Journal of Enterprise Information Management

Investigating employee career commitment factors in a public sector organisation of a

developing country
Naimatullah Shah
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Naimatullah Shah, (2011),"Investigating employee career commitment factors in a public sector
organisation of a developing country", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 24 Iss 6 pp. 534
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JEIM
24,6
534
Received 1 July 2010
Revised 26 October 2010
2 January 2011
Accepted 9 February 2011
Downloaded by La Trobe University At 09:13 02 March 2016 (PT)
Journal of Enterprise Information
Management
Vol. 24 No. 6, 2011
pp. 534-546
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1741-0398
DOI 10.1108/17410391111166567
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1741-0398.htm
Investigating employee career
commitment factors in a public
sector organisation of a
developing country
Naimatullah Shah
Department of Public Administration, University of Sindh, Sindh, Pakistan
Abstract
Purpose – Understanding employee attitudes and behaviours has made possible the successful of
organisation policies and strategies. Managers are often worried about to know the employee related
factors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships and predictive power of job
satisfaction, organisational commitment and job promotion towards the employee career commitment
in a developing country.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a theoretical approach to identify the
proposed relationships of job satisfaction, organisational commitment and job promotion variables
with employee career commitment. This is a cross-sectional study where the researcher has used a
self-administered survey questionnaire for data collection.
Findings – The proposed approach is applied in a public sector organisation of a developing country.
The findings of the paper hold that independent variables such as job satisfaction, organisational
commitment and job promotion have positive and significant relationships to dependent variables,
i.e. employee career commitment.
Research limitations/implications – This study has methodological limitations, as it only
employed quantitative data from a large public sector organisation of a developing country. In
addition, only a direct relationship approach, with a limited number of variables is also limited in
theoretical approach. However, this study contributes in the literature on organisational behaviour and
employee commitment domain, particularly from a developing countries’ perspective. This study may
support the management and practitioners of human resources management and organisational
behaviour in assessing and evaluating employee attitudes and behaviours in the organisation.
Originality/value – The paper uses a quantitative approach in order to examine the employee
attitudinal and behavioural variables towards employee career commitment.
Keywords Career commitment, Job satisfaction, Organizational commitment, Job promotion,
Employees attitudes, Employees behaviour
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Today, organisations continue to downsize and restructure due to increasing new
trends of communication, technological advancement, knowledge, ability, skills and
competitive performance climate. Under this situation organisations want their
employee to enhance performance and used different type of employment practice in
one side and on other side employee is confronting alarming and challenging situation
for future career. Looking at careers from the perspective of organisation and
employee, it is important to advance our knowledge about what variables may
influence those individuals’ careers (Gattiker and Larwood, 1985). Across these
 variables employee may become attached to their organisation when their prior Employee career
expectations have been satisfied (Chang, 1999). There are number of environmental, commitment
personal, and career decisions and behavioural variables to influence employee career
commitment (London, 1983). However, employee develops sets of expectations from
the organisation and develops their attitudes and behaviours by comparison their level
of expectations with their perceived realities (Chang, 1999).
Indeed, employee joins organisation with their plans and desires strong 535
relationships on the basis of career satisfaction by the organisation. This implies
that organisation attitudes more affect to employee attitudes towards the career.
However, across the literature, employee career have been widely investigated for the
reason to know the attitudes and behaviours regarding his or her career. Researchers
revealed several individual factors that influence career success including emotional
intelligence, salary level (Poon, 2004); demographic variables (Gattiker and Larwood,
1988), supervisory support (Chang, 1999); dispositional traits (Seibert et al., 1999), job
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involvement, job satisfaction, organisational commitment, need for achievement, work

ethics (Blau, 1985, 1999; McGinnis and Morrow, 1990; Goulet and Singh, 2002),
motivation (O’Reilly and Chatman, 1986), political influence behaviours (Judge and
Bretz, 1994), education (Childs and Klimoski, 1986) and job tenure ( Judge et al., 1995)
have been confirmed to envisage career success. There is a large of literature on career
commitment for a developed economy countries but there is still little generalisable
knowledge on how individual of developing country build up their relations with his or
her organisation on the basis of career development. The study aim was to address this
research gap by examining the employee attitudes and behaviours and study
objectives were to investigate the relationships between job satisfactions,
organisational commitment, and job promotion towards career commitment.

