The Association of Occupational Stressors with Different Forms of Organizational Commitment Among Correctional Staff

Committed staff are arguably an absolute necessity for the success of correctional facilities. A growing body of literature has examined how different aspects of the work environment relate to organizational commitment; however, organizational commitment can be operationalized as continuance, moral, or affective. Work environment variables may impact the various forms of commitment differently. Using survey data from 272 staff who worked at a Midwestern maximum-security state prison, this study examined the association between the occupational stressors of perceived dangerousness of the job, role conflict, role ambiguity, repetitiveness, and work-on-family conflict with the three forms of organizational commitment. The effects of the occupational stressors varied for each form of organizational commitment. Specifically, work-on-family conflict had a significant positive association with continuance commitment. Role conflict and repetitiveness had negative associations with moral commitment. Finally, all five stressors had significant negative associations with affective commitment.