Age, Tenure, Resources for Control, and

Organizational Commitment n

Ted M. Brimeyer, Georgia Southern University

Robert Perrucci, Purdue University
Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth, Purdue University

Objectives. A higher level of organizational commitment for older and more ex-
perienced workers has primarily been explained via exchange theory or a cohort
effect. We use an agency-structure framework to explain that higher levels of com-
mitment result from feelings of control in the workplace. Methods. We examine
this framework using data from a survey of 400 unionized factory workers in the
Midwest. Results. The relationship between organizational commitment and pre-
dictors is affected by worker career stage. Most significantly, the commitment for
older and more experienced workers increases with high levels of autonomy, while
the opposite is true for younger and less experienced workers. Conclusions. When
workers experience greater control at the point of production, they express greater
organizational commitment. Although empowering for older and experienced
workers, having freedom at work can be threatening or destabilizing for the younger
workers, who may prefer more guidance.

Many observers of contemporary work organizations have noted increased

efforts to make employees work harder and smarter. Some efforts have been
focused on new strategies to change the mix of workers (Kalleberg, 2003),
while others have focused on work teams or increased worker participation
(Smith, 1996; Vallas, 2003). Several scholars have noted the irony in such
efforts at increasing worker contributions to productivity at a time when
the old social contract between companies and their employees has been
changing (Perrucci and Stohl, 1997; Rubin and Brody, 2005). The once
cherished ideal of lifetime employment has given way to the idea of lifetime
employability, requiring employees to continually update their skills and
value to employers. Many of the traditional benefits of the employment
contract such as company-sponsored pensions or health insurance may no
longer be a normal part of the employer-employee contract. Many company

n
Direct correspondence to Ted M. Brimeyer, Department of Sociology and Anthropol-
ogy, Georgia Southern University, PO Box 8051, Statesboro, GA 30460. Ted M. Brimeyer
will share all data and coding information with those wishing to replicate the study. We
would like to thank anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of
the article. This research was part of a study supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,
Bemis Foundation, and the ILGWU Heritage Foundation.

SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, Volume 91, Number 2, June 2010

r 2010 by the Southwestern Social Science Association
512 Social Science Quarterly
efforts to increase worker performance seem to be based on a prior, but
unexamined, assumption that employees are already committed to their
organizations.
Organizational commitment is expressed by attitudes and behavior that
reveal an employee’s identification and involvement with the organization
(Meyer and Allen, 1991) and it has been linked to increased productivity
and reduced absenteeism and turnover (Meyer et al., 2002). In the current
global economy, characterized by mounting foreign competition, any in-
creases in positive outcomes may help an organization remain competitive.
These ties to positive outcomes have led researchers and managers to ex-
amine the antecedent variables related to worker commitment with the goal
of increasing organizational commitment and effectiveness.
Researchers have examined how both social characteristics (e.g., age, ed-
ucation, race, gender) and workplace factors (e.g., autonomy) are related to
commitment. Researchers examining the social characteristics–commitment
relationship have found consistent significant relationships between workers’
age, tenure, and commitment. Research focused on identifying workplace
factors has considered work experiences and satisfaction with extrinsic re-
wards as possible determinants of commitment (for a review, see Meyer and
Allen, 1997; for a meta-analysis, see Meyer et al., 2002).
Because of significant changes in the technologies of production and
control in recent decades (Perrucci and Perrucci, 2008), researchers have
examined whether different life-course cohorts of workers would respond
differently to these changes. For example, Rubin and Brody (2005) hy-
pothesized that negative responses to increased work pressure and job in-
security would be greater for older cohorts than for younger cohorts because
the latter cohort did not experience the old social contract.
In this article, we propose to advance the argument about the antecedents
of worker commitment using qualitative and quantitative data obtained
from a single large (800 production employees) unionized manufacturing
plant in a small community in a midwestern state. We examine the role of
two time-related factors—worker age and job tenure—and workplace fac-
tors (e.g., autonomy) in shaping organizational commitment. We view time-
related factors and workplace factors as working together to create the social
processes that influence commitment. We propose to focus on age and
tenure as possibly moderating the impact of different work experiences on
commitment, and we argue that age and tenure variables may influence
commitment in two ways. First, the passage of time over the lifecourse may
magnify or diminish the importance of certain workplace conditions or
experiences. For example, a younger worker may be intimidated by a blus-
tery supervisor, while an older worker will take it in stride. Second, the
accumulation of tenure over the work career may be necessary to create the
workplace conditions or experiences that may influence commitment.
Longer job tenure gives workers the on-the-job experience that produces
autonomy or the positive relationships with supervisors that produces social
Age, Tenure, Resources for Control, and Organizational Commitment 513
support. Thus, we propose to examine two questions using survey data
collected from a sample of factory workers.
1. How are tenure, age, and workplace factors related to commitment?
2. Do age and tenure influence the relationship between workplace fac-
tors and commitment?

