Measures to limit the effect of the last recession have resulted in the rendering of the psychological contract (“Old Deal”) useless. Thus, it has given rise to a new contact “New Deal” as well as the introduction of the government initiative of Continuing Education and Training (CET) in Singapore. Yet, with the implementation of CET whose main intention is to facilitate upgrading of relevant skills to better serve of needs of market and their company (WDA, Mind Reskill, 2011), companies are facing the backlash of CET-high turnover.

As a possible solution, the author claims that by leveraging 3 key perspectives, companies are able to minimize high turnover, a consequence caused by CET.

There are 3 main theoretical perspectives mentioned in the report.
Firstly, Psychological Contract (PC). It was mentioned that the changing landscape for job hiring gave rise to some psychological incongruence. Encountering psychological incongruence is said to lead to a decrease in Organizational Commitment. In addition, with the CET, improvement of skill results in mobility and henceforth causes instability.
Secondly, Organizational Commitment (OC). In this report, it was mentioned that encounters of psychological incongruence, will led to a decrease in affective and normative commitment. Coupled with the implementation of CET, continuance commitment will too be affected, causing high turnover.
If the organization is viewed in a positive manner by the employees, then Organizational Identity (OI) is said to be positively related to OC. A positive OI will lead to increase citizenship behavior which will in-turn result in increased commitment. With psychological incongruence, self-identity within the organization is said to diminish which will result in a decrease in normative commitment.

Generally, the reliability of the articles seems high with a large percentage of supporting evidences in the form of Journals. Chartered psychologist such as (Arnold J), (Millward L J) are also quoted. In addition, the writer was seen to lend support to his statement with supporting evidence.However, the report remains questionable. Firstly, some of the authors such as (Pritchett, 1995) and (Schein, 1990) was found to be lacking of referencing.

Secondly, the statement on the positive relationship between commitment and individual self-worth. Although it is reasonable to assume that a positive relationship might exist, factors such as Individual Difference and Person-Organization fit will also be determinants of the effect. Linking this to Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, if a worker salary is only capable for satisfying his basic level of needs, the statement will not be applicable.

Thirdly, the writer’s mention of how violation of PC will affect OI. A search revealed limited supporting evidence. Quoting (Kreiner, 2002), “no significant correlation has been found”. There has however been supporting evidence for specific industry such as Bank and Alumni employment (Epitropaki, 2003) and (Kreiner & Ashforth, 2004). As such, it seems to depend on the context it is applied in.

Next, while studies by (Ng, Lam, & Feldman, 2010) supports his point of view that “violation of PC resulted in Affective Commitment being on the decline.” The lack of evidence raises doubts. In addition, studies by (Meyer & Herscovitch) & (Addae, Parboteeah, & Davis) indicates PC affecting only Normative Commitment and found no relationship existing respectively.

Lastly, although the writer’s statement that CET causes high turnover has a ring of truth to it, it need to back its inferential statement with concrete studies. This is so as, according to (WDA, The Measure of Competitveness, 2012), CET has shown to increase productivity and profit. Participation rate of CET has also seen an increment.

As for assumption, firstly, the writer uses studies done in different cultural dimension. Singapore’s culture might differ from the culture in which the research is done. Based on (Hofstede, 1983), there are 4 cultural dimensions to evaluate turnover intentions. In it, Singapore was more on being between individualism and collectivism. Comparatively, UK, Great Britain is among the top few on Individualism culture ( Dimensions of Culture).

Secondly, the writer also seems to assume all countries are equally affected by the euro crisis. Although Singapore economy was affected by the Euro crisis, its effect on Singapore was not that reaching. (MAS, 2012) .

Next, it seems to be assumed that there have been no changes to the business environment from the time the Journal/report/articles are published to the current year, with many citations in the 1990s.

Lastly, writer projects CET solely for employees. Referencing to the (MOM, 2011), CET was set up to aid all workers, including employers.
To conclude, though the article presents a relatively well formulated argument on backlash of CET, the writer should take note on the assumption he is making as well as the applicability of his supporting evidence. By generalizing culture as well as individuals across boundaries, the writer has lost some relevancy on his article. Below are some suggestion on how the writer can supplement his model. However, it is to note that applicability and ending result differ from organization to organization basing on their culture framework and type (public, non-profit etc).

One suggestion is Job Satisfaction. Based on a study (Randhawa, 2007) Job Satisfaction was found to have a significant negative correlation with turnover. A proper job design will facilitate a higher job satisfaction and decreasing leaving tendency. Several studies by Allen and Meyer (1996) also indicate a strong positive correlation between affective commitments and job satisfaction.
This link to Value Congruence. Employees that encounter a high fit with the organizational value will aid in increasing level of job satisfaction resulting in longer term commitment. As mentioned, result differ base on organization type. Eg, a positive relationship was shown for a public non-profit organization (Moynihan & Pandey, 2007).

Lastly, Individual Difference – personality. It is related to Organization Citizenship Behavior (OCB) which inturn affect commitment. Studies have proven that there is indeed a positive relationship between personality (excluding neuroticism) and citizenship behavior (Kumar, 2009) (Elanain, 2007). Out of the 4, Openness to experience, have shown to have a greatest impact on OCB while Extraversion was shown to be highly related to OI.