Determinants of employees ’ turnover intention : A case study of the Islamia University of Bahawalpur

Organizational commitment along with other determinants of turnover intention plays a pivotal role in retaining the employees. Job performance and job satisfaction serve as antecedents of turnover intention of employees. The objective of this study is to identify the association between organizational commitment and turnover intention among employees of the Islamia University of Bahawalpur. Effects of job performance on turnover intention through job satisfaction are also brought under observation. Impact of job insecurity and employees work family conflict on job engagement is brought under consideration. Descriptive design is used to support the study of proposed relationships. Selfexplanatory questionnaires are administered to 250 respondents both from the academic and administrative staff of the university. Analyses supported the relationships tentatively delineated before proceeding toward examination of the study. Organizational commitment, job performance and job satisfaction are found to be inversely related to turnover intention. An inverse relation is found between job insecurity, work family conflict and the job engagement. According to the results of this study an environment conducive to job performance and organizational commitment must be developed besides attempting to reduce employees’ feelings of job insecurity and work family conflict to avoid brain-drain and to retain valuable individuals so that proportion of turnover may be decreased. This was the very first study carried out in the history of the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, which will encourage future researchers to further augment the scope of this research.


INTRODUCTION
The underlying objective of this academic treatise is to investigate and examine the relationship between organizational commitment and the employee's turnover intention.Inarguably, challenges posed by employees' turnover have assumed unprecedented proportions owing to the integration of world economic arena and resultantly escalating competition across the globe for better opportunities in commensuration with the capabilities and qualifications of the individuals.Human capital of an organization constitutes a non-substitutable competitive advantage, which may not be imitated by competitors thereby providing the organization with a supremacy over *Corresponding author.E-mail: mashal_wattoo@yahoo.co.inAuthor(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License others.There are two dimensions of turnover; positive and negative.Major negative cost associated with turnover falls within the purview of hiring, recruiting, training and developing new employees to take place of the employees voluntarily quitting the organization (Staw, 1980;Huselid, 1995).
In case the turnover rises high, the function of recruitment and selection gains significance, which ultimately warrants beefing up administrative intensity.New employee may need a reasonable time spanning even months to become familiar with new working environment before becoming able to perform at the productivity level of his/her predecessor.Besides, interdependence of roles within the organization also hampers the ability of remaining co-workers to cope up their assignments effectively and efficiently due to the gap occurred between activities.Dess and Shaw (2001) propose a negative relationship between voluntary turnover and productivity on the premises of human capital theory.Riley (2006) determines that social dynamics and effective communication systems are essential components to attain performance at appropriate levels by the working teams.Therefore, turnover negatively affects the functioning of organization through loss of team integration and cohesion, may give rise to a decline in morale and increase conflicts within the group and cause breakdown of interactions with stakeholders.Riley estimates the turnover cost as one and a half times the employee's salary.Dess and Shaw's (2001) assessment in terms of the cost and benefit analysis states that organization can also reap some benefits in the shape of reduction in payroll, voluntary detachment of poor performers and improvements in innovations.
In this research endeavor, researchers have tried to find out the turnover reasons with a special emphasis on the Islamia University of Bahawalpur (IUB).Since 1975, this university has been ministering to the educational needs of masses in South Punjab as a committed and quality-oriented institution.It has a long historical background spanning over 38 years.Previously, no research has ever been conducted on the subject tissue in this institution and, therefore, the reasons for turnover remain a mystery here.

