Commitment to employment and organisation: Finland in a European comparison

Abstract

Employment and organisational commitment are widely endorsed as goals for labour market policy and organisations. However, there are few comparative studies that examine how, in addition to individual characteristics, dimensions of national culture affect employment and organisational commitment. This article compares employment and organisational commitment among employees in Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Spain and Sweden. The main focus is on whether these commitments differ in Finland from those in four other European countries. Finland has seldom been included in this kind of comparative study. Individual-level data come from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), Work Orientation Module III, collected in 2005–2006. Employment commitment was the highest in Sweden, while organisational commitment was the highest among Germans. Finnish employees did not display particularly high levels of employment commitment: Finns were next to last in this category. Organisational commitment in Finland was on the same level as Spain and Sweden. In all five countries low subjective job insecurity among employees increased organisational commitment. Schwartz’s (2007) cultural dimensions accounted for a significant share of the variance in employment commitment. The data were analysed mainly by using standard multiple regression analysis and hierarchical multiple regression analysis.