| Research on employment-related issues is well-documented throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Within recent years, the relationship between retention and organizational effectiveness, efficiency, and financial success has caught the attention of scholars and practitioners alike. Retention has begun to be viewed as a crucial component to organizational strength, achievement, and success. Research has shown that retained employees contribute to service excellence and organizational excellence, decrease transition costs associated with new employees, and drive growth and financial developments. Retention of employees leads to consistency, profitability, and greater overall success.;There are a limited number of human resource studies dedicated to the investigation of retention and turnover in sport settings, and even less concerned specifically with intercollegiate athletics. No research has been conducted at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II level with a focus on coach commitment. The purpose of this study was to determine how organizational commitment was related to the retention of assistant coaches at the NCAA Division II level.;Using a modified Meyer and Allen organizational commitment scale (1997), organizational commitment was examined as a multidimensional construct that included the components of affective commitment, normative commitment, and continuance commitment. The results of this study indicated several points of concern with using the Meyer and Allen (1997) organizational commitment scale in the setting of NCAA Division II athletics. Substantial modification of the scale was required to provide a good fit to the sample data. Multiple Linear Regression analyses also provided results that suggested several items of the organizational commitment scale and three subscales (affective commitment, normative commitment, and continuance commitment) did not contribute to explaining the variance in assistant coaches' intent to stay with their current athletic department. This study concludes with a discussion of possible reasons why the Meyer and Allen (1997) organizational commitment scale did not effectively measure the organizational commitment of NCAA Division II assistant coaches. Additionally, suggestions for future research were included. |
