Abstract: With the statistical results of 793 valid questionnaires conducted among the employees from various trades and work categories in more than 40 cities of China’s 10 provinces, this paper performs an empirical study of the different dimensions and the general influence of the structure of organizational commitment and the demographic variables on organizational commitment. The results indicate that the affective commitment is the best predictor of the three kinds of organizational commitment, that the level of normative commitment of Chinese employees is the highest among the three kinds of commitments, and that such demographic variables as age, education, the type and size of the organization, as well as the type of employees have different influence on the different layers and the main body of organizational commitment. Finally, based on such results, it proposes such countermeasures as laying emphasize on affections, caring about elderly employees, managing employees’ career and improving the organizational systems and cultures and so on.

Key words: demographic variables; organizational commitment; affective commitment; normative commitment; continuance commitment