Organizational commitment
Employees commitment may be referred to as psychological state where the employee shares, advocates and adheres to the values and objectives of the organization.Degree of commitment is contingent upon the quantum of convergence between the employee's values and objectives and those of the organization.Putting it simply, it is the sentimental attachment of an individual to the organization.Backeri et al. gave a three dimensional definition of organizational commitment as follows:' 1.A strong desire to own membership of organization 2. A willingness to raise levels of efforts for the organization 3. A belief in and acceptance of values and goals of the organization.
Commitment reflects an employee's loyalty to the organization, and a continuous phenomenon where in organization's member remain concerned for the organization's success and ultimate well-being (North craft and Neale, 1996).
Employees commitment constitutes a key variable to research actual turnover or turnover intention (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990;Tett and Meyer, 1993).It is the relative degree to which an employee associates identification with and feels involved in an organization (Mowday et al., 1979:226).Available literature confirms that more the organizational commitment a person possesses, least will be the propensity to leave.According to Abdullah and Ramay (2012) experienced employees expressed more degree of commitment and employees with less experience are less committed with organization.Attachment to the organization is important among behavioral elements; it may influence effectiveness and performance (Hamdi and Rajablu, 2012).

Turnover intention
Turnover intention is an inclination among employees to quit their organization.Intention to withdraw has been found to be a predictor of actual turnover among employees (Harrison et al., 2006).As defined by the scholars, turnover intention is an individual's probability estimated by themselves that they are going to leave the organization permanently in near future (Liu and Low, 2011).In reality, turnover intention is the direct predictor of turnover behaviour and shows a combination of attitudes related to withdrawal (Farkas and Tetrick, 1989).
According to Fishbein (1967) our affective reactions to the job can lead to intention that governs behaviour.As per the review conducted by Sussman and Cogswell (1971:485), there is a direct association between the supply and the demand mechanism put in place for workforce in any vocational system and the consideration of factors other than economic in movement of job.Another study by Mobley et al. (1978) suggested that decline in job satisfaction leads to an intention to stay or to quit.Furthermore, a variety of studies established a strong inverse relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intentions (Mannheim et al., 1997;Abraham, 1999).With an increase in level of satisfaction, turnover intentions drop significantly (Abraham, 1999).Our studies proposed that job satisfaction impacts organizational outcomes like turnover intentions (Shore and Martin, 1989), turnover (Brown, 1993;Mathieu and Zajac, 1990).
H 1 : There is significant relationship between organizational commitment and turnover intention.

Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction has been defined by different authors in different ways and some from these have been obtained from the book by D.M Pestonjee "Motivation and Job Satisfaction" which are: 1. Job Satisfaction may be referred to as a pleasurable and emotional state which is the result of assessment of one's job.It is an effective reason for one's job (Weiss).2. It is the general attitude emanating from individual characteristics, factors specifically connected with job, and relationship among group outside the horizon of job (Blum and Naylor).3. Result of various attitudes held by a person in connection with the job, associated factors and general life (Glimmer).
Research finds that job satisfaction may emanate from different sources, which may include autonomy given to employees, quality of supervision and social networking, and support available in work place.Meyer and Allen (1997) suggest that the most variables bearing upon job satisfaction may be experiences at workplace, socialization, management practices currently in vogue, personal characteristics of employees, and environmental conditions.Among these variables experience at workplace, psychological contracts, role states take the lead and affect, norm and cost related judgments follow.In the fitness industry job satisfaction has strong negative association with intention to leave the organization (Maclntosh and Doherty, 2010).According to Aydogdu and Asikgil (2011), Mahdi et al. (2012) and Yucel (2012), job satisfaction has a strong positive association with organizational commitment and negative association with turnover intention.
H 2 : There is a relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention.

Job performance
Performing and doing work successfully; use of knowledge as differentiated from just possessing it; a performance consists of an event where one group of people behaves in particular way from another one (Ilham, 2009).Job performance comprises the noticeable behaviors of people in jobs that are relevant to the organizational goals (Campbell et al., 1990).Behaviors are more important than outcomes (Murphy, 1989), since thrust on outcomes could lure employee to search easy most way of achieving the desired results, which may be prejudicial to the organization because other behaviors will be excluded.According to (Lee and Mitchell, 1994), employees may be responsive to shocks at workplace that lead them to think of leaving jobs.As per expectancy theory (Vroom, 1964), negative performance appraisals may raise signal to employees that they may not receive desirable outcomes from the organization i.e. pay increments or promotions or they are likely to be fired.These undesirable consequences may cause them to ponder whether to leave rather than encounter displeasing and psychologically catastrophic circumstances.This state may yield a direct effect on turnover intentions and/or actual turnover afterwards.
H 3 : There is a relationship between job performance and job satisfaction.

