Factors that keep engineers committed to their organisations: A study of south african knowledge workers

Abstract

Organisational commitment has been consistently linked with positive workplace outcomes such as increased job satisfaction and reduced intention to quit, important considerations for retaining critical skills such as those possessed by knowledge workers. This research explored factors that influenced knowledge worker organisational commitment in the South African consulting engineering environment. A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted through an online survey at one office of a multinational professional services company employing mainly engineers, eliciting 104 responses. The questionnaire comprised established instruments to reliably measure a selection of organisational commitment antecedents. Commitment, both to the organisation, as well as to the employee’s occupation, was measured using a validated “unidimensional target-free” conceptualisation of the commitment construct that is arguably less confounded than previous measures. Organisational commitment was found to be positively correlated with perceived organisational support, satisfaction with pay, autonomy and occupational commitment. The strongest correlation was found with occupational commitment, which was found to be stronger than organisational commitment. These findings contribute to the understanding of how South African knowledge workers’ organisational commitment can be influenced. In turn, managers of engineers may gain useful insights in terms of how to encourage engineers’ willingness to stay at the organisation.