Patterns of attachment to organizations: Commitment profiles and work outcomes

Commitment profiles were studied with a sample of 572 hospital workers. Seven of the eight commitment profiles in Meyer and Herscovitch's (2001) typology emerged using K-means clustering including: highly committed, affective dominant, continuance dominant, affective-continuance dominant, affective-normative dominant, continuancenormative dominant, and uncommitted. Outcome variables included: turnover intentions, turnover, absenteeism, and person-organization value congruence. Results were consistent with prior findings in that normative commitment alone and in conjunction with continuance commitment enhanced the benefits of affective commitment. Turnover rates were much higher for poorly socialized employees suggesting that there is a self-corrective effect in which uncommitted employees are more likely to leave their organizations.