other hand, there might be a change in this sense of career development.
Probably, the globalization and the competitiveness nowadays push young
employees to be more focused on their careers rather than the job itself. Employees
are possibly influenced by the idea of as better education, better salaries or better
job opportunities. Organizations, which can help employees to develop in their
career fields, might not only improve their performance, but their attachment to the
organization and probably in the future change from a very individual motivator to a
more contributively logic towards the organization, since they would already
satisfied their need of self achievement according to Maslow theory of motivation.

9 LIMITATIONS
One of the limitations of this research is the fact that there is still a variety of
variables that were not included in its extent. The study explored only the career
commitment and organizational commitment. Both variables might be predicted by
other individual and situational variables, which future studies might include.
Another limitation of this study is the fact that it intends to generalize the results
by choosing organizations in different industries. The type of the industry of the
organization might be an influential factor, but the lack of deep analysis of the
context and the specificities of it might bring some biases to the study.
The cultural and contextual constraint is also a limitation to this study.
Organizations in Bolivia might not be as representative as was anticipated, but this
aspect is also significant because it means that organizations in Bolivia should make
a self-evaluation about their human resources strategies and what is the impact of
them in the employees behavior.
The sample was chosen from a very specific list of companies and the study
presented a very specific sampling criteria. The main limitation was the fact that the
data collection was not made directly by the researcher. Finding contact persons in
some of the companies that belonged to the established list was one of the major
limitations. In some of the cases a personal contact was needed in order to initiate a
dialogue between the researcher and the official contact person within the company
(HR personnel). The data collection needed a high level of effort to coordinate with
the contact persons in Bolivia and also, finding the accurate channels of
communication was difficult. The process was time consuming due to the fact that
there was not a direct communication with the group of potential respondents. The
data collection was made by the human resource personnel in the companies or the
personal contact him or herself. On the other hand, finding the accurate respondents
to fill out the form online was also a decisive limitation, because the respondents
should belong to the companies within the list and should follow the criteria.
Due to the time spent in the process of data collection, the data analysis was
made using the traditional statistics method in SPSS. More advanced statistic
methodology and software was not able to be used in this study.

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Andrea M. Moscoso Riveros, Ted Shir-Tau Tsai

10 CONCLUSION
This study sought to re-examine the relationship between career commitment and
organizational commitment, and extend the research to the differences between two
types of organizations: for-profit and non-profit sectors. Chang (1999) found that
career commitment has a significant influence on organizational commitment; and
Goulet and Singh (2002) found that organizational commitment is a significant
determinant of career commitment. In the present study, as noted under Results,
there is a medium correlation between the variables and it seems to be that
organization commitment can probably predict career commitment and vice versa.
But, the data does not present any evidence of differences between for-profit and
non-profit organizations.
Specifically, career resilience and continuance component were found to be the
most significant influence towards career commitment and organizational
commitment respectively. According to Carson and Bedeian (1994), resilience
makes reference to the strength to resist career disruption in the face of adversity,
which means a lot of effort spent by the employees to keep focused on their careers,
even when they have obstacles to achieve career goals. Allen and Meyer (1990)
mention that continuance commitment involves a number of investments that
individuals make and a perceived lack of alternatives to find a new job. Theses
definitions prove that commitment is probably more about the investments and
effort than identification or planning. Employees, who invest time, effort, maybe
money in their career development and/or organization, will feel more committed to
them.
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