Analog Scales of Affective and Continuance Commitment

Abstract

Abstract : The Army has assembled an archive of survey data for use in studies and analyses on practical issues pertinent to the career decisions of officers. This effort applied the approach for empirically deriving and validating measures in order to expand the value of the archive for longitudinal research on organizational commitment. Accordingly, an expert panel selected 13 questionnaire items that fit with the content domains of Meyer and Allen's (1991) affective commitment (AC) and continuance commitment (CC). It was expected that the average of responses to the items selected for a construct could serve as an analog scale for measuring the construct. To test this, the original Meyer and Allen items and the candidate analog items were administered to 404 Army officers. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that responses to the analog and original items defined dimensions representing AC and CC. Correlations of analog scale scores with rank and career intent were also similar to those obtained for the original scales. Use of the validated analog scales links findings from the Army archive to the wider research on organizational commitment and increases the certainty and applicability of these findings.