Toward a Further Clarification of Becker's Side-Bet Hypothesis as Applied to Organizational Commitment.

he article presents organizational and occupational commitment , obtained from 120 park and forest rangers working in state and federal organizations in Virginia. Findings yield partial support for Howard Becker's original side-bet hypothesis, especially with respect to organizational commitment. Stronger support, however, is found for an alternative social psychological explanation of commitment. Since neither explanation of organizational or occupational commitment is totally supported by the data, future research should take into account the various fields and levels of those surveyed. The research reported here sheds additional light on the divergent findings of these two studies: research investigates the relationships between various social and demographic variables pertinent to Becker's theory of the side-bet and organizational and occupational commitment. Preliminary analysis indicated a statistically significant difference in organizational and occupational commitment between federal and state rangers. Consequently, the data are analyzed separately for federal and state rangers. Among federal rangers there are significant positive correlations between organizational commitment and age and length of service. Among state rangers there are significant positive correlations with education and number of locations assigned.