2. Conceptualisation and hypotheses development

Looking at competitive global climate organisations seek to enhance employee
performance and used different type of employment practices. On the other side
employee shows higher levels of expectations and requirements from the organisation
with which they have forged relationships. Increasing attention is being given to
employee career commitment which implies that highly career committed employees
may be more motivated when their expectations are satisfied by the organisation than
those who are less committed. Career commitment seems to be an important factor for
career progression and development that is relevant to practical concerns of individual
and organisation to excel in their occupations or jobs. Moreover, career commitment
involves self generated goals and commitment to one’s own career which is influenced
by number of factors such as personal, behavioural and environmental decisions
(London, 1983). If an employee commits to a career he or she would pursue career goals
in spite of obstacles and setbacks otherwise, they make a career change rather than
persevere in achieving career objectives (Colarelli and Bishop, 1990).
In organisational terms, commitment has largely been used to understand employee
behaviours, thinking and attitudes towards organisation or work (Oliver, 1990). It is
defined as one’s motivation to work in a particular vocation or as an act of commitment
to trust or pledge to something or someone (Hall, 1971; Merriam-Webster, 1999). The
concept of commitment has widely been used to find out individual attitudes and
behaviours in terms of careers, organisations, norms, identification, morals, work, jobs,
 JEIM and job involvement. In organisation and social fields the term is recognised as a
24,6 predictor of much behavioural aspect. The main focus is on employee turnover (Bartol,
1979; Blau and Boal, 1987; Huselid and Day, 1991; Park and Kim, 2009), absenteeism
(Gellatly, 1995; Sagie, 1998) and organisational citizenship behaviour (Mathieu and
Zajac, 1990). In this domain the term seeks the nature and quality of the relationship of
individual with the organisation shows their beliefs, willingness, and desire to remain
536 with the organisation.
Employee can develop attitudes and behaviours on the basis of career commitment,
where people make a significant investment in their careers (Kaiser, 1974; Carson et al.,
1999; Poon, 2004). A career is an evolving sequence of a person’s work experiences over
time. It relates to the individual’s perceived sequence of vocation, occupation or
profession that person occupies over time (Hall, 1976; Salomon, 1993). An individual’s
attitude towards his or her career is described as career commitment (Chang, 1999). It is
recognised as a form of work commitment (Morrow, 1993) that can be characterised by
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the development of personal career goals and the individual’s attachment to,
identification with and involvement in those goals (Colarelli and Bishop, 1990).
Indeed, a career involves trade offs between security and risk and between
individual success and family. The literature shows that employee attachment,
identification and involvement depend upon extrinsic and intrinsic outcomes such as
pay, promotion, appraisal, and satisfaction that can refer to one’s motivation to work in
a chosen vocation (Hall, 1971). According to Poon (2004) career commitment is
predicated on objective career success in form of salary level and subjective career
success in the form of career satisfaction. Thus, most of the research has focused on
individual and situational factors such as job involvement, organisational
commitment, organisational uncertainty, job satisfaction, fear of job loss and job fit
(Blau, 1985; McGinnis and Morrow, 1990; Goulet and Singh, 2002). These two
magnitudes have been applied to measure the impact of employee career commitment
(Morrow, 1993; Hall, 1976). By using this conceptualisation this study examines
employee attitudes and behaviours towards their career by job satisfaction,
organisational commitment and job promotion variables in the developing economy.
Employee develops interests on the basis of his or her personal characteristics like
needs, interests, development, and future expectations (Shah and Shah, 2010). These
dimensions can identify the individual’s attitudes towards career motivation,
strengths, development and persistence of career motivation. Most academic
researchers and practitioners have focused on individual factors such as job
involvement, job satisfaction and organisational commitment, which have a positive
influence on career commitment (McGinnis and Morrow, 1990; Blau, 1999). To develop
individual’s perceptions, employee personal variables can affect their loyalty and
involvement. Job satisfaction is also one of them which has been defined by Agho et al.
(1992) as the degree to which an employee likes their work. It is related to employee
active feelings to his or her job with specific aspects, such as pay, supervision, morale,
and opportunity for advancement (McNeese-Smith, 1997; Kangas et al., 1999). These
feelings can be generated when an organisation provides all facilities and benefits to
promote employee development and progression. Job satisfaction provides the degree
of an individual’s feelings with his or her current job (Chang and Chang, 2007). In the
literature, the job satisfaction variable has been widely applied by researchers to
measure employee attitudes and behaviours towards his or her career or organisation
 (Blau, 1985; Goulet and Singh, 2002; Gregory et al., 2007). By applying this concept Employee career
researcher proposes following hypothesis: commitment
H1. Job satisfaction will be a significant determinant of career commitment.
Employee commitment has been treated as active and positive behaviours and attitudes
towards his or her organisation. Mowday et al. (1979) define the term organisational
commitment as an individual identification, loyalty, or involvement, which is 537
characterised by beliefs, willingness, and membership with the organisation. In
developing employee positive perception regarding the organisation, knowing employee
loyalty, identification and involvement is vital (Buchanan, 1974; Cook and Wall, 1980). In
previous research, employee commitment to the organisation has been used as a
predictor of behaviours like absenteeism, turnover, and organisational citizenship
behaviours (Price and Mueller, 1986; Sagie, 1998). In the literature, organisational
commitment and job performance have been positively related (Mowday et al., 1979),
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while tardiness, absenteeism, and turnover (Steers, 1977; Hom et al., 1979; Wiener and
Vardi, 1980) are inversely related. Thus, the term can be applied for individual’s attitudes
and behaviours because in previous research it has been used to know the individual’s
cognition levels. Academic and practitioner researcher is interested because of the
individual’s perception of trust, and pledge to the organisation. Hence, the main concern
of the researchers is to find the employee attitudes and behaviours towards the career.
By applying this concept researcher proposes following hypothesis:
H2. Organisational commitment will be a significant determinant of career
commitment.
Apart from other factors employee career commitment can increase when he or she
knows job promotion according to the organisation policies. In career commitment
domain job promotion is considered to subjective or situation factor which is related to
the extent to which employee feel committed to their organisation by virtue of the costs
that they feel are associated with leaving (Meyer and Allen, 1984). In fact job promotion
factor may be used to enhance the employee abilities, skills and energies on the basis of
an agreement between employee and employer. This concept largely supports employee
and organisation needs that can be used for mutual understanding. Many researchers
used job promotion as an essential for developing relation between employee and
employer (Greenhaus et al., 1990; Poon, 2004). In addition, researchers have applied job
promotion to understand how an employee forges relationships with an organisation
(Allen and Meyer, 1990; Liou and Nyhan, 1994; Cohen, 1996). From this perspective
researcher examines employee attitudes and behaviours for career commitment through
job promotion. On this basis researcher proposes following hypothesis:
H3. Job promotion will be a significant determinant of career commitment.

