Another look at the locus of control-organizational commitment relationship: it depends on the form of commitment

Previous studies imply that individuals with an external locus of control ( LOC) are less likely to be committed to their organizations. More recent wo rk on organizational commitment has suggested that commitment is not a unid imensional construct and can take several forms (e.g., affective and contin uance). Using a sample of 232 employees of a Canadian governmental agency, we examined the relations between LOC and two different forms of organizati onal commitment that have been found to have different antecedents and cons equences. We found that internal LOC was associated with affective commitme nt and external LOC was associated with continuance commitment. Implication s for research and practice are discussed. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.