Graduates' work experiences as predictors of organisational commitment, intention to leave, and turnover: Which experiences really matter?

The commitment and retention of employees has emerged as a topic of conside rable interest in applied psychology and human resource management. There h as been considerable research on organisational commitment (OC) and intenti on to leave (IL), but little has examined the relative impact upon them of a wide range of work experiences. It was hypothesised that the nature of th e work, and career development, would be most influential, because those ex periences tend to reflect graduates' reasons for joining their employer, th eir developmental concerns, and their expectations and psychological contra cts. Questionnaire data were obtained from 474 UK graduates in eight organi sations on two occasions one year apart. Multiple regression analyses testi ng the predictive power of seven work-related experiences showed that intri nsic work characteristics were the strongest predictors of change in OC ove r the one-year period. Career development was easily the strongest predicto r of change in IL, and was also highly significantly related to change in O C, Results are discussed in terms of their consistency with earlier researc h, implications for career development theory, and practical applications.