Although a lot of researchers have explored organizational commitment, only a few researchers have focused on its continuance component. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature of continuance commitment to organizations. We examined the congruence between the theoretical antecedents and the empirical ones, and then, between theoretical outcomes and empirical ones, where we found some incongruence. Theoretically, continuance commitment is assumed to predict turnover, but it doesn’t empirically. We also found that the literature is lacking in consideration of individual differences, although both of Becker’s and Meyer & Allen’s theories hypothesized that they would influence continuance commitment considerably. Future direction that the literature should go on was discussed.

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Preferences for different types of occupation among freshmen and sophomores of liberal arts courses were investigated. In Study 1, a scale was constructed to measure preferences for different types of occupations and the degree of each preference. Data collected from 327 Japanese students were analyzed. A scale was constructed consisting of five subscales to measure preferences for occupations characterized by learning and the development of knowledge and skills, autonomy, cooperation with coworkers, altruism, and qualifications. Scores on these subscales revealed high preferences for altruism and low preferences for autonomy. Study 2 compared preferences among students divided into three samples by the level of difficulty of entering their university and the nationality of their university. Data were collected from 196 Japanese students from universities with low entrance difficulty, 105 Japanese students from a university with high entrance difficulty, and 112 Chinese students from a university with high entrance difficulty. Not only the nationality of the university but also difficulty of entering could have a relationship with preference for various types of occupations, and preferences for occupations characterized by altruism and by qualifications could adequately discriminate between the three samples.

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As the society is becoming more global and complex, the demand for higher education to prepare students with competencies to participate in the fast-changing world community is becoming higher. Due to this trend, today’s students are provided with hands-on, collaborative and engaging educational practices and opportunities on and off campus. However, although a holistic view of college education has long been advocated by especially student affairs professionals, integration of academic learning from curriculum and identity development from extra-curriculum still seems to be a major issue. This study focuses on “Constructive Developmental Theory” which is a conceptualization of how human beings make meaning of themselves. The study reviews how the theory has been utilized in the field of student development, and examines the relationship between developing internal sense of self and leadership development in order to obtain suggestions for an effective methodology for student development in Japanese higher education.

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