Work Family Conflict (WFC)
Work-family can be branded as a connection between the work and personal spheres of an employee" (McCarthy).It brackets any activity that can impact work (or personal life) as a consequence of engagement in activities associated with the other side.Different authors defined WFC as follows: 1. Inter role conflict featured by the mutually incompatible role pressures from the domains of work and family.Simultaneous pressures exerted by both the work and family roles, which are mutually incompatible, produce it (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985;Kahn, 1990).2. It occurs when job interferes with family life and when family interferes with career and one's ability to get along at work (Duxbury).3. Inter-role conflict when demands and requirements of one role compete with demands and requirements of other role.Amount of time, level of energy and degree of commitment required by work domain may hinder people from satisfying needs of their family and life (Carslon et al., 2000).
Work-family conflict arises when experiences in one role compete with fulfilling the demands and achievement of effectiveness in another role (Edwards and Rothbard, 2000;Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985), vital part of workfamily conflict is inter-role interference, and it can also be read as work-family interference (Greenhaus et al., 2006).

Job engagement
Personal engagement is the process of harnessing oneself during work roles and, during role performances, people ensure employing and expressing them physically, cognitively, and emotionally.A positive and gratifying work-related state of mind characterized by commitment, absorption, and vigor (Schaufeli et al., 2002, p. 74).
Dedication denotes obtaining a sense of significance from the work performance, and feeling inspired, proud, and enthusiastic.Absorption is to be happily engrossed in one's work.Vigor is demonstrated by high energy levels and mental resilience at workplace.It calls for remaining steadfast when challenges arise and willingness to invest effort in one's work.Haudan and MacLean (2002) depict engagement as a sustained connection and unshared focus, where time seems unimportant and the heart and soul of employee are engaged.
Engagement exudes a positive experience (Schaufeli et al., 2002) and bears positive outcomes for the organization since it is a usual belief that business results and employee engagement are tied together in a relationship (Harter et al., 2002).Hence, this concept pertains to well-being of employees and their behaviors at workplace and is of interest to the organization as it serves as an important predictor of employees' intention to quit (Saks, 2006).
H 4 : There is a relationship between employee work-family conflict and job engagement.H 5 : There is a relationship between job engagement and turnover intention.

Job insecurity
Job insecurity refers to the concern regarding the future of one's job (Hartley et al., 1991).It consists of two factors viz realization of threats to security of job and the concern about these threats (Wyk, 2007).Job insecurity is a state of mind where employees cannot make sure that their jobs will remain intact.Predicative upon the discipline and political inclination of writers, job insecurity can be cited in varying ways.For example, "boundary less careers", "flexibility", "new employer-employee contracts", and "organizational restructuring" can oftentimes be used as genteelism and inoffensive expressions for the dislodging workplace protections for guaranteed job (Pollert, 1988;Sweet et al., Forthcoming) Holm and Hovland (1999) notice that job insecurity causes an increase in turnover rate among employees.Quitting the organization in a quest for more secure job opportunities is found to be a common factor among employees feeling insecure in connection with their jobs (Ashford et al., 1989).Job insecurity in all probability influences turnover through a reduced engagement on behalf of employees (Mauno et al., 2001).On the basis of above review, it is comprehended that enhanced job insecurity gives rise to a reduction in the levels of work engagement (Figure 1).H 6 : There is relationship between job insecurity and job engagement.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This research made use of a descriptive design with the objective of supporting the study of above-mentioned hypotheses.The instrument used for survey involved a combination of questionnaire for each of the areas of interest viz.organizational commitment, job insecurity, family-work conflict, job engagement, job performance, job satisfaction, turnover intention along-with demographic variables.Self-explanatory questionnaires were administered to the respondents from the Islamia University of Bahawalpur.A convenient sample of 250 employees both from the academic and administrative cadres is selected at appropriate levels, out of which only 180 respondents returned the instruments after properly filling in thereby constituting 72% response rate.A wide spectrum of the academic departments and administrative offices are brought under the umbrella and special emphasis is laid on ensuring quality of the response besides maintaining the minimum requisite quantum.Researchers of this academic treatise themselves collected the data in order to make certain the error-free and precise response from the participants.Another reason for self-administration is to impart explanation to the respondents wherever it is required to remove the ambiguity and chances of misunderstanding.

