Planning and projecting critical human resource needs: the relationship between hope, optimism, organizational commitment, and turnover intention among U.S. Army reserve soldiers

The U.S. Army Reserve struggles with retention and faces difficulties with soldier turnover. The intent of the study was to assess key psychological variables such as optimism and hope to establish how those traits might impact soldiers' level of organizational commitment and turnover intention in the Army. The sample consisted of 124 U.S. soldiers selected from an Army Reserve unit in Houston, TX. The results of the study indicate that hope and optimism correlate with affective commitment but not with continuance commitment. In addition, higher hope, optimism, affective commitment, and continuance commitment all resulted in correlations with lower turnover intention. Affective commitment and turnover intention possessed the strongest relationship. Significant levels of hope and optimism with affective commitment supports the idea that soldiers who are emotionally attached to the organization will most likely stay. Results of this study could provide Army Human Resource Command a basis for a strategy to retain key personnel.