Career commitment and entrenchment: should we integrate or rebuild these constructs? An exploration of their relationships with performance

Abstract

Career field studies have focused on the limitations and boundaries of occupational attachments as commitment and entrenchment. The purpose of this work is to investigate relations between these constructs and to compare their connections with work performance levels. A total of 217 workers at an information technology organization completed the survey. The results evidence conceptual redundancy between two entrenchment dimensions and continuance and normative commitment. We observed that the main idea of occupational entrenchment is the limitedness of career alternatives. Would this be the fourth dimension of occupational commitment? Like continuance commitment, career entrenchment relates negatively to work performance. Is the entrenchment concept the "opposite of commitment"? Should the continuance commitment be integrated with it? Beyond the present responses, this work aims to discuss the career commitment research mainstream and to promote reflections about construct boundaries and dimensions.