In the following section we first focus on the literature that examines the
relationship between age, tenure, and affective commitment. Drawing on
qualitative data from our fieldwork, we then offer our control theory to
explain changes in commitment as workers age and gain experience in the
workplace. Using the theory, hypotheses are tested with quantitative data
obtained from 400 factory workers.

Age, Tenure, and Commitment

Researchers using cross-sectional data have relied on either correlations or

career-stage models to examine the relationship between age, tenure, and
commitment. The analyses relying on correlations have found a significant,
though weak, relation between age, tenure, and commitment. Meyer et al.
(2002) found a 0.15 correlation between age and affective commitment
from a meta-analysis of 39 studies with 15,567 cases. The correlation be-
tween organizational tenure and affective commitment was 0.16 from 31
studies that included 11,900 cases.
Researchers using career-stage models to examine the age/tenure-com-
mitment relationship have primarily relied on the developmental model of
Super (1957), which argues that younger and less experienced workers will
be less committed to their employers than will older, more tenured workers.
According to Super’s theory, people pass through four stages: trial, estab-
lishment, maintenance, and decline. In the trial stage, workers are the least
committed and involved with their jobs. In the establishment stage, worker
commitment and involvement increase and remain at high levels throughout
the maintenance stage. In the final stage, decline, people are beginning to or
preparing to withdraw from their jobs and may experience a decline in
commitment and involvement. An advantage of a stage framework is that it
can be ‘‘used as a temporary surrogate for a more rigorous longitudinal
design, perhaps allowing us to better hypothesize about the development of
different dimensions of commitment’’ (Reilly and Orsak, 1991:315).
Researchers examining the relation between age and commitment using
the career-stage models have found mixed results. Studies of department of
transportation workers (Morrow and McElroy, 1987), nurses (Reilly and
Orsak, 1991), library employees, and clerical, supervisory, and management
personnel in a hospital (Allen and Meyer, 1993) found significant mono-
tonic increases across career stages. In a meta-analysis of organizational
514 Social Science Quarterly
commitment, Cohen (1993) found a U-shaped relationship between career
stage and commitment.
Similar to the research using age to determine career stage, researchers
using tenure have also found mixed results. Both Morrow and McElroy
(1987) and Reilly and Orsak (1991) found U-shaped relations between
tenure stages and commitment. Allen and Meyer (1993) and Cohen (1993)
found monotonic increases in commitment across career stages based on
tenure.
With the focus on how age and tenure are related to commitment, re-
search has focused less on why age and tenure are related to commitment.
Empirical research has uncovered a range of variables related to affective
commitment, including work experiences, social support, and extrinsic re-
wards. Unfortunately, how these variables are related to commitment in
relation to age and tenure has been less studied. There are three explanations
for the relationship between age/tenure and commitment. First, older and
more tenured workers have more access to positive work experiences, ex-
plaining their higher levels of commitment (Allen and Meyer, 1993; Meyer
and Allen, 1997; Mowday, Porter, and Steers, 1982).
A second explanation for the differences in commitment between older
and younger workers relies on a generational explanation. Allen and Meyer
(1993) examined the relationship between commitment and career stages
based on age and job tenure using a sample of library employees and a
sample of clerical, supervisory, and management personnel in a hospital.
They found that affective commitment was more strongly associated with
age than tenure. Using partial correlation analysis they found that age re-
mained a significant predictor of commitment after controlling for work
experiences. They argue that this finding suggests that it is not only better
experiences for older workers, but possible cohort effects, that lead to in-
creased commitment. Rubin and Brody (2005) examine how the time pe-
riod that a worker entered the labor force (e.g., baby boomers and
generation X) can influence reactions to factors that influence commitment
(e.g., time demands and job insecurity). Their findings indicate that the
commitment of the older cohort of workers, but not the younger cohort, is
negatively affected by time demands and schedule control; they attribute
cohort differences to the shift in the social contract experienced by older
workers.
The final explanation, referred to as the moderating hypothesis, states that
changes in commitment are due to age and tenure interacting with work
experiences. Mowday, Porter, and Steers (1982) theorized that different
experiences may affect commitment at various career stages. In a worker’s
early employment period, factors such as supervision and relations with co-
workers may be most important, while at later stages of the career, job
autonomy may be more important.
Several researchers have examined the connection between career stages
and some possible predictors of commitment. In an analysis of 279
Age, Tenure, Resources for Control, and Organizational Commitment 515
managers in eight firms, Buchanan (1974) examined the commitment of
those in their first year, those in years 2 through 4, and those with five or
more years of experience. He found that for the least tenured workers, group
attitudes toward the organization, challenge, and loyalty conflicts were re-
lated to commitment. For the workers with two to four years’ experience,
personal importance of the job and self-image reinforcement helped to
predict commitment. For the most experienced workers, organizational de-
pendability, expectations realization, group attitudes, work commitment
norms, and fear of failure helped predict commitment.
Brooks and Seers (1991) used a sample of 1,500 employees on a U.S. Air
Force base and examined the differential effects of self-efficacy, team co-
hesion, job challenge, supervisor support, and organizational climate using
five career stages based on age. They found that the impact of the variables
on commitment was moderated by career stage.
Finally, Allen and Meyer (1993) examined the relationship between
commitment and career stages in their study of library and hospital per-
sonnel. They separately tested for interaction effects between age and work
experiences and tenure and work experiences in relation to commitment.
They found significant though modest interactions between tenure and
work experiences, but none for age.

