A closer look at the relationship between affective commitment to supervisors and organizations and turnover

We examined the relationships of affective organizational commitment and affective commitment to supervisors with turnover intentions and actual turnover, using three independent samples of employees. In Sample 1 (N = 172) and Sample 2 (N = 186), affective organizational commitment and affective commitment to supervisors were found to exert independent negative effects on turnover intentions. Moreover, in both samples, affective commitment to supervisors was more strongly related to turnover intentions when affective organizational commitment was low. In Sample 3 (N = 431), affective commitment to supervisors was the single significant predictor of actual turnover and interacted with affective organizational commitment such that its effect was stronger when affective organizational commitment was low. The implications of these findings for the understanding of the commitment-turnover relationship are discussed.