Instruments and m easur es
A self-administered survey instrument is employed in order to gather data from the respondents.The questionnaire contained two parts; one is relevant to the biographical information about of the survey participants and the second comprised the following scales to collect responses accordingly:

Data analysis techniques
The data were examined carefully and methodically; broken down for consideration of constituent parts through the agency of SPPS 20.0 program.A code was devised for each variable to input data.Five items on the organizational commitment, five on the job insecurity, ten on family-work conflict, seven on job engagement, three on job performance, five on job satisfaction, four on turnover intention.Five Likert Scale was utilized to measure and analyze the results of the study (Table 1).

Reliability analysis
For the internal consistency of scales, Cronbach's coefficient alpha was used.If the coefficient value is greater than 0.6, the scale is reliable (Hair et al., 1998) (Table 2).

Profile of respondents
Before proceeding to the have a look at the results obtained from the hypotheses testing, it is worthwhile to know the statistics in connection with the biographical facts and particulars of the respondents given vide infra.Attempt was made to keep a plausible mix of respondents in all respects of the characteristics of survey participants   1992) in commensuration numerical strength of employees falling within a particular category (Table 3).

Hypotheses testing
Results had from the testing of above-stated hypotheses are given below in their respective order as above.
Regression analysis was carried out to ascertain the existence of relationship between organizational commitment and turnover intention.

Organizational commitment and turnover intention
Analysis showed that there is an inverse relationship between the former and the latter.β=-.311 it tells that 1 percent change in organizational commitment leads to 31 percent negative change in turnover intention and the significance value arrived at 0.000.

Job satisfaction and turnover intention
Results demonstrated a significant relationship between these two variables where β equaled -0.372 which means 1 percent change in job satisfaction leads to 37 percent negative change in turnover intention and the significance value arrived at 0.000

Job performance and job satisfaction
When regression was conducted on the above referred variables, β value was 0.392 which means 1 percent change in job performance leads to 39 percent change in job satisfaction whereas the significance value was 0.000.

Employee Work-Family Conflict (WFC) and Job engagement
Research results depicted an inverse relationship between WFC and job engagement giving measurement of β at -0.246 which tells 1 percent change in WFC leads to 24 percent negative change in job engagement whereas the significance value was 0.002.

Job engagement and turnover intention
The hypothesis linking these two variables was not proved and therefore rejected by the results.

Job insecurity and job engagement
The hypothesis was proved by the analysis and showed significance value=0.034and β =-.165 it tells 1 percent change in job insecurity brings 16 percent negative change in job engagement.

DISCUSSION
The prime and principal purpose of this academic exercise was to investigate the likely turnover intention to be found among the employees of the Islamia University of Bahawalpur.The research brought both the teaching and non-teaching staff of the university under discussion.
When regression analyses were conducted, it came to fore that the employees of IUB strongly feel to be identified with this university and attach sentiments to this institution and there is very imperceptible likelihood of turnover among employees.Although, job insecurity statistically significantly related turnover intention, research May et al. (2004) has shown that the behaviors of the leaders can have a negative impact on the psychological safety of employees.However, job insecurity did not affect either the engagement of turnover intention of employees.Bosman et al. (2005) focused on government employees which is associated with these findings.
Employee's family-work conflict was negatively related to job engagement.When the employees experience WFC, their engagement to job was reduced.Our findings suggest that WFC is associated with engagement at work.It is added that the hypothesis proposing a relationship between engagement and turnover did not show significance and thereby was rejected.The result that shows the relationship between performance and job satisfaction proves to be significant that means increase in one variable tends to increase other variable.This relationship is positive while the relationship between jab satisfaction and turnover intention proves to be negatively significant as much the job satisfaction increases, the turnover intention decreases.