Theoretical Framework

Sociological analyses of the workplace have examined both the constraints

imposed on, as well as active involvement of, workers. Early work focused
on management practices aimed at controlling the labor process, either in
the form of management’s use of principles of scientific management (e.g.,
Braverman, 1974) or the creation of rule-based bureaucratized environments
(e.g., Edwards, 1979). When viewed from this perspective, workers have
little room to maneuver or affect the labor process. Management-oriented
scholars (Taylor, 1911; Mayo, 1945; Argyris, 1982) and critical scholars
(e.g., Graham, 1995) argue that workers, rather than being automatons,
often resist managerial control in the workplace. The conceptualization of
resistance requires that workers be viewed as having a degree of agency, but
sees their actions as primarily responsive. Still missing in this work are the
daily actions of workers to shape their work routines and practices in ways
that are not simply reactive to management.
In response to these views of workers and workplaces, Hodson (1991)
argues for an active view of workers with a focus on how workers are able to
create autonomous space at work. Workplaces that offer flexibility and au-
tonomy (e.g., pleasant work experiences) are likely to have employees who
identify with the organization and are willing to put forth extra effort and
comply with managerial rules. Unfortunately, most workplaces are not de-
signed to offer workers flexibility and autonomy (Perrow, 1986), but these
516 Social Science Quarterly
restrictive workplaces will still have workers with varying levels of commit-
ment. In response to these restrictive work conditions, workers engage in
activities that offer them a sense of control at work. Rather than focusing on
worker attempts to take control of the workplace, we should focus on
workers gaining a sense of control in the workplace. Workers are not trying
to take control from management but to have a degree of control over the
work they perform, while simultaneously satisfying organizational and per-
sonal needs. If, as Meyer and colleagues suggest, pleasant work experiences
are the source for organizational commitment, then control is the founda-
tion of pleasant work experiences (Karasek, 1979). Workers should be
viewed in two ways: (1) as continually attempting to fashion pleasant work
experiences, and (2) as redefining pleasant work experiences in relation to
the time-linked conditions of age and job tenure.
Our use of career stage in connection with a worker’s age and tenure is a
convenient way to describe the passage of objective, linear time. A worker’s
age provides an indication of his or her stage in the family lifecycle involving
marriage, children, and family-related needs. Tenure provides an indication
of accumulation of work skills, greater job security, and economic security.
Thus, workers of a different age or tenure will not necessarily view common
work conditions in the same way. Younger and older workers may differ in
how their relations with supervisors affect their attitudes toward the com-
pany. Similarly, workers with extensive or little experience may differ in how
job autonomy influences their commitment to the company.
The objective of this research is to advance understanding of workers’
commitment to their company. We view workers through an agency-struc-
ture framework that focuses on (1) workers’ material and nonmaterial re-
sources that can both constrain and enable workers’ actions, and (2) the
ability of workers to use material and nonmaterial resources to monitor and
modify daily social interactions (Giddens, 1979; Sewell, 1992). Thus,
workers are viewed as operating within organizational and interpersonal
structures that provide greater or lesser control in the workplace, or greater
or lesser informational, emotional, or material support from others. These
resources may be used by workers to expand their actual or perceived op-
portunities to control the conditions of their daily lives inside of the work-
place. We use this agency-structure framework to understand how workers
develop different levels of commitment to their organization.
This conceptualization is based on our understanding of what is impor-
tant to the production workers in this study; an understanding that has been
constructed from conversations with individuals and groups of workers
during more than 400 hours of direct observation, including focus groups
and extensive conversations with individuals and groups of workers on the
shop floor and in breakrooms (Perrucci and MacDermid, 2007). A discourse
of control was prominent in workers’ discussions about life in and outside