3. Research methodology
The study set out to explore the relationship between job satisfaction, organisation
commitment, and job promotion to employee career commitment based on quantitative
methodology. Researcher used a survey questionnaire approach for data collection.
The research was conducted with independent sample of a public sector organisation
of a developing country. Previous research on the employee career commitment has
 JEIM focused on manufacture, service oriented and marketing factors of organisation and
24,6 individual careers only (Cherniss, 1991; Goulet and Singh, 2002; Grote and Raeder,
2009). This study allowed to systematically consider employees of educational
institutions in a larger sample.

3.1 Participants
538 The study was conducted in a public sector organisation of a developing country. For data
a targeted sample of 1,000 participants from a total population about 10,000 were
randomly selected. The researcher targeted a sample of a public sector organisation from
all over the country. For this study employees were selected from various levels working
full time. The participants were supplied with a survey instrument in the English language
because a basic appointment requirement is a four-year university degree and education
from secondary to higher education level in the country is taught in the English language.
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3.2 Measurement scale

The process of developing the survey instrument was based on the type of information
required. The questionnaire was pretested in the pilot study and factor analysed to
assess uni-dimensionality. The factors are described next.
3.2.1 Career commitment. Eight items with a five-point Likert scale ð1 ¼ Strongly
Disagree and 5 ¼ Strongly Agree) from Blau (1985) was used to measure the
employees’ career commitment. Sample item was “If I had all the money I need without
working, I would probably still continue in this profession”.
3.2.2 Job satisfaction. Job satisfaction was measured with seven items on a
five-point Likert Scale (Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree) from Brayfield and Rothe
(1951). Sample items from this scale are “My job is like a hobby to me” and “I find real
enjoyment in my work”.
3.2.3 Organisation commitment. Organisational commitment was measured via a
nine-item scale as developed by Cook and Wall (1980) and factor analysis conducted by
Mathews and Shepherd (2002). Respondents used a five-point Likert Scale (Strongly
Disagree to Strongly Agree) to rate their agreement with questions such as “I
sometimes feel like leaving this employment for good” and “I am quite proud to be able
to tell people who it is I work for”.
3.2.4 Job promotion. Three items using a five-point Likert Scale ð1 ¼ Strongly
Disagree and 5 ¼ Strongly Agree) was used by Chang (1999) based on Gaertner and
Nollen’s (1989) study used to measure employees’ perceptions about promotion within
an organisation. An example item was “This organisation prefers to promote from
within”.
3.2.5 Demography. Demographic variables included gender and age range were
controlled because of affect the level of career commitment.

3.3 Procedure and analysis

A list of employees was obtained from the internet source. For quantitative data, the
survey questionnaire was sent out before getting an affirmative written response from
each participant. The questionnaire was sent to the participants via a mix of email, post
and personal visits, and included a formal consent form and a covering letter explaining
the purpose of the study and instructions on how to complete the survey instrument.
This study was conducted over four months from October 2008 to January, 2009.
 For data analysis, the treatment of missing data, descriptive statistics, outlier Employee career
examination, reliability and exploratory factor analysis tests was carried out by using commitment
statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) 15.0 version for Windows (Tabachnick
and Fidell, 2007; Hair et al., 2006). Analytical techniques were used to analyse the
results of descriptive statistics to describe the demographic and general results.
Although Pearson correlations of dependent variable i.e. career commitment and
independent variables i.e. job satisfaction, organisational commitment and job 539
promotion was used to test the magnitude and direction of relationships of variables.
To predict the output of variables multiple regression tests is robust in social science
and psychological domain. It is an appropriate and most widely used method for
investigating the relationship between a dependent variable and two or more
independent variables due to its well developed underlying statistical theory (Hair et al.,
2006, p. 18; Montgomery et al., 2001, p. xii). The hypotheses were tested using the
multiple regression analysis (MRA).
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4. Results
Table I presents the descriptive statistics, internal consistency reliability, and
correlation coefficients of each variable. Among the descriptive statistics of the four
variables, organisational commitment had a mean score of 4.21 on a five-point Likert
scale. The overall Cronbach’s alpha reliability was 0.89, which reflected the internal
consistency of the indicators measuring a given factor. Internal consistency reliability
of the four variables using were in range of 0.712 to 0.810. In internal consistency, these
values were found higher than the usually recommended level of 0.70 (Nunnally, 1978).
Findings reveal that employee career commitment is positively and significantly
related to job satisfaction, organisational commitment and job promotion. The result of
Pearson’s Correlation showed the highest relationship between job satisfaction and job
promotion ðr ¼ 0:362Þ and the lowest relationship between organisational
commitment and job promotionðr ¼ 0:231Þ: However, no relationship was found to
be greater than 0.70. Therefore, there was no need to determine multi-collinearity,
which is required when two predictors correlate more strongly than 0.70 (Vogt, 2007).

4.1 Regression analysis and hypotheses testing

Table II shows the results of the regression analysis for the effect of job satisfaction,
organisational commitment and job promotion variables on career commitment. In this
paper researcher used regression beta (b) and t-value for testing the proposed

