Scheduled for Sport Management, Psychology, and Leisure & Recreation Posters, Thursday, April 1, 2004, 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM, Convention Center: Exhibit Hall Poster Session


The More Challenging, the Better: Antecedents of Interns’ Organizational Commitment

Marlene A. Dixon1, George B. Cunningham2, Michael Sagas2, Brian Turner3 and Aubrey Kent4, (1)Rice University, Houston, TX, (2)Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, (3)DeSales University, Center Valley, PA, (4)Florida State University, Tallahsee, FL

In general, internship literature has focused on the benefits of the process to the students completing them. However, there is also evidence that internships are beneficial to the sponsoring organization. For example, there is evidence that many organizations have begun to replace entry-level employees with a revolving pool of interns. Therefore, interns have become increasingly important in the organization’s ability to deliver sport products and/or services. Given the primacy of interns, it is useful to understand what work experiences contribute to the interns’ commitment to the organization. As organizational commitment is related, at least in part, to favorable outcomes, such as citizenship behavior and performance, such an investigation is warranted. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which three work experiences were related to organizational commitment among interns. Specifically, it was expected that job challenge and supervisor support would be positively associated with organizational commitment, whereas role stress was expected to have a negative association with the dependent variable. Data were collected from 71 interns and the end of their semester-long internship. Gender, age, and salary status (i.e., whether or not they were paid for their internship) served as control variables. Hierarchical regression analyses were employed to examine the impact of the work experiences on organizational commitment. The controls accounted for 15% of the variance. After controlling for these effects, the three work experiences accounted for an additional 35% unique variance. Thus, the total model accounted for a large portion of the variance (50%) in organizational commitment. Examination of the standardized regression coefficients indicated that job challenge was the only significant antecedent of organizational commitment (p < .001). Further examination of the part correlations indicated that job challenge accounted for 15% unique variance in organizational commitment. Therefore, results indicate that, in order to foster feelings of commitment, organizations would do well to provide their interns with tasks that are challenging, exciting, and beyond the mundane. Further, given the importance of interns in modern sport organizations, providing such work can possibly result in tangible outcomes for the overall organization.
Keyword(s): college level issues, research, sport management

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