the plant. A concern with control is evident in discussions about good and
bad machines and about helpful and detached supervisors.
Age, Tenure, Resources for Control, and Organizational Commitment 517
In our theoretical perspective, the basis of workers’ commitment to their
company is to be found in a cluster of experiences and beliefs about their
work and their company that provide workers with a sense of control and
predictability over day-to-day activities in the workplace. We refer to these
as resources for control. However, we argue that the same resources are not
equally empowering for workers because age and tenure can moderate the
effects of the various resources.
The first resource we consider, autonomy, has not been a predictor of
commitment in some studies of blue-collar workers (Loscocco, 1990;
Cohen, 1992), but the workers in this study work with complex machines
and they express pride and satisfaction in their ability to master their
machines. Consider the following comment by an experienced worker:
‘‘These machines may look the same but they are very different and people
get used to working with the same machine. I used to have a static electricity
problem on my machine. It would pull the plastic and create buckles and
ripples in the roll. I tried different things and finally tried hanging a thin
wire so it would drag across the main spindle and that solved my problem.’’
For a less experienced worker, having autonomy may be dis-empowering
and stressful rather than rewarding. The following comment by a new
worker reveals some anxiety about his relationship with his machine: ‘‘I
prefer converting because you can see what’s going on and spot a problem
immediately. In extrusion, a worker pushes a button to do something that’s
three stories up, and I’m uncomfortable with that.’’ We therefore expect that
job autonomy will be a resource for control for older and more experienced
workers.
A second resource, supervisor support, has been related to commitment in
a number of studies (Meyer and Allen, 1997; Meyer et al., 2002; Liden,
Wayne, and Sparrow, 2000; Epitropaki and Martin, 2005) and can also be
empowering for workers. Within the workplace, a supportive supervisor will
be more likely to facilitate workers’ desires to stay on the same machine, or
to work on the same product. Consider the following comment: ‘‘If a
supervisor likes you for some unknown reason he is going to make it a whole
lot easier on you. He is not going to be watching how long you are gone on
break all the time. If that same supervisor doesn’t like someone and they are
in the break room too long they are not going to put you on a better
machine, an easier machine to run.’’ A supervisor can be a resource to help
workers make their work easier and more predictable. This relationship may
be more important for less experienced workers who need more help, as
opposed to those who are more experienced and have learned to deal with
work difficulties. Consider the following comment by an experienced
worker about his supervisor’s failure to respect his opinion: ‘‘I was ordered
to run a job that I knew was defective. It eventually was returned. I’ve been
doing this for 12 years and should know something about quality.’’ There-
fore, we expect supervisor support to be more important for younger, less
experienced workers.
518 Social Science Quarterly
In summary, our theoretical framework draws on two factors that past
research has shown to be related to organization commitment, namely, work
experiences (autonomy), and stage in the lifecycle (age) or employment cycle
(tenure). However, we theorize these factors in a different way. First, job
experiences such as autonomy or supervisor support are treated as ‘‘resources
for control,’’ that is, experiences that workers use to create desirable con-
ditions for themselves inside the workplace. Second, these resources for
control are not necessarily important for workers at all stages in their life-
cycle or employment cycle. Less experienced workers may be more con-
cerned about relations with their supervisor, while more experienced workers
couldn’t care less. Thus our agency-structure framework views job experi-
ences and age/tenure as related to organization commitment in different
ways across different time periods, and we offer the following propositions
for empirical assessment.
1. Work experiences (i.e., job autonomy and supervisor support) and
other job-related factors contribute to workers’ level of organization
commitment.
2. Temporal factors such as age and tenure will modify the effects of
work experiences on organization commitment. Work experiences will
contribute to commitment when they offer workers a sense of control
over their daily work tasks.

