Training Environments, Work Attitudes, and Turnover Intention.

A recent and extensive review of research concluded that worker age -- viewed both chronologically and in terms of career stage -- was a decisive determinant of work attitudes including turnover intention, i.e., intention to remain in an occupation or to leave it. This paper reports a study of work attitudes among 732 American, British, and Spanish students undergoing training as merchant marine engineering officers. All were of the same age and were at the same point in their careers. Wide differences were shown in terms of attitudes toward the occupation including turnover intention. The single most important variable was the national context in which training was taking place: The Americans exhibited the most negative work attitudes and the higher turnover intention; the Spanish had the most positive attitudes and the lowest turnover intention; the British tended to fall in the middle. Social class origin had some, though irregular, effects. The national differences are explained in terms of the training environments existing in the schools as well as structural features surrounding the merchant marine industry and the organization of training for the occupation in each country. Hence, though age may be a decisive element in work attitudes, this study suggests that the social organization within which age factors are located may determine the scope and forms of its effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]