Organizational and Professional Commitment in Professional and Nonprofessional Organizations

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1994 American Sociological Meetings, Los Angeles. This research was funded by the Alberta Law Foundation (Grant #6035) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Award #725-91-3002), and assistance was provided by the Law Society of Alberta. I wish to thank Charles W. Mueller for his helpful suggestions and advice on earlier drafts of this paper. This paper has also benefited greatly from the insightful and constructive comments of the editor, Stephen R. Barley, and the Managing Editor, Linda J. Pike, as well as the feedback provided by the three anonymous ASQ reviewers. This study of lawyers examines the degree to which professionals in general and lawyers in particular are committed to their profession and the organizations that employ them. I examine how the different structural arrangements of professional and nonprofessional organizations relate to lawyers' organizational and professional commitment. Results show that organizational commitment is highly dependent on perceived opportunities for career advancements and the criteria used in the distribution of rewards. Few of the structural characteristics are important in explaining professional commitment, and lawyers working in nonprofessional organizations are significantly less committed to the legal profession than those working in professional organizations. The results of this study suggest that future research must look beyond the structural characteristics of professionals' work settings if we want to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the factors affecting professional commitment.'