CHANGE AND STABILITY IN EMPLOYMENT COMMITMENT

This paper addresses the question of whether employment commitment is a stable, dispositional aspect of work attitudes or a situationally based construct. The concept was measured at two points in time, two years apart, on two large cohorts within the 15-19 age span. The situational factors were career trajectory and labour market locality. Career trajectory was grouped into five categories, according to routes between education, training and employment. Four tabour market localities were studied, with varying unemployment rates and job opportunities. The hypothesis that employment commitment is stable over time was not supported, there being a significant fall over the two-year period, despite a retest correlation of .41. Furthermore, the change was similar across the situational, gender and cohort groups. There were, in addition, significant effects of career trajectory and locality. Results are discussed in the context of the dispositional versus situational debate, and in relation to the origins of work attitudes.