Methods
Setting and Data

The setting for the research is a large midwestern factory that employs
approximately 800 unionized workers in three production departments, a
maintenance department, and a shipping department in the manufacturing
of plastic bags. This union plant has a labor-management contract that
provides health insurance, pension, work rules and grievance procedure,
voluntary overtime options, and overtime pay premiums. It is a 24/7 op-
eration with two-thirds of the workers on 12-hour shifts and the remainder
on eight-hour shifts. The plant relies on small-batch manufacturing tech-
niques in the production process. Although workers may do seemingly
routine operations for extended periods, it is common for them to change
their work patterns in the middle of a shift. For example, a worker may be
printing a logo on a retail bag for the first part of a shift, then have to adjust
his or her machine to print a logo on a sandwich bag using different colors.
The ability to change rapidly is required due to the variability in the demand
from different customers and expectations of rapid product delivery.
Conditions in the plant during the period of the study were stable with
regard to job security and industry competition. There was one short-term
Age, Tenure, Resources for Control, and Organizational Commitment 519
layoff of a small number of workers related to declining demand, but there
was also employment growth and the installation of a costly new state-of-
the-art extrusion machine that produces plastic film for all products. The
installation of this new machine was viewed by workers and the union as a
positive indicator of the plant’s standing in the corporate structure. Bi-
monthly meetings between the company president and workers on all shifts
and crews generally focused on the special needs of new customers or
sought-after customers, the rising costs of the petroleum-based chemical
inputs for plastic film, and an emphasis on the importance of maintaining
high quality standards to minimize customer complaints about wrinkles in
the plastic product, poor color of product logos, or defective seals on bags.
In short, there was nothing unusual happening in plant, the industry, or
macro-economic conditions that would affect worker commitment during
the research period.
Data for the analyses were gathered during a four-year project involving
on-site data collection. In the first year, observational data were collected
from 400 hours of informal discussions with workers from all shifts and
crews, five focus group sessions, and group meetings with supervisors and
crew managers. At the end of the first year (December 2002), a question-
naire survey was conducted in the plant. Management gave workers time off
during their shifts in order to complete the survey. Workers who did not
complete the survey in the plant were mailed a copy. In all, 411 workers
completed the survey, for a 58 percent response rate. Respondents and
nonrespondents did not differ on sex, race, marital status, or seniority.
Nonrespondents had a higher mean age (43.0 years) than respondents (39.8
years).
The dependent variable for the analysis is organization commitment,
which has three components, as proposed by Meyer and Allen (1991):
continuance (perceived costs of leaving an organization and a desire to
remain in the organization), normative (feeling of obligation to remain with
an organization), and affective (identification and involvement with the
organization). In this article, we focus on affective commitment as most
relevant for this research because it measures positive feelings of attachment.
We did not use continuance commitment because we believed that it would
be influenced by seniority-based layoff agreements, and we did not use
normative commitment because we believed that such a sentiment seemed
unlikely in a union environment. The Meyer and Allen (1997) affective
commitment scale was used to measure company commitment (a 5 0.74).
The scale has been used in numerous analyses of affective commitment. See
Table 1 for descriptive statistics of all variables used in the analyses.
Independent variables for the analysis consist of career stages, supervisor
support, and autonomy. Career stages are measured in three groups using
both age and tenure based on the work of Super and previous researchers
(Allen and Meyer, 1993; Morrow and McElroy, 1987). Using age, workers
were divided into three groups: o31, 31–44, and 45 and over. There are 97
520 Social Science Quarterly
TABLE 1
Descriptive Statistics

Factor
Variables Mean SD Loading
Organizational commitment (alpha 0.74) 2.57 0.72
a. I would be very happy to spend the rest of my work 2.68 1.19 0.75
life with [company name].
b. I think I could easily become as attached to another 3.70 0.89 0.57
company as I am to this one. R
c. I do not feel like ‘‘part of the family’’ at [company 3.33 1.04 0.71
name]. R
d. I do not feel a strong sense of belonging to [company 2.42 0.98 0.77
name]. R
e. [Company name] has a great deal of personal 3.20 1.03 0.68
meaning for me.
White 0.94 0.23
Male 0.89 0.31
Education 2.70 0.83
Age 39.82 10.78
Tenure 9.66 7.92
Perceived organizational support
1. I expect the new company president to do a good 3.04 0.99
job of representing my interests.
Supervisor support (alpha 5 0.90) 2.97 0.87
1. My supervisor keeps me informed of the things I 3.05 1.04 0.78
need to know to do my job well.
2. My supervisor has expectations of my performance 3.29 1.02 0.76
on the job that are realistic.
3. My supervisor recognizes when I do a good job. 2.94 1.15 0.83
4. My supervisor is understanding when I talk about 3.03 1.03 0.84
personal or family issues that affect my work.
5. My supervisor really cares about the effects that my 2.59 1.08 0.84
work demands have on my personal and family life.
6. My supervisor listens to me and pays attention to my 2.90 1.04 0.88
ideas and concerns.
Job autonomy (alpha 5 0.72) 2.40 0.84
1. I have the freedom to decide what I do on the job. 2.27 0.97 0.88
2. I have a lot of say about what happens at my job. 2.18 0.99 0.82
3. I determine the speed at which I work. 2.75 1.15 0.71
Extrinsic rewards (alpha 5 0.60)
1. The pay I receive at [company name] is good. 2.88 1.00 0.78
2. The job security at [company name] is good. 2.83 1.02 0.71
3. The fringe benefits at [company name] are good. 2.28 0.97 0.75

