The influence of organisational commitment and organisational identification on turnover intentions: integrating social exchange theory and social identity theory
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2019-07-01
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en
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Abstract
The retention of employees has been recognized as a key concern for organisations nowadays. But there is still no complete consensus among scholars about what influences an individual’s intention to leave. The goal of this study is to gain insight into how organisational commitment and organisational identification influence turnover intentions, respectively through social exchange theory and social identity theory. This research takes a different approach relative to previous scholars by conceptually integrating insights from both the social exchange framework and the social identity framework at an equivalent level in which commitment and identification are seen as two different types of workplace attachment.
Data was collected on behalf of the international research project ‘Commitment in Global Context: measurement equivalence study’. Multiple regression analysis was used to test three hypotheses. The results revealed a negative relationship between organisational identification and turnover intentions as well as a negative relationship between organisational commitment and turnover intentions, both were in line with the expectations. No confirmation was however found for an interaction effect between organisational commitment and organisational identification.
Moreover, this thesis found evidence that the conceptual integration of insights from social exchange theory and social identity theory actually provides more insight into intentions to leave, than when they would have been studied in isolation. Social exchange theory and social identity theory are therefore complementary in explaining turnover intentions. By investigating these relationships this study contributes to literature on turnover intentions, the commitment field and the identification field.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen