| At the heart of the U.S. knowledge workforce is a puzzle: workers who exhibit strong commitment to organizations, yet nevertheless move frequently among them. This commitment amid transience challenges dominant theories, which presume an inverse relationship between organizational commitment and transience. I coin and use the metaphor "knowledge nomads" to underscore that while these workers are transient, they do build psychological "homes"---commitments to the organizations in which they sojourn.; In this study, I examine and reconcile commitment and transience in two ways. First, I critically review the literature, revealing an unsystematic use of organizational commitment constructs. A critical reading leaves open the possibility of commitment amid transience. Second, I develop a new approach to studying commitment. The commitment patterns approach developed examines the constellation of different forms of commitment an individual has to different foci, with attention to the interactions among multiple commitments. The commitment patterns approach helps explain why, and predict when, commitment amid transience will be observed. Two final chapters discuss exploratory research of two features common to the organizations in which workers were studied: functional fun (the degree to which workers experience fun at work and fun in their work) and stock option plans.; The dissertation draws on data from a mixed-methods field research program. Data were collected over a thirty-month period, at privately held and publicly traded Information Technology (IT) organizations (n = 5) at different stages of growth. Quantitative data were collected through surveys (n = 123 participants), and qualitative data through focus groups (n = 80 participants), interviews (n = 26), and observation (t = 18.5 months).; The empirical findings and theoretical discussion challenge the assertion that commitment to organization is inversely related to transience. They further challenge several assertions about "knowledge workers," including the assertion that commitment to project and career are replacing commitment to organization. For knowledge nomads, these multiple commitments are concurrently strong. Organizational features that align these commitments are examined. These findings, that transience and organizational commitment can coexist, and that multiple commitments can be concurrently strong, are promising to those academics and practitioners who seek to understand and manage worker commitment in an increasingly transient U.S. workforce. |
