Paper no.

02
Managing Employee Retention: The Role of Organizational Culture
and Attitudes of Supervisor on Turnover Intensions.
A Case of Pakistan.
ASHIQUE ALI
Ashique.Ali@brunel.ac.uk

Abstract:

The debate of employee turnover, its predictors and antecedents and model building
and testing in Western work settings has been very old, however, there have been
repeated calls for its cross cultural implications. Developing countries especially
Pakistan with its unique socio-economic and religious culture face dearth of research
studies on the subject. Present study aims to extend the understanding of specific role
of organizational cultural values and the attitudes of supervisor/immediate boss on
employee turnover and retention. Further, the proposed study will also assess the
moderating role of individual differences, specifically, personality dimensions on
employees intentions to stay or quit. This study uses descriptive quantitative
approach to answer the research questions. Study proposes that positive and
implemented HR practices, conducive organizational culture and friendly attitudes of
supervisor separately and collectively leave strong impact on personality dimensions
of individual at workplace. Such positive and integrated organizational climate
directly generates overall satisfaction, organizational commitment and OCB which
virtually forces employees stay in the organization and vice versa.

Statement of problem:

The issue of employee turnover has roots deep in the history, Cotton and Tuttle (1986)
witness that since early 1900s a large number of qualitative and quantitative studies
have been published on the subject.

Investigations including: March and Simon (1958); Pettman (1973); Porter and Steers
(1973); Price (1977); Mobley, Griffeth, Hand and Meglino (1979); Muchinsky and
Tuttle (1979); Muchinsky and Murrow (1980); Price and Mueller (1981); Bludorn
(1982a); Mobley (1982); Dalton and Tador (1982); Baysinger and Mobley (1983);
Sheridan (1985); McEvoy and Casio (1987); Hom et al (1992); Philips (1996); Dalton
(1997); Griffeth et al (2000); Price (2000); Kalnback and Griffin (2002); Pfeffer
(2005); Morrell et al. (2007) have contributed to the development of comprehensive
field concerning turnover in human resource management and organizational
behaviour.

Meta-analyses of Cotton and Tuttle (1986); Hom et al (1992); Griffeth et al (2000);

Steer and Ovalle (1984); Tett and Meyer (1993) have simulated a large number of
predictors and antecedents of employee turnover, taxonomy in appendix A presents
some of the common turnover factors studied in most of the investigations. Many
studies such as March and Simon (1958); Price and Mueller (1986); Mobley et al.
(1979); Sheridan and Abelson (1983) etc. have built theoretical models on employee
turnover.

After careful review of literature on the subject, it is observed that most of the
turnover studies have been conducted in the culture of Western and developed
countries work settings by ignoring their cross cultural implications in developing
countries, Cotton and Tuttle (1986) supports the idea and say that findings of these
studies may not be applicable to the organizations in Asian culture due to vast
differences in the economic, social, religious and cultural values. This constitutes
serious gap in the existing literature which has overlooked the cross cultural
implications of turnover studies.

Khatri, Budhwar and Fern. (2001) indicated that there is dearth of research studies
examining employee turnover in Asian and developing countries contexts where this
problem has given sleepless nights to HR managers and they put emphasis on the
need to carry out research in Asian countries contexts. They further reported that
there are very few research studies examining the issue of turnover in Asian context
and such investigations have used a limited number of variables with small samples,
thus this raises concerns of model specification and generalization. In a more recent
article Baruch & Budhwar (2006) repeated the call to widen perspectives of turnover
research beyond the boundaries of western cultures.

Khawaja et al. (2005) used descriptive qualitative research design based on 45

interviews from registered nurses in Tertiary Care University Hospital, Pakistan
concluded that under-stressed, frustrated and demoralized nurses leave. They further
point out that turnover problem is common in all parts of the world including
developing countries, however, it has not been examined in Pakistans context. A
study conducted by Khawaja and Nansey (1999) indicated that nursing turnover from
1996 to 1999 has remained above 30%. The major reasons for turnover were
migration to USA and UK, resignations and family responsibilities.

Khilji (2001) argues that despite the unique cultural, social, religious and economic
set-up, large and capable workforce well versed in English, Pakistan has been ignored
in management research. In a most recent study Khilji and Wang (2007) argue that
Pakistan with its current socio-economic and cultural traditions presents a rich context
to investigate turnover and its relationship with HR practices, organizational and
demographic factors. Based on 508 self-administered questionnaires in 12 different
Pakistani organizations, authors reveal that HR is negatively related to turnover
whereas some demographic factors and performance moderate this relationship
significantly.

Definition of Problem

Present study aims to extend the understanding of integrated role of HR practices,

organizational cultural values and the attitudes of supervisor on personality
dimensions and employees intentions to stay or quit. Previous studies have
investigated various predictors and antecedents of turnover separately and have failed
to report any integration between organizational factors and personality dimensions.
Therefore, it will be worth exploring to investigate the integrated impact HR
practices, organizational cultural values and attitudes of immediate boss on
personality dimensions and work-related factors.

In order to address the issue and inject new and fresh research contribution to the
existing gap in literature this study proposes a conceptual framework of an integrated
model of HR practices, organizational culture and attitudes of supervisor framework
presented in appendix B. It is hypothesized that positively implemented HR practices,
conducive organizational culture and friendly attitudes of supervisor separately and
collectively leave strong impact on personality dimensions of individual at workplace.
Such positive and integrated organizational climate directly generates overall job
satisfaction, organizational commitment and OCB which ultimately results stay
decision and vice versa.

Hypotheses

Based on the review of literature, this study conceptualizes hypothetical framework of

interrelationships between various HR practices, organizational culture and attitudes
of supervisor with personality dimensions which collectively and separately influence
employees decision to stay or quit. The hypotheses of the study can be stated as
follows which need to be empirically tested later:
Hypothesis 1a: There is interrelationship among HR practices, organizational
culture and attitudes of supervisor.
Hypothesis 1b: There is direct relationship of HR practices, organizational culture and
attitudes of immediate supervisor with employees personality
dimensions.

Hypothesis 2a: HR practices, organizational culture and attitude of supervisor have

direct and positive relationship with employees overall satisfaction,
organizational commitment and citizenship behaviour.
Hypothesis 2b: HR practices, organizational culture and attitude of supervisor have
direct and negative relationship with employees overall satisfaction,
organizational commitment and citizenship behaviour
Hypothesis 3a: High personality dimensions are having positive relationship with
overall job satisfaction, organizational commitment and citizenship
behaviour.
Hypothesis 3b: Low personality dimensions generate overall dissatisfaction, burnout
and withdrawal behaviour.

Hypothesis 4a. Highly satisfied and highly committed employees are more likely to
stay in the organization.

Hypothesis 4b: Highly dissatisfied and stressed employees are more likely to make
turnover decisions.

Most probably this research will have following parts in the final dissertation.

Chapter One: i. Introduction ii. Statement of Problems iii. Hypotheses

iv. Justification and Scope of the study v. Limitations
Chapter Two: Literature Review
Chapter Three: i. Selection of Research Design ii. Methodology iii. Subjects and
Data Collection Techniques
Chapter Four: Data Analysis and Interpretation
Chapter Five. Conclusions and Policy Recommendations
References
Appendices
Tables