Employee retention strategies, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions

Abstract

The retention of employees is a particular challenge for organizations in developing economies and elsewhere. This thesis examines employee retention strategies, organizational commitment and turnover intentions. While focusing on Uganda, its results are considered to be more generally applicable to both developing and developed economies. Retention varies with context, and therefore requires a context relevant model with adaptive features for general application. The study enquired into: the main components of a general model for employee retention; the factors that explain turnover intention and how such factors are related to turnover intention; variation in turnover intentions; and the results of applying the model in Uganda. The study employed a systematic literature review, and exploratory sequential mixed-methods as supported by the pragmatic paradigm. A sample of 26 key informants was selected purposively for in-depth qualitative interviews, while 387 (64.5%) out of a survey sample of 600 employees selected using multi-stage cluster and systematic sampling across the public, the private, and the NGO sectors, responded. The results reveal some unique factors for the model of employee retention. Such factors include job entry and on-the job retention strategies, emotional and occupational job demands, emotional and occupational engagement, and moral, emotional and continuance commitment. It also confirms others such as, perceived organizational and supervisor support. On-the-job retention strategies, perceived organizational support, supervisor support, emotional job demands, emotional engagement, job satisfaction, moral and emotional commitment, are significantly correlated with and also predict turnover intentions. Job-entry strategies, skill discretion, co-worker support, employee expectations, occupational job demands, occupational engagement and continuance commitment; are all correlated to, but not associated with turnover intentions. Decision authority is positively and significantly associated with turnover intentions. The overall model explains 52% of the variation in turnover intentions. The thesis contributes to the development of the methodology of systematic literature reviews with regard to systematic literature search. It also provides a context adaptive model emphasizing the national, organizational and individual variables, for general application. It further contributes to the knowledge of employee retention, retention strategies, employee perceptions, job satisfaction, employee engagement and organizational commitment, from a developing country context. Trust and control are emphasized if decision-making is to have meaningful influence on turnover intentions, while the state of the person in terms of emotional feelings, and the nature of the work in terms of the occupation, are important for job demands and employee engagement. Further studies to validate the findings in other contexts, and time-lag studies to establish actual turnover are recommended.