Downsizings are now so pervasive that millions of Americans are laid off each year with the stated purpose of improving their organizations' financial outcomes. However, one of the unforeseen negative consequences of downsizings is high attrition by employees who "survive" the layoffs. This dissertation seeks to extend our understanding of how organizations can persuade survivors to remain after a downsizing by increasing their organizational commitment, resulting in decreased turnover intentions, and, ultimately, lower attrition. Using a sample of 2,751 employees, we performed a secondary analysis of employee survey data from an international consulting firm to examine the effects of multiple variables on the organizational commitment of downsizing survivors. Substantiating previous research, we confirmed that turnover intentions were positively related to actual voluntary turnover and that increased trust was positively related to increased organizational commitment. We found that organizational commitment was positively related to both perceived organizational support (POS) and perceived supervisor support (PSS), with POS accounting for a greater increment of variance. When predicting organizational commitment subsequent to a downsizing, POS and PSS compensated for each other in that (a) POS moderated the association between PSS and organizational commitment, such that the relationship became stronger as the level of POS decreased and (b) PSS moderated the association between POS and organizational commitment, such that the relationship became weaker as the level of PSS increased. Gender moderated the 2-way interaction between POS and PSS when predicting organizational commitment such that the interaction was stronger among men than for women. We predicted that customer service orientation (CSO) and equity would moderate the strength of the 2-way interaction between POS and PSS when predicting organizational commitment among downsizing survivors, such that the impact of CSO or equity would be stronger when POS and PSS were low. These hypotheses were only partially confirmed, as we found that CSO seemed to compensate most when PSS was low and that equity seemed to compensate most when POS was low. Finally, we predicted that increased organizational tenure would be positively related to organizational commitment among downsizing survivors; however, a significant positive bivariate correlation was not found

Last modified

• 06/25/2018

Creator

• Robin Adair Erickson

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N2JQ47

Subject

• Communication Studies

Keyword

• perceived supervisor support
• turnover
• retention
• perceived organizational support
• downsizings
• organizational commitment

Date created

• 2007-05-15

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright