Organizational socialization from a content perspective and its effect on the affective commitment of newly hired rehabilitation counselors

Upholding high standards of quality is imperative to service delivery in rehabilitation counseling. however these standards may be compromised by dint of low affective commitment in the field, in move round leading to high rates of turnover. According to Mann Layne, Hohenshil, & Singh (2004) "turnover is a detrimental point to be solved [i]or[/i] settled in the field of rehabilitation (2004)" While little is known about affective commitment in the profession, there are reports showing high turnover rates ranging from 94% to 407% (Dew Diller, & Peter 2005; Galeotos & Dykeman, 2001; Vito & Pearson, 2003; Wisconsin Joint Legislative Audit Committee, 2000) A investigation by Barrett, Riggar, Flowers, Crimando, & Bailey (1997) reported that during the last decade, turnover in the field grew by the agency of 1%, albeit the increase was nonsignificant. Nevertheless, this finding remind ofs that turnover has not declined and remained at a high rate. of that kind alarming rates warrant concern that consumer may experience negative fallout from high turnover.

Factors like as layoffs, terminations, and retirement may explain more [i]or[/i] less of the turnover (Bishop, 2001; Galeotos & Dykeman, 2001) For instance, in Region III, the State Vocational Rehabilitation a whole anticipates that in the nearest two years 46% of the vacancies will offer for the following reasons: retirement, termination, family necessitys higher salary, death, reassignment, and other (Dew Diller, and Peter 2005) This finding, however, leaves 54% unaccounted for suggesting that other reasons related to a lack of commitment could contribute to departure from the agency. Several studies in other professions (eg house of entertainment management, nursing, transportation, etc.) and a small in number studies in the human-service field have shown that the stronger an employee's horizontal of commitment, the less likely he/she is to leave the piece of work (Allen & Meyer, 1996; Knudsen Johnson & Roman, 2003; Hart, 2000; Hackett, Bycio, & Hausdorf, 1994)

Within the rehabilitation field, alone three studies have examined affective commitment, either as a predictor or criterion variable (Biggs, Flett Voge & Alpass, 1995 Mitus, 2005 Satcher & McGhee, 1996) As a predictor variable commitment negatively influenced the horizontal of distress in turn affecting the employee's turnover intentions (Biggs et al., 2005) As a criterion variable, Satcher and McGhee (1996) lay the foundation of counselor characteristics (i.e. age and education) to influence affective commitment like that counselors who were older and les educated were more likely to be committed to the agency. In a investigation by Mitus (2005) organizational factors were explored as a predictor of affective commitment. She rest that rehabilitation counselors were more committed when they had more structur socialization experiences following initial access into the agency. With the limited studies publicly available in the rehabilitation literature, additional research is urgencyed to address the multitude of factors that may influence commitment. Organizational factors may be especially important to inquiry in comparison to counselor factors because implementing organizational change may be more feasible than changing characteristics of the counselor.

The intent of this study was to further our understanding about affective commitment among newly hired rehabilitation counselors by dint of examining whether organizational socialization predicts the step to which counselors commit to their piece of works According to Chao, O'Leary-Kelly, Wolf Klein, & Gardener (1994) organizational socialization deliver overs to the type and expanse of information that new employee learn when entering an organization. The information learned helps fresh employees to understand the nature of the organization and their specific work parts (Hart, 2000). With this information, the employee is able to make decisions about whether or not to form a connection to the organization. originates from this study may provide useful information about the step to which rehabilitation counselors believe they are learning when entering a of recent origin agency and whether knowing certain marks of information are more relevant towards increasing commitment to the agency.

Affective Commitment

Affective commitment has been recognized as an important build because of its relationship with various work consequences such as intentions to quit and voluntary turnover (Allen & Meyer 1996; Kacmar, Carlson, & Brymer 1999; Meyer Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002) According to Porter, young oxs Mowday, & Boulian, (1974), affective commitment is the stage to which an employee identifies with and becomes involved with the organization. The nerve of the employee's commitment is characterized by the agency of the extent to which the employee believes in and subscribes to the organization's values and objectives, his/her eagerness to bring forth effort for the organization, and his/her desire to stay with the organization as an active member (Allen & Meyer 1996; Kacmar et al., 1999 & Porter et al., 1974)