Protective and Risk Factors as Predictors of Organizational Commitment Among Social Workers in Public Child Welfare

Background and Purpose: Effective management of the public child welfare workforce has been a growing concern for practitioners as well as researchers in recent years. Research has demonstrated the pivotal role of organizational commitment in affecting intention to leave and job performance (Mor Barak et al., 2006; Weaver et al., 2007) but to date little empirical knowledge exists on the predictors of organizational commitment among child welfare workers. In response to this gap, the study aims to examine predictors of organizational commitment using the concepts of protective and risk factors of organizational commitment. Accordingly, the research hypotheses are: 1) As protective factors, supervisory support, organization support, and job satisfaction are positively associated with organizational commitment. 2) As risk factors, job stress and burnout are negatively associated with organizational commitment.

Methods: A purposive sample of 133 child welfare workers was recruited from among training participants at a university-associated child welfare training center in a large unban area. During each of 29 sessions in the training, the participants completed a detailed self-report questionnaire. The participants were predominantly female (83.5%), the average age was 39.5 years (23-67 range), 77.4% held a graduate degree, 40.9% were married, and 56.4% had children. Most of the participants were direct service workers (74.8%) and the average length of employment was 8.0 years (newly hired-33 range). The outcome variable was measured using Allen and Meyer (1990) eight item organizational commitment scale.

Results: Using a three-step hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the study demonstrated the significant relationship between organizational support, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. In the first step of the analysis to several demographic characteristics were entered (e.g., age, gender, education) as control variables. This initial model was not significant (F[7,82]=.972, p>.05). In the second step of the model, the protective factors were added, and the findings revealed that organizational support (β=.201, p<.05) and job satisfaction (β=.576, p<.001) were positively associated with organizational commitment. This model was statistically significant (F[10,79]=8.131, p>.001) and accounted for 51% of the variance. In the third step of the model the risk factors were added but none of the risk factors variables reached statistical significance. Overall, with only protective factors reaching statistical significance, the third and final regression model was significant (F[12,77], p<.001) and the variance explained remained unchanged from the second step, accounting for 51% of variance in the outcome variable.

Conclusions and Implications: The findings highlight the importance of organizational support and job satisfaction as protective factors that enhance employee sense of organizational commitment. Managers' endeavors to consider these predictors in management practices may have a positive impact on improving organizational commitment and ultimately motivate workers to remain in their organizations as well as improve job performance ability. Given the dearth of research in this area and the limitations of the current exploratory study, future research needs to focus on the impact of both protective and risk factors to organizational commitment among child welfare workers, utilizing longitudinal data sets with larger representative samples.