Features of the organizational commitment of working students of a technical university
Authors:   St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Chernyakevich Elena Yu. 
Published: December 2022

Introduction. The relevance of the problem stated in the article is due to the fact that in today's dynamically developing socio-economic conditions, one of the competitive advantages of organizations is the presence of committed employees. Often, young people who are still studying at a university and have not received a profession can be employees. In this regard, the need to consider various aspects of the organizational commitment of working students is actualized, since there are not enough studies on this issue. The purpose of the empirical study was to study the commitment to the organization in which students of the architectural and civil engineering university work. Materials and methods. The study involved 127 people studying at the St. Petersburg University of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the university and working in various organizations. Of these, 59 people are full-time students, 68 people are students of the correspondence department, the average age was 21.6, the average length of service in the current job was 2 years. The study of the content of the personal meaning of the organization was carried out using a modified version of the technique of J. Sacks «Unfinished sentences». To determine the degree of actual commitment, a projective test-drawing "I am in the organization" was used. To measure the level of involvement in professional activities, the Utrecht scale of involvement by A. Bakker, W. Shaufeli was used. The level of affective commitment to the workplace was determined using the WACMQ (Workplace affective commitment multidimensional questionnaire) methodology Morin A. J. S. Results. The average level of indicators of involvement in professional activities was revealed: energy (M=21.2; SD=7), devotion (M=17.1; SD=7.1), absorption in activities (M=21.8; SD=7, one). Working students are more committed to a career (M=28.0; SD=7.1), and then to clients (M=25.1; SD=7.3). Reliably significant differences were found between full-time and part-time students: full-time students are more committed to colleagues, clients and careers (p ≤ 0.05–0.001). For students, the personal meaning of the organization is to receive positive emotions, in creativity, a pragmatic attitude towards the organization, is characterized by a career orientation, is ambivalent. 66% of students showed a high level of actual commitment, 21% of students show a low level, 13% show an average level of commitment to their organization. Correlation analysis revealed links between indicators of commitment to the organization: a pragmatic attitude towards the organization and the presence of career prospects increase the commitment of an employee to the organization (r=0.24; p≤0.01). With an increase in work experience, the commitment to the profession (r=0.20; p ≤ 0.05), the organization (r=0.22; p ≤ 0.05) increases and immersion in activities increases (r=0.27; p ≤ 0 .01). With increasing age, immersion in activities increases (r=0.27; p≤0.01) and commitment to the client decreases (r=-0.18; p≤0.05). Factor analysis showed the presence of signs of organizational commitment inherent in working students: devotion (0.76), actual commitment (0.79), energy (0.69). Conclusion. The results can be applied in organizations when developing measures aimed at forming, maintaining, increasing the organizational commitment of employees, when planning organizational changes, to attract young professionals to the organization, etc.