Scales Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6

1 Career commitment 4.04 1.04 (0.712)

2 Job satisfaction 3.92 1.03 0.377 * * (0.728)
3 Organisational commitment 4.21 0.91 0.341 * * 0.300 * * (0.810)
4 Job promotion 3.70 1.07 0.231 * * 0.362 * * 0.241 * * (0.738)
5 Gender – – 0.007 0.072 0.077 0.080 –
6 Age – – 0.030 0.044 0.081 0.105 * 2 0.098 * – Table I.
Mean, standard
Note: Alpha reliabilities are shown in parentheses on the diagonal; *Correlation is significant at the deviation, reliability and
0.05 level (2-tailed); * *Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) correlation of factors
 JEIM
Variables Model 1 B Model 2 b
24,6
Step 1: Control variables
Gender 0.010
Age 0.031
Step 2: Main effects
540 Job satisfaction 0.280 * *
Organisational commitment 0.243 * *
Job promotion 0.076 *
F-value 0.259 27.064 * *
R2 0.001 0.205
Table II. Adjusted R 2 2 0.003 0.197
Multiple regression Change in adjusted R 2 0.001 0.204
results of career
commitment factors Notes: *p , 0.10; * * p , 0.05
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hypotheses. H1 suggested that there is a significant positive relationship between

employee job satisfaction and career commitment. In result job satisfaction was found
to be positively and significantly related to career commitment ðb ¼ 0:280; p , 0.01,
T ¼ 6:517Þ suggesting support for the H1. H2 predicted significant positive
relationship between employee organisational commitment and career commitment.
The result found to be positive and significant relationships ðb ¼ 0:243; p , 0.01,
T ¼ 5:860Þ suggesting support for the H2 and final hypothesis proposed that there is a
significant positive relationship between employee job promotion and career
commitment. The results were found to be positively and significantly relationships
between job promotion and career commitment ðb ¼ 0:076; p , 0.05, T ¼ 1:781Þ
suggesting support for the H3. As a whole these independent variables accounted for a
change in adjusted R 2 of 0.205.

5. Discussion and implications

The aim of this study was to investigate the employee attitudes and behaviours
towards the career commitment. This study examined the effects of job satisfaction,
organisational commitment and job promotion variables on employee career
commitment. In this study, three hypotheses were developed on the basis of
relationships between independent and dependent variables. All three hypotheses,
namely H1, H2 and H3 were accepted. The findings from this study reveal that there is
a direct relationship between career commitment and job satisfaction, organisational
commitment and job promotion in the public sector organisation of a developing
country.
This study was conducted in a developing country where in the current fragile
economic, financial, developmental, competitive and environmental situation,
employee may develop different attitudes and behaviours towards his or her career
commitment. We collected quantitative data from a public sector organisation. For
quantitative data collection, a random sampling was carried out (Hair et al., 2006;
Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007). Of the 1,000 questionnaires distributed among
employees of a large public sector organisation from across the country, 556 were
returned, indicating a response rate of 55.6 per cent. By applying a questionnaire in a
cross sectional study, overall results indicated as reliable through Cronbach’s alpha
 (a ¼ 0.89), which shows high internal consistency among various scales included in Employee career
this survey questionnaire. However, reliability of individual scales was different from commitment
each other in which organisational commitment scales reliability ða ¼ 0:81Þ; career
commitment reliability ða ¼ 0:712Þ; job satisfaction ða ¼ 0:73Þ; and job promotion
variable reliability ða ¼ 0:74Þ:
The findings show that career commitment predicted in the form of job satisfaction,
organisational commitment, and job promotion in a developing country. The findings 541
also yielded that job satisfaction had a strong positive influence on employee career
commitment. This study provide empirical evidence that employee of a developing
country can develop positive attitudes and behaviours towards career commitment
