Employment experience and organisational commitment: An East-West Europeancomparison

This paper compares the level of organisational commitment in three former state socialist societies (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) with that in a market-based society (Britain). Among the former state socialist societies, Bulgaria represents the country that had remained closest to the patterns of work organisation that prevailed before 1989, whereas the Czec h Republic and Slovakia had moved further towards marketisation. The analys is draws on data fi om nationally representative surveys of the workforce i n the four countries. The results show that organisational commitment was l ower in all of the former state socialist societies than in Britain, but th at it was lowest of all in the societies that were more fully engaged in th e transition to a market economy. There is evidence that the patterns of wo rk organisation typical of state socialism did have the effect of lowering commitment, most importantly because of the way they restricted initiative and self-determination in work. However, it seems likely that this was exac erbated in the case of the transitional societies by sharper aspirations fo r work enrichment and by the greater unpredictability of organisational dev elopments in a rapidly changing environment.