To Be or Not to Be Committed: The Effects of Continuance and Affective Commitment on Absenteeism and Turnover Intent among Private Prison Personnel

Abstract

Despite the recent burgeoning of the private prison industry, little research has focused on private prison personnel. This study attempts to help fill this research gap by examining the relationship between two distinct forms of organizational commitment, continuance and affective, and the withdrawal outcomes of absenteeism and turnover intent for personnel at a Midwestern U.S. private prison. Results of an ordinary least squares (OLS) multivariate regression analysis supported our prediction of an inverse relationship between affective organizational commitment and the withdrawal outcomes of absenteeism and turnover intent; however, contrary to our hypotheses, the analysis indicated no statistically significant relationship between continuance organizational commitment and these withdrawal outcomes, after controlling for custody position, gender, age, tenure, education, race, and supervisory status. Our results suggest that enhancing employees’ affective organizational bonds should be a priority for private correctional facilities because it has positive effects for both employees and the organization.

KEYWORDS:

• Private prison personnel
• organizational commitment
• affective commitment
• continuance commitment
• absenteeism
• turnover intent

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Janet Lambert for editing and proofreading this article. The authors also thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their comments and suggestions. These comments and suggestions improved the article. The order of authorship is alphabetical and all authors contributed equally to the article.

Notes

1. The survey was more than 15 pages long and had over 220 questions that tapped into a wide array of areas concerning the perceptions, views, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors of working in a private prison. Because of the wealth of information from the survey, other studies have been conducted using different parts of the survey. The full citations of these studies are available upon request. None of these previous studies examined the effects of continuance commitment and affective commitment with absenteeism and turnover intent; however, parts of the Method may be similar to previous studies but the data results are unique.