Reducing Employee Turnover Intentions in Tourism and Hospitality Sector: The Mediating Effect of Quality of Work Life and Intrinsic Motivation

Abstract

Employee turnover causes various organizational disruptions, including economic and social loss and a deficit in organizational knowledge-skill inventory. Considering different forms of organizational disruptions associated with employee turnover, the contemporary literature on organizational sciences has shown serious concern in dealing with the challenge of employee turnover. However, shockingly, the employee turnover rate in the tourism and hospitality sector has been reported to be critically high even at a global level. Moreover, considering the customer-facing nature of this industry, employee turnover has more consequences for the tourism and hospitality sector compared to other segments of the economy. Past literature has acknowledged the role of employee-related corporate social responsibility (ERCSR) activities of an organization in influencing employee behavior. However, a critical knowledge gap in this domain still exists. That is, most of the prior studies tested the impact of ERCSR on positive employee behavior and did not test how ERCSR engagement in an organization may reduce employee turnover intentions, especially in a hospitality context. To fill this knowledge gap, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between ERCSR and employee turnover intentions in a hospitality sector of a developing country. Additionally, the mediating roles of quality of work life and intrinsic motivation were also tested in the above-proposed relationship. The hotel employees were the respondents in this survey who provided their responses related to the study variables on a self-administered questionnaire (n = 278). A hypothetical model was developed and analyzed with the help of the structural equation modeling technique. The results confirmed that ERCSR orientation of a hotel organization significantly reduces the turnover intentions of employees, whereas both quality of work life and intrinsic motivation buffered this association by producing mediating effects. These findings have different theoretical and practical implications, among which the most important implication is to realize the key role of ERCSR in reducing employees’ turnover intentions in a hospitality context. Various other implications are discussed in detail.