Continuance Commitment
Continuance Commitment is the “need” component or the gains verses losses of working in an organization. “Side bets,” or investments, are the gains and losses that may occur should an individual stay or leave an organization. An individual may commit to the organization because he/she perceives a high cost of losing organizational membership (cf. Becker's 1960 "side bet theory" [4] Things like economic costs (such as pension accruals) and social costs (friendship ties with co-workers) would be costs of losing organizational membership. But an individual doesn’t see the positive costs as enough to stay with an organization they must also take into account the availability of alternatives (such as another organization), disrupt personal relationships, and other “side bets” that would be incurred from leaving their organization. The problem with this is that these “side bets” don’t occur at once but that they “accumulate with age and tenure”.[1]