through job satisfaction, organisational commitment and job promotion. Thus,
developing a level of job satisfaction and organisational commitment among
employees and preferring job promotion according to organisation policy might be a
strong channel for employee career commitment.
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Results from the sets of data show that employees consciously gave positive
responses as a result of career development factors. In this study first factor such as job
satisfaction have a positive influence on career commitment. Job satisfaction has been
related to employee active feelings to his or her job (McNeese-Smith, 1997; Kangas et al.,
1999; Chang and Chang, 2007). In the literature, the job satisfaction variable has been
widely applied by researchers to measure employee attitudes and behaviours towards
his or her career (Blau, 1985; Goulet and Singh, 2002; Gregory et al., 2007). A satisfied
employee is expected to like his or her job and the organisation and will probably be
committed to his or her career (Goulet and Singh, 2002; Cherniss, 1991; Blau, 1999;
Goulet and Singh, 2002). The findings of this research also support previous studies,
and has extended the research by examining the job satisfaction predictor variable to
examine employee career commitment in developing country.
Significant support for the relationships between organisational commitment and
career commitments was found in the study. In literature organisational commitment
has been treated as a behaviours and attitudes by beliefs, willingness, and membership
with the organisation (Mowday et al., 1979). Thus, the term has been used as a
predictor of behaviours like absenteeism, turnover, and organisational citizenship
behaviours (Price and Mueller, 1986; Sagie, 1998). In the literature, organisational
commitment and job performance have been positively related and tardiness,
absenteeism, and turnover (Mowday et al., 1979; Steers, 1977; Hom et al., 1979; Wiener
and Vardi, 1980) are inversely. The results of the study support previous studies (Cook
and Wall, 1980; Mathews and Shepherd, 2002; Goulet and Singh, 2002). The findings
supported the literature confirms and expands existing knowledge particularly in
developing countries (Alvi and Ahmed, 1987; Chang, 1999). Generally, our results
suggest that a thorough understanding of employee commitment to the organisation
requires attention in order to develop career commitment.
Finally, researcher applied job promotion to yield employee attitudes and
behaviours towards his or her career commitment. In fact, employees who receive
encouragement and rewards from the organisation are more likely to act willingly in
support of organisational goals contributing to overall organisational effectiveness
(Organ, 1988; VanYperen et al., 1999). Therefore, job rewards, such as job promotion,
may be more important for developing positive attitudes and behaviours and have a
more positive impact on employee career commitment in developing countries.
 JEIM Employee job promotion is related between employees and organisations on the basis
24,6 of mutual benefit. The focus of this concept is that an employee who is more desirous of
job promotion from within the organisation may be more satisfied with his or her job.
Many researchers applied this concept to knowing the employee attitudes and
behaviours and found positive significant results (Greenhaus et al., 1990; Chang, 1999;
Poon, 2004). In this research this concept was applied in a public sector organisation
542 and found a positive significant relationship with career commitment. The results add
support to previous studies and the statistical findings showed that internal job
promotion is a positive source of developing employee attitudes and behaviours
towards career commitment. Thus, the importance of job promotion in the current
fragile economic, financial, developmental, competitive and environmental situation,
particularly in developing countries, may suggest developing policies, strategies or
plans on the basis of economic rewards factors such as promotion.
Overall, the current study has extended the body of knowledge by examining the
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strength of independent variables such as job satisfaction, organisational commitment

