Exploring the Impact of Certification Activity, Years of Laboratory Experience, Highest Degree Held, Occupational Commitment, and Job Loss Insecurity on Intent to Leave Occupation for Medical Technologists

Journal of Allied Health, Winter 2006 by Blau, Gary, Daymont, Tom, Hochner, Art, Koziara, Karen, Et al

This study used a sample of 205 repeat-respondent medical technologists over a 3-year period to explore the impact of certification activity, years of laboratory experience, highest degree held, occupational commitment, and job loss insecurity on intent to leave occupation. Results showed that 3-year certification activity was related to lower intent to leave the occupation and that it accounted for significant variance in explaining intent to leave the occupation beyond all other controlled-for variables. Implications for health care organizations hiring certified medical laboratory professionals or sponsoring the certification of current staff are briefly discussed. J Allied Health 2006; 35:208-214.

RECENT RESEARCH ON WORK COMMITMENT continues to acknowledge the importance of occupational commitment as a distinct focus or target for commitment, along with other foci or targets such as organization, supervisor, team, and customer.1 As work organizations continue to restructure and employer-employee relationships become less stable,2 some employees may be shifting their loyalty to a broader base of perceived stability, that is, their occupation.3 Job loss insecurity is also an important psychological variable, and research shows that it has been generally on the rise since the 1990s for professional workers across many countries, including the United States and Great Britain.4 Both occupational commitment and job insecurity are important variables to study for medical laboratory professionals, partially because of their implications for one's intent to leave the medical laboratory profession.

A recent American Society for Clinical Pathology Wage and Vacancy Survey found that there will be an increasing shortage of medical laboratory professionals in the coming years, and attracting new professionals, as well as maintaining current retention levels, are important priorities.5 However, continued health care facility merger activity, as well as increases in automation, also facilitates job insecurity perceptions among medical laboratory professionals.6 The current study examines the relationships of occupational commitment, job loss insecurity, and three additional correlates, years of laboratory experience, highest education degree, and certification activity, on the outcome of intent to leave medical technology.

Defining Occupational Commitment and Job Loss Insecurity

Using samples of nurses, Meyer et al.7 presented empirical evidence for 2 three-dimensional measures: one measure for organizational commitment and the second for occupational commitment. Organization and occupation represent separate work domains or entities.7 Each entity is based on the same three-dimensional structure, that is, affective, normative, and continuance. Employees with strong affective commitment remain with either their organization or occupation because they want to, while those with strong normative commitment stay because they think they ought to, and employees with strong continuance commitment remain because they perceive that they need to. Using confirmatory factor analyses on samples of student nurses and registered nurses, Meyer et al.7 found support for six distinct factors: three dimensions of organizational commitment (i.e., affective, normative, and continuance) and the same three dimensions for occupational commitment. Each of the six dimensions was operationalized using a separate sixitem scale. On page 544 of their article, Meyer et al.7 present the 36 items they recommend for future use. In this study, we only investigated occupational commitment.

Work by Blau8 has suggested that continuance occupational commitment can he further divided into two distinguishable dimensions: accumulated costs versus limited occupational alternatives. Prior confirmatory factor analysis research on continuance organizational commitment9 also supports "splitting" continuance occupational commitment into distinct measures of accumulated costs versus lack of alternatives.

Job insecurity has been defined by Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt10 as "perceived powerlessness to maintain desired continuity in a threatened job situation." Research on job insecurity has generally focused on measuring employee concern about permanent job loss."

Variables Affecting Intent to Leave Occupation

There is a consistent body of literature showing that affective occupational commitment has a negative impact on intent to leave one's occupation.7,12 In addition, research also shows that the normative, accumulated costs and limited alternatives dimensions of occupational commitment also are negatively related to intent to leave one's occupation.13 Based on investment model research,14 occupational tenure and higher education level would also be expected to have a negative impact on intent to leave one's occupation. Occupational tenure (measured as years of experience) and education (measured by highest degree held) represent resources that may be at least partially lost if the individual changes occupations. Although we could not find prior empirical research testing this relationship, we expect that increased job loss insecurity could lead to a stronger intent to leave one's occupation. Prior research15 has shown that job loss insecurity is positively related to intent to leave one's job. Cumulatively, this suggests the following study hypothesis: