Career Mobility and Organzational Commitment

Organizational commitment refers to the nature of the relationship of the member to the system as a whole. Two general factors which influence the strength of a person's attachment to an organization are the rewards he has received from the organization and the experiences he has had to undergo to receive them. The nature of one's commitment to an organization may undergo radical change depending on the relationship between belief and reality. Convergence of belief and reality would tend to strengthen commitment, while divergence should cause a decrease in commitment. Two barriers to upward mobility in the company are considered: formal education, which is an achieved characteristic; and sex, which is ascriptive. Specifically, it is hypothesized that within each career mobility level, managers who had overcome a barrier would be more fully committed to the corporation than those who had not.