workers under 31, 151 aged 31–44, and 143 over 44. Using tenure to make
the divisions, groups were formed with those having two or less years
(N 5 72), three to ten years (N 5 173), and ten or more years of service
(N 5 146).
Age, Tenure, Resources for Control, and Organizational Commitment 521
Supervisor support is measured by six questions asking workers their
agreement on a five-point scale if they feel that their supervisor keeps them
informed, has realistic expectations, is understanding about family issues,
and pays attention to worker concerns (a 5 0.90). Job autonomy is mea-
sured using a three-item scale (a 5 0.72). Workers were asked their agree-
ment on a set of items asking if they ‘‘have freedom to decide what to do on
their job,’’ ‘‘have a lot of say in what happens on their job,’’ and if they
determine ‘‘the speed at which [they] work’’ (Fenwick and Olsen, 1986).
We include satisfaction with extrinsic rewards, organizational support,
education, gender, and race in order to control for their possible influence
on commitment. Satisfaction with extrinsic rewards is measured via three
items asking about worker satisfaction with compensation, benefits, and job
security (a 5 0.60). Organizational support, which has been a predictor of
commitment in previous studies (Allen and Meyer, 1993; Eisenberger et al.,
1986; Randall et al., 1999; Shore and Wayne, 1993), is measured with a
single item asking the workers if they believe that the new company pres-
ident will represent their interests. Education is measured using six cate-
gories: less than high school, high school graduate or GED, some college,
two-year degree, or bachelor’s degree or higher. The sample is 89 percent
male and 94 percent white.

Analyses and Results

To examine the relationship between age, tenure, work experiences, and

commitment, several analyses were conducted. A correlation matrix, Table
2, was created to examine the relationship between organizational commit-
ment and the predictor variables. Proposition 1 stated that work experiences
and other job-related factors would contribute to organizational commit-
ment. Gender and race are not significantly related to commitment. Each of
the other variables is significantly and positively related to commitment,
with the exception of education, which is negatively related. The correlation
between commitment and age (0.27) is slightly higher than the correlation
between commitment and tenure (0.16).
Proposition 2 stated that work experiences would contribute to commit-
ment when they offered workers a sense of control over their daily work
tasks. To test this proposition, separate OLS regressions of commitment
were performed for workers in each career stage. The regression coefficients
are compared using a T test to examine whether career stages interact with
work experiences.
Table 3 shows the results of the regression of commitment on the work
experiences across life-cycle stages. Regressions of commitment on work
experiences are reported for workers aged o31, 31–44, and 444. For those
less than 31 years-old, education and extrinsic rewards are significant pre-
dictors of commitment. The commitment of workers aged 31–44 is related
 522

TABLE 2
Correlation Matrix: Commitment, Demographic Variables, and Resource Variables

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1. Commitment —
2. Male 0.012 —
3. White 0.014  0.166 n n —
4. Education  0.181 n n  0.079  0.007 —
5. Org. support 0.272 n n 0.087  0.010  0.038 n n —
6. Tenure 0.155 n n 0.073 0.037  0.064 n n 0.139 n n —
7. Age 0.265 n n 0.124 n 0.058  0.028 0.122 n 0.646 n n —
8. Extrinsic rewards 0.388 n n  0.039 0.024  0.095 0.217 n n 0.117 n 0.222 n n —
9. Supervisor support 0.269 n n 0.072  0.090  0.079 0.138 n n  0.013 0.031 0.227 n n —
10. Autonomy 0.298 n n  0.031  0.034  0.126 n 0.109 n 0.053 0.040 0.253 n n 0.285 n n —
n nn
po0.05; po0.01.
Social Science Quarterly
Age, Tenure, Resources for Control, and Organizational Commitment 523
TABLE 3
Commitment Regressed on Work Experiences by Life-Cycle Stage

Life-Cycle Stages
(1) (2) (3)

b b b
(s.e) (s.e) (s.e)

Age 30 or less 31–44 45 and older T Value

Education  0.199 n  0.093  0.071 1–2: 1.46+
(0.089) (0.059) (0.064) 1–3: 1.70 n
2–3: 0.36
Tenure 0.007  0.033 n n 0.006 1–2: 1.66 n
(0.036) (0.011) (0.006) 1–3: 0.04
2–3: 4.36 n n n
Org. support 0.113 0.107 n 0.124 n 1–2: 0.10
(0.077) (0.047) (0.056) 1–3: 0.17
2–3: 0.33
Extrinsic rewards 0.302 n n 0.230 n n 0.212 n n 1–2: 0.85
(0.098) (0.075) (0.074) 1–3: 0.94
2–3: 0.24
Supervisor 0.163 0.125 n 0.075 1–2: 0.53
(0.092) (0.055) (0.063) 1–3: 1.15
2–3: 0.85
Autonomy  0.098 0.203 n n n 0.223 n n n 1–2: 3.88 n n n
(0.097) (0.062) (0.062) 1–3: 4.11 n n n
2–3: 0.33
F 4.56 n n n 10.37 n n n 8.87 n n n
Adjusted R2 0.182 0.273 0.252
N 97 151 141
+
po0.10; npo0.05; po0.01;
nn nnn
po0.001.

