Does Employee Age Moderate the Association Between HR Practices and Organizational Commitment? An Application of SOC Theory to Organizational Behavior

Abstract

Drawing hypotheses from Selective Optimization with Compensation theory (SOC), we explored the degree to which employee age moderates the relationship between employees’ satisfaction with high-commitment human resource practices (HCHRPs; e.g., providing training, work–life balance) and organizational commitment. Customer-facing employees (N = 6,360) from an international transportation company completed the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) and rated their satisfaction with various HCHRPs offered by their organization. Results show that although there was a strong overall correlation between organizational commitment and satisfaction with various HCHRPs (r = .66), employee age was a significant moderator of only the relationships between organizational commitment and maintenance-related HCHRPs (e.g., work–life balance) and not of development-related HCHRPs (e.g., training opportunities). Furthermore, moderation effects had small effect sizes, suggesting that employee age is not a characteristic organizations need to consider when making strategic decisions about HCHRPs.

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