Psychological Career Resources and Organisational Commitment: Exploring Sociodemographic Differences

Summary of Article 1
Introduction
The focus of the study is to explain the differences among socio-demographic groups
(gender, age, ethnic, marital and job level) with respect to their psychological career
resources and dedication level towards a business.
Problem/ Area of inquiry
Though there were earlier studies on organization commitment, the construct of
psychological resources has not been explored much in previous literature. This research
uses Coetzee’s psychological career resources model as its basis for this.
Literature Review/Theory
The theoretical framework comprises Coetzee’s model for psychological career
resources and Allen and Meyer’s three component organizational obligation models.
According to Coetzee career consciousness refers to “people’s conscious, career-related
cognitions (i.e. perceptions, awareness and self-evaluations) of their career preferences,
values, skills, attitudes and behaviours” (Ferreira and Coetzee, 2010, p.27) which can be
perceived and looked upon such that they can attain their goals and success in their career.
Allen and Meyer refer dedication to authority in a workplace as a mental state that attaches an
employee to the workplace. An individual’s mindset usually reflects different themes like
‘affective commitment’ (emotional attachment), ‘continuance commitment’ (economic
necessity and perceived cost) and ‘normative commitment’ (sense of moral obligation). These
components show one’s preferences to remain with the current organization on grounds of
these three aspects.
Research Methodology
The method used is that of primary survey on basis of 358 participants of employed
adults in a convenience sample. It comprised 84% Africans and 76% female participants. The
measuring instruments used are Psychological Career Resources Inventory (PCRI) (64 items
with 5 sub scales) and the Organisational Commitment Scale (OCS) (18 items with three sub
scales). For data analysis descriptive and inferential statistics were used. Since normality tests
were not valid, non parametric tests have been conducted to capture the variations between
socio-demographic parameters.