to tenure, extrinsic rewards, organizational support, supervisor support, and

job autonomy. For those 45 and older, extrinsic rewards, organizational
support, and autonomy help predict commitment.
The fifth column in Table 3, T Value, identifies calculated t values re-
sulting from comparisons of the independent variable regression coefficients.
See the Appendix for the formula used to calculate the t values. One-tailed t
tests were used to determine whether a predictor of organizational com-
mitment was moderated by life-cycle career stage. Pedhazur (1982) suggests
that a relatively high level of significance (po0.10) be used to test for
significant differences between regression coefficients using this method as a
means to avoid Type II errors. A significant finding indicates that stage in
the lifecycle influences the relationship between commitment and the pre-
dictor variable. This test will allow for the examination of both linear
changes, either consistent declines or increases across the stages, or U-shaped
relationships between the independent variables and commitment.
524 Social Science Quarterly
The first entry in the T Value column in Table 3 reads: 1 – 2: 1.461.
This can be read as the comparison of the regression coefficients of edu-
cation for workers under 31 and those 31–44, who had a t value of 1.46,
which indicates a significant difference at the 0.10 level between the two.
The difference between the education coefficients for workers aged 30 or less
and those 45 and older also differ significantly. Although increased edu-
cation reduces the commitment of workers, it has significantly more effect
on the youngest workers in the plant. The youngest workers with more
education may have and/or perceive future opportunities outside the com-
pany, thereby reducing their attachment.
Tenure, like education, interacts with life-cycle stage to influence com-
mitment. Workers aged 31–44 with more experience with the company are
significantly less committed to the company than are the youngest and
oldest workers with several years of experience. The assumption that un-
committed workers leave the workplace is not supported in this case. The
lack of competing employment possibilities in the area prevents workers
from leaving. This finding also suggests that differences across life-cycle
stages are not simply due to uncommitted workers leaving the organization.
The relationships between commitment and perceived organizational sup-
port and commitment and satisfaction with compensation and benefits do
not differ by career stage.
The final two variables in the analysis are the work experiences: supervisor
support and autonomy. It was hypothesized that supervisor support and
autonomy would interact with career stage. Supervisor support, we hypoth-
esized, would be a resource that would help younger workers to have an
increased sense of control over work, while it would not be as important for
older workers. Contrary to our expectations, the relationship between su-
pervisor support and organizational commitment is not affected by stage in
the lifecycle. Finally, it was hypothesized that autonomy, control over one’s
immediate work, would be a more important resource for older workers.
The relationship between autonomy and commitment significantly differs
for workers under 31 compared to older workers. For the youngest group of
workers, autonomy has a negative, though insignificant, affect on commit-
ment, while it has a significant positive relation to commitment for the older
workers.
Table 4 shows the results of the regression of commitment on the work
experiences across career stages based on a worker’s employment cycle (i.e.,
tenure). For workers with zero to two years of experience, only extrinsic
rewards are significantly related to commitment. Education, extrinsic re-
wards, and supervisor support are significantly related to commitment for
workers with 3–11 years experience. For those with the most seniority, age,
extrinsic rewards, organizational support, and autonomy are related to
commitment.
The T Value column in Table 4 shows that employment stage affects how
education, age, extrinsic rewards, and autonomy are related to commitment.
Age, Tenure, Resources for Control, and Organizational Commitment 525
TABLE 4
Commitment Regressed on Work Experiences by Employment-Cycle Stage

Employment Cycle
(1) (2) (3)

b b b
(s.e) (s.e) (s.e)

Years of tenure 0–2 3–10 11 or more T Value

Education  0.066  0.142 n n  0.043 1–2: 0.94
(0.126) (0.051) (0.064) 1–3: 0.26
2–3: 1.72 n
Age 0.015 0.007 0.027 n n n 1–2: 1.33+
(0.008) (0.005) (0.007) 1–3: 1.63+
2–3: 3.34 n n n
Org. support 0.132 0.082 0.129 n 1–2: 0.70
(0.113) (0.044) (0.052) 1–3: 0.04
2–3: 0.98
Extrinsic rewards 0.298 n 0.253 n n n 0.172 n 1–2: 0.51
(0.133) (0.066) (0.071) 1–3: 1.31+
2–3: 1.19
Supervisor 0.177 0.138 n 0.086 1–2: 0.45
(0.131) (0.058) (0.053) 1–3: 1.05
2–3: 0.93
Autonomy 0.024 0.053 0.239 n n n 1–2: 0.34
(0.127) (0.060) (0.058) 1–3: 2.46 n n
2–3: 3.15 n n
F 3.36 n n 10.13 n n n 13.41 n n n
Adjusted R2 0.166 0.241 0.342
N 72 173 144
+
po0.10; npo0.05; po0.01;
nn nnn
po0.001.