Limitations
It is worth mentioning that this research encountered a variety of limitations.Starting with the sampling, the size of the sample was small which is likely to give rise to real concerns about biasness.Responses may have certain biases on account of a number of factors.There may have been chances of misinterpretation of actual attitudes, preferences for selective responses and the respondents may have the tendency to give socially guided responses.This could have decreased the reliability and/or the validity of the data collected for analyses.Secondly, convenience sampling was done to complete this research, which is a predicament in the way of generalizing the results of this study.Besides, the research was conducted to study the turnover behavior of the employees exclusively serving IUB so its results cannot be generalized and applied to the employees serving some other university or degree awarding institution(s).Thirdly, the contingent staff (working on daily wages as per the requirement of their services from time to time) and the ones working on contract were included in a small number.Their responses under job insecurity, job engagement, and turnover intention might have been different and if they were included in reasonable number the results could have been somewhat different.Fourthly, the economic, law and security conditions prevailing throughout the nook and corner of the country were not taken into consideration and given no weight.The people may have somewhat intention to switch over but they attach more value to the job security at the moment because of the crumbling economy, deteriorating employment opportunities and uncertainty prevailing in the country.The results could have been slightly different if the research were conducted during the time of economic prosperity and boom.Last but not the least, the time constraints escalate into significance particularly in the context of this research since this study was conducted in a short time.Data could not be collected on turnover actually took place in the university that may call for envisaging a period consisting of 6 months.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Apart from the shortcomings referred to above, there are certain other important factors, which were lost sight of and could not be bracketed in this study either due to some compelling reasons or time constraint.Future research should be navigated towards exploring other moderating variables on turnover intention.Some other dimensions like organizational level and gender may be added to further expand the scope and horizon of research.Affective commitment can be an important forecaster of turnover intention at the lower levels of an organization whereas the participation in decision making escalates into importance as one scales up the ladder of hierarchy in the particular organization (Alkinyele and Taiwo, 2007).Gender differences can also be investigated as predictor of turnover intention although there may be no significant difference in their levels of education, work experience, and skills.
There are also two fully functional sub campuses of IUB one each at districts Bahawalnagar and Rahim Yar Khan lying within the academic and territorial jurisdiction of IUB where a large number of employees both teaching and non-teaching are working.They may also have some concerns or probably some different issues which could not be recorded due to the long-haul distance given the availability of time.Their views may also merit consideration and worth including in the research.In future a consolidated and comprehensive research should be carried out to explain the collective behavior of this organization's employees from the perspective of their particular job and its closely related issues.
Other factors for further exploration include personality of the employees and their perception of organizational justice and equity since these tend fair to dig out the hidden sentiments of the respondents.Hassan (2002) confirmed through his research that justice and equity are purposeful precursors of organizational commitment and turnover intention.In order to generalize the findings of this study, respondents from some other universities and degree awarding institutions may be contacted and data obtained from them.Endeavors are needed to find a set of measurement instruments that generates true reflection of and best represents employees of IUB.Further, relationship between job engagement and turnover intention could not be established for some reasons not known to the researches at the time around which warrants making some concerted efforts to institute some focused investigation to identify the gap between engagement and turnover and to discover why results were silent on this link.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Conceptual model showing the relationship between determinants and turnover intention.

Table 1 .
Source of items.

Table 2 .
Reliability analysis of all variables.

Table 3 .
Profile of respondents.