Women as Breadwinners: The Gendered Nature of Side-Bets and Their Influence on Correctional Officers' Commitment to the Organization

• NCJ Number: 219504
• Journal: Women & Criminal Justice Volume: 17 Issue: 1 Dated: 2005 Pages: 1-25
• Author(s): Marie L. Griffin
• Date Published: 2005
• Length: 25 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Utilizing the concept of side-bets, this study examined the gendered nature of outside influences on correctional officers’ commitment to remain with the prison organization until retirement.

Abstract

Findings suggest that the competing responsibilities of work and domestic life may have differential effects on male and female correctional officers’ commitment to the organization. Future research should continue to examine the intersection of work and domestic commitment, as well as other probable side-bets that might influence an officer’s continuance commitment. The process by which an individual becomes committed to the organization is a particularly important issue for correctional management, one that has been left relatively unexamined. Few studies have explored explicit gender differences among correctional officers in their attachment to the organization. Becker’s 1960 theory of side-bets as a form of organizational commitment is a valuable theoretical framework to explore the way in which outside considerations influence the processes by which the individual attaches him/herself to the organization. The side-bets theory provides “the theoretical tools for assimilating the commonsense notion that people often follow lines of activity for reasons quite extraneous to the activity itself." The theory suggests that as an employee accumulates significant investments with an organization the number of side-bets increases and so does the level of an employee’s commitment to the organization. This study focused on line officers working in a prison organization and examined the influence of four types of side-bets on male and female officers’ expressed continuance commitment, operationalized here as the officer’s intent to continue with the organization until retirement. Five hundred and forty-six questionnaires were completed by officers employed by the Arizona Department of Corrections. Tables, references