The relationship between education and commitment significantly differs

for those with three to ten years of experiences and those with 11 or more
years. Those with less tenure may perceive more opportunities than those
workers with more time invested in the company. The relationship between
age and commitment differs between those with three to ten years of ex-
perience and those in the other stages at the 0.10 level. Older workers just
beginning to work for the company and those with many years invested in
the company are most likely to be committed. Extrinsic rewards are sig-
nificantly (po0.10) more predictive of commitment for those with the least
tenure than for those with the most. Autonomy, which we hypothesized
would have a stronger relationship with commitment for the most expe-
rienced workers, is supported. Autonomy shows a monotonic increase across
the stages and is significantly more predictive of commitment for those with
the most tenure compared to workers with 10 years or less. In summary, it
appears that in the early employment cycle, workers’ commitment is affected
526 Social Science Quarterly
by extrinsic rewards, but as experience increases, control over one’s work
begins to play a stronger role in commitment.

Discussion and Conclusion

The purpose of this research was to account for changes in commitment as

workers age and accumulate job tenure using a control framework. Prop-
osition 1 stated that work experiences and other job-related factors would
have an influence on commitment and was supported by data indicating that
the work variables were positively related to commitment. However, we
stated in Proposition 2 that the importance of the different work experiences
for commitment would vary across life and employment cycles. Work ex-
periences (i.e., autonomy and supervisor support) act as resources that can
help workers gain control over their daily work tasks and when workers
experience greater control, they express greater organizational commitment.
Autonomy conformed to the hypothesized relations, showing increasing
importance for commitment for both older and more tenured workers.
Having freedom at work for the experienced worker may be empowering,
whereas it can be threatening or destabilizing for the younger workers, who
may prefer more guidance and view autonomy as risky. The effect of su-
pervisor support on commitment is less influenced by age or tenure stage.
This points to an important difference between autonomy, which occurs at
the point of production on a daily basis, and supervisor support, which is a
social relationship that is not experienced with the same regularity and
intensity as job autonomy. Increases in worker commitment are the result of
workers gaining a sense of control over their work at the point of produc-
tion, not in the social relations of the workplace.
Although our findings are consistent with the literature and the predicted
age and tenure effects, our reliance on cross-sectional data does not preclude
the possibility that findings are due in part to the selectivity of those who
chose to stay with the company rather than work elsewhere. However, we
believe that selectivity effects are unlikely because wage and benefits at the
factory are considerably better than what is available in the area. A more
serious limitation is that changes in organizational commitment with aging/
tenure stage cannot be demonstrated with cross-sectional data.
In addition to autonomy differing by career stage, the effects of education,
extrinsic rewards, and age also differed across stages. Education was neg-
atively related to commitment for young workers and those with three to ten
years of experience. Young, educated workers may view their skills as
more transferable than do older more experienced workers. Extrinsic rewards
are more important for those with little tenure compared to those with
many years of experience with the company. The accumulation of years of
work experience (tenure) may not only be personally rewarding, but it
also provides structural advantages. In a union plant, seniority provides
Age, Tenure, Resources for Control, and Organizational Commitment 527
greater job security in the event of layoffs. These factors may result in the
reduced importance of extrinsic rewards for more experienced workers.
Finally, older workers, regardless of tenure, are more committed to the
company than are younger workers. Older workers with little tenure may
have experienced negative effects of economic changes and now find them-
selves in vulnerable positions. The fact that the company has upheld the
social contract with its workers gives workers in this position some comfort
that they will be able to remain with the company until they choose to leave
the workforce.
Consideration of age/tenure stages introduces the idea that there are time-
linked differences among workers regarding what is important to them in
the workplace. Age/tenure differences expose workers to different working
conditions, different experiences in the workplace, and different perspectives
on possible career-related actions. Moreover, tenure and age career stages
may be congruent (e.g., workers who are young and have little experience),
thereby exposing workers to consistent time-linked demands, or incongruent
(e.g., workers with little tenure who are middle aged) and thereby expose
workers to competing and incompatible demands (Krecker, 1994). The
increasing instability of employment for workers makes this a salient issue
and future studies, using larger data sets, should continue to examine worker
responses to these competing demands (Rubin and Brody, 2005).
Future research may benefit from the development of middle range the-
ories to help explain workers’ commitment to their companies. Bifurcations
such as blue collar versus white collar fail to account for age and tenure
effects that may influence commitment. The labor process that is used by an
organization may also play a large role in the effects of work experiences on
commitment. Researchers need to take these factors into account as a high
level of technological control may negate the influence of career stage, while
newer management styles may enhance these effects. The workers in this
study are involved in smallbatch, flexible manufacturing. Organizations
moving to more flexible production technologies, and those already using
these techniques, should take into consideration the importance of provid-
ing workers with experiences that increase their sense of control based on
workers’ levels of experience and age.

Appendix

b1  b2
t ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ðdf1 s1 þ df2 s22 Þ=ðdf1 þ df2 Þ
2

Where b1 and b2 denote regression coefficients of a given variable, df1 and

df2 represent degrees of freedom for the regressions, and s1 and s1 are their
standard errors (Wallace and Junisbai, 2004).
528 Social Science Quarterly
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