Factors that Predict Organizational Commitment for Full-time and Part-time Faculty in Community Colleges across North Carolina.

Abstract

Organizational dependence on part-time employees is a relatively recent trend across the modern landscape of the American workforce and is especially apparent in higher education. At community colleges across the country, as well as in North Carolina, there is a substantial reliance on part-time faculty employment. This is common practice in order to reduce institutional costs and to maintain institutional flexibility in curricular offerings. As community colleges’ dependence on part-time faculty continues, it becomes apparent that these employees are critical to the success of these institutions. Despite the widespread employment of part-time faculty, there is little known about the commitment levels of these faculty, or even the levels of their full-time counterparts. The purpose of this study is to investigate the predictive value of several variables on organizational commitment for both full-time and part-time faculty in community colleges across North Carolina. The study utilizes the Meyer and Allen (1991) three-component model of organizational commitment which proposes that individuals become committed for any of three psychological reasons labeled as affective, continuance, and normative. The dataset consists of faculty responses on a web-based survey distributed to community colleges across North Carolina. Using analysis of variance (ANOVA), this study seeks to compare levels of organizational commitment between full-time and part-time faculty. Results show that mean scores of affective, continuance and normative commitment are significantly higher for full-time faculty than part-time faculty. Using multiple regression, this study also seeks to understand how organizational, alternatives/transferability, rewards and demographic variables predict organizational commitment for full-time and part-time faculty. Generally, regression analyses show that organizational support, extrinsic rewards, age and education level are significantly predictive of all three commitment components, for both full-time and part-time faculty. Furthermore, regression analysis indicates that extrinsic financial rewards have a significant negative influence on affective commitment for part-time faculty.