and job promotion variables to the dependent variable i.e. employee career
commitment. In this study job satisfaction has been found strong variable to
develop employee attitudes and behaviours towards career in a developing country,
which has not been reported earlier. However, this paper contributes in the literature on
organisational behaviours and particularly employee commitment domain mainly
from developing countries’ perspectives. This study may support the management and
practitioners of human resources management and organisational behaviour in
assessing and evaluating employee attitudes and behaviours in the organisation.

6. Conclusion
This study reports on employee career commitment through job satisfaction,
organisational commitment and job promotion variables. A review of the literature on
career commitment revealed that employee attitudes, behaviours and beliefs could be
influenced by employee career commitment variables. A conceptual approach was
developed on the basis of job satisfaction, organisational commitment and job
promotion variables, which were examined in this study to demonstrate the impact of
these factors on employee career commitment. Among the independent variables there
were higher correlations between job satisfaction and organisational commitment with
the career commitment. However, all independent job satisfaction, organisational
commitment and job promotion were found to be positively and significantly
correlated to career commitment. Overall, this study has significantly contributed to
the literature by examining the employee attitudes and behaviours towards career
commitment in the public sector organisation in a developing country.

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About the author

546 Dr Naimatullah Shah received his PhD from Brunel Business School, Brunel University, UK. He
is currently working as Assistant Professor at Department of Public Administration, University
of Sindh, Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan. His research work has been previously accepted in journals
such as JEIM, IJLSM and TG: PPP. His primary research interests include employee readiness
for change, organisational justice and employee commitment to the organisation and career. His
current research focuses on the human relations, gender matters and performance of individuals.
He can be contacted at: syednbshah@gmail.com
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