Journal of Applied Psychology 1984, Vol 69. No 3, 372-378 Copyright 1984 by the American Psychological Association, Inc Testing the "Side-Bet Theory" of Organizational Commitment: Some Methodological Considerations John P. Meyer and Natalie J. Allen The University of Western Ontario According to the side-bet theory of organizational commitment, commitment (re- ferred to here as continuance commitment) increases with the accumulation of side bets or investments. Two studies were conducted to demonstrate that both the instruments used to measure commitment (viz , Ritzer-Tnce, R-T, and Hrebimak- Alutto, H-A, scales) and the side-bet indexes (viz., age and tenure) used in previous tests of this theory are inappropriate for that purpose In Study 1 subjects read scenarios in which an employee was described as being high or low in continuance commitment and high or low m affective commitment (i.e., emotional attachment) and responded to several commitment instruments as they felt the employee would respond. As expected, the continuance commitment manipulation accounted for a relatively small portion of the variance in the R-T and H-A scale scores, whereas the affective commitment manipulation accounted for a substantially larger portion The continuance manipulation did, however, account for large a portion of the variance in scores on an author-developed continuance commitment scale (CCS). In Study 2, 130 employees from several administrative departments of a large university completed the same commitment instruments. As predicted, the R-T and H-A scales correlated significantly with measures of affective commitment but not with the CCS. Also as predicted, age and tenure correlated with the R-T and H-A scales and with the affective commitment measures but not with the CCS. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for future investigation of the side-bet theory. Considerable attention has been given to examining the relationships between employee commitment to the organization and several organizational and employee characteristics In this research, commitment has been con- ceptualized in a variety of ways (see Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982). One of the views of commitment that has been the focus of a number of studies is Becker's (1960) side-bet theory. Several of these studies have been in- terpreted as providing some support for the theory (Alutto, Hrebiniak, & Alonso, 1973; Hrebiniak, 1974; Hrebiniak & Alutto, 1972; Shoemaker, Snizek, & Bryant, 1977; Stevens, Beyer, & Trice, 1978). Others have been less supportive or have provided contradictory ev- idence (Aranya & Jacobson, 1975; Ritzer & Trice, 1969). Because of certain methodolog- This research was supported by a grant from Imperial Oil Limited to the first author Requests for reprints should be sent to John P Meyer, Department of Psychology, The University of Western On- tario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C2 ical problems, however, it is questionable whether these studies can in fact be considered adequate tests of the theory. In this article, an alternative interpretation of thefindingsis of- fered and the results of two studies designed to test the competing interpretations are re- ported. Becker (1960) described commitment, in general, as a disposition to engage in "consis- tent lines of activity" (p. 33) as a result of the accumulation of "side bets" 1 that would be lost if the activity were discontinued. When used to explain commitment to the organi- zation, the consistent line of activity refers to maintaining membership (i.e., employment) in the organization. The term side bet has been 1 An individual is considered to have made a side bet when his or her "decision with regard to some particular line of action has consequences for other interests or ac- tivities not necessarily related to it" (p. 35). Becker uses the example of the man who bets a friend that he will not pay more than his first offer for a house To pay more, then, would result in a substantial loss, the possibility of which commits him to his initial bid 372