The Role of Perceived Development Opportunities on Affective Organizational Commitment of Older and Younger Nurses

Abstract

The research concerning human resource management (HRM) and organizational commitment is extensive. However, few studies have examined whether the relationship between employee perceptions of an organization's HR practices and work-related attitudes such as organizational commitment is moderated by age or career stage. This study examines the influence of perceived development opportunities and supervisory support on affective organizational commitment and whether this relationship is moderated by age or career stage. We collected the survey data from nurses in a Finnish university hospital (N = 937). The response rate was 54.4%. Our results show that the oldest nurses and those who had the longest organizational tenure were most affectively committed to the organization and had the highest rate of intention to remain at their current workplace. Affective organizational commitment was predicted by organizational tenure, skills that are appropriate for present work demands, supervisory support for development, and opportunities to use one's competencies. We detected no significant age-related interaction effects.

Keywords:

• Organizational commitment
• HRM
• retention
• healthcare

Acknowledgements

This study is based on the PhD thesis of the first author, and she would like to thank the Ellen and Artturi Nyyssönen Foundation and the Foundation for Economic Education for the funding.

The authors also thank EIASM for organizing the Workshop for Strategic Human Resource Management that provided the opportunity to engage in this discussion. We also thank the French Investissements d'Avenir (ANR-11-IDEX-0003/Labex Ecodec/ANR-11-LABX-0047) for funding our working meetings to produce this article. Additionally, we thank HEC Paris School of Management and NEOMA Business School for their support of our research.