Since the financial crisis of the late 1990s, Korean companies have, in many cases, been forced to downsize or restructure their workforces. As a result, many employees have left voluntarily or been made redundant. Across all industries, staff turnove...
Since the financial crisis of the late 1990s, Korean companies have, in many cases, been forced to downsize or restructure their workforces. As a result, many employees have left voluntarily or been made redundant. Across all industries, staff turnover has increased dramatically, with lifelong employment rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
However, despite the well documented economic woes of the recent past, a critical element of a company’s competitiveness remains its ability to attract and retain world class manpower. In turn, this is why companies need to pay particular attention to the reasons why people choose to stay with an organization and why they leave.
Much of the traditional research on employee retention has focused on job-related attitudes - like job satisfaction and organizational commitment - and other factors, such as perceived alternatives and job search behavior.
However, the main focus going forward - in terms of employee retention - should be the relatively new concept of “job embeddedness”. Job embeddedness is conceived as a key construct between on-the-job and off-the-job factors and is defined in the following terms:
· Fit - How well the person fits with their work, workplace and community.
· Links - The richness of personal relationships with co-workers, friendships and the degree by which others depend on them.
· Sacrifice - The things that an employee would need to give up if they left the company. Things such as a good benefits plan and respect of management require sacrifice on the part of an employee considering leaving.
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between job embeddedness and turnover intention - i.e. the potential or actual intent in an employee’s mind to leave an organization. The specific objectives of the study are as follows:
· To test the relationship between job embeddedness and the fit, link and sacrifice of an organization.
· To test the relationship between job embeddedness and the fit, link and sacrifice of an community.
· To test how to differentiate, according to gender, the relationship between job embeddedness and the fit, link and sacrifice of an organization.
· To test how to differentiate, according to gender, the relationship between job embeddedness and the fit, link and sacrifice of the community.
From 300 questionnaires distributed to employees who were working in corporations in Korea, 253 were returned. A total of 15 questionnaires were excluded due to missing information and over-centralized answering patterns. As a result, 238 questionnaires were used in analysis.
Collected data was analyzed with SPSS 12.0 for Windows. The statistical techniques used in the study were reliability test, factor analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, partial-correlation analysis. The findings of the research can be summarized in the following key points:
· Job embeddedness on the organization had a negative effect on turnover intention. To be concrete, an individuals’ fit to the organization and organization-related sacrifice had significantly negative effects on turnover intention but the organization-related link didn’t have any effect on turnover intention.
· Job embeddedness on the community didn’t have any effect on turnover intention.
· There is no difference, according to gender, in the relationship between job embeddedness and the fit, link and sacrifice of the organization and turnover intention.
Regardless of gender, only the fit and sacrifice to the organization had any negative effect on turnover intention. The fit to the organization had more negative effects on turnover intention than the link to the organization for both genders.
· Job embeddedness on the fit, link, sacrifice of the community had no effect on the turnover intention of either gender. In conclusion, regardless of gender, job embeddedness has no effect on the fit, link and sacrifice of the community and turnover intention.