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Using three samples, 230 medical technologists, 412 working adults and 227 Executive MBA students, this study found support for a revised four-dimension measure of occupational commitment consisting of affective, normative, accumulated costs and limited alternatives dimensions. This four-dimension structure is based on expanding Meyer, Allen, and Smith's (1993) three-dimension, i.e. affective, normative and continuance, occupational commitment conceptualization. Continuance occupational commitment was operationalized as two separate dimensions, accumulated costs and limited alternatives occupational commitment, based on Carson, Carson, and Bedeian's (1995) career (occupational) entrenchment measure.
Occupational commitment has become an increasingly important construct for study. Given the recent workplace dynamics, including: organizational restructurings, increased employee job insecurity perceptions and contingency workforce growth (Cappelli et al., 1997; Hall & Moss, 1998; Nollen & Axel, 1996), several scholars (e.g. Handy, 1994; Johnson, 1996; Meyer & Allen, 1997) have suggested that employee commitment may be shifting from the organization to one's occupation.
The purpose of this study is to use a multisample research design to propose and test an expanded four-dimension structure of the occupational commitment construct. The first sample tests for this proposed structure of occupational commitment, as well as longitudinal antecedents of these occupational commitment dimensions. The second and third samples test for the generalizability of the proposed four-dimension occupational commitment measure.
Defining occupational commitment
As noted in a recent meta-analysis of occupational commitment (Lee, Carswell, & Allen, 2000), most prior research has defined occupational commitment as the 'psychological link between an individual and his/her occupation that is based on an affective reaction to that occupation' (Lee et al., 2000, p. 800). Thus, someone with higher occupational commitment strongly identifies with and has positive feelings about their occupation (Blau, 1985). Meyer, Allen, and Smith (1993) have presented empirical evidence for a three-dimensional view of occupational commitment based on their three-dimensional structure for organizational commitment. As Meyer and Allen (1991) noted, there are affective, normative and continuance dimensions of organizational commitment. Applied to occupational commitment (Meyer et al., 1993), affective commitment is a person's emotional attachment to their occupation; normative commitment is a person's sense of obligation to remain in their occupation; while continuance commitment involves the individual's assessment of the costs associated with leaving one's occupation.
Using confirmatory factor analyses on samples of student nurses and...