The relationship between work commitment models and employee withdrawal intentions

Purpose – This study is an attempt to contribute to an emerging stream of research, which attempts to explore how work commitment forms affect one another and how together they serve to influence work behaviour and outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on five universal forms of work commitment, we tested the relationships between two work commitment models and two forms of employee withdrawal intentions: from their organisation and from their occupation. To this end, we investigated professional employees (social workers) employed in the Israeli healthcare system through a structured questionnaire. Findings – Path analysis results cast doubt on the applicability of both models in their original form, across scenarios. At the same time, with some modifications, both models show a good potential for explaining variance in employee withdrawal intentions from both their organisation and their occupation. Originality/value – This research contributes to work commitment literature by providing empirical findings and theoretical interpretations regarding the role of a particular professional setting in explaining the interrelationships among models of work commitment, and how some constellations of different work commitment foci explain multiple withdrawal intentions.