Motivation Theory To Explain The Turnover Intention Of Behavior Management Essay

This chapter discussed the used of motivation theory to explain the turnover intention or behavior amongst the auditors in Sabah. Besides, ‘turnover intention’ – the dependent variable, ‘job satisfaction’ and ‘organizational commitment’ – the independent variables are being defined and conceptualized in line with this study. The relevant literature or past research done on this area of study is also being reviewed. Lastly, the findings on the relationships between the variables are being discussed.

2.1 Theory

2.1.1 Theory of Reasoned Action

Turnover process models draw heavily from rational decision making models such as Fishbein and Ajzen’s (1980) theory of reasoned action, which stresses the importance of behavioral intentions in predicting and understanding turnover. However, there is research on the manner on which attitudes and intentions get translated into behavior that can inform turnover theory and research. Examples include research on perceptions of behavior control, behavior consistency, and the role of emotional arousal. For the purpose of this study, Perceived Behavioral Control is used…………………………….

2.1.1.1 Perceived Behavioral Control

Many prominent models of the turnover process implicitly or explicitly use elements of Fishbein and Ajzen’s (1980) Theory of Reasoned Action. This theory and its evolution into the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) suggest that intentions to perform a behavior are the more immediate precursors to actual behavior. Intentions are a function of attitudes toward performing the behavior, which are in turn a function of beliefs concerning the consequences and desirability of such consequences of performing the behavior, and subjective norms concerning the behavior, which are a function of beliefs concerning what important referents think about the behavior and one’s motivation to comply with those referents. A good deal of empirical research has supported this model, especially the critical role of intentions (Kim and Hunter, 1998).

Individuals that having the behavior intention not necessary execute the intention in reality, which introduce the importance of the role of behavioral control. Ajzen (1991) defined control beliefs as the presence or absence of factors that may facilitate or impede the performance of a behavior. Perceived behavioral control is an individual’s perceptions of their ability to perform a behavior based on control beliefs. Behavioral control is expected to reinforce behavioral intentions through increased perseverance and consideration of potential obstacles (Hom and Griffeth, 1995). In fact, Ajzen (1991) argues that behavior is a function of compatible intentions and perceptions of behavioral control. Perceived behavioral control should moderate the effect of intentions on behavioral control is positive.

Thus, in a turnover context, turnover intentions may only lead to turnover when individuals perceive that they have control over the decision to quit. There are a number of reasons that individuals might perceive less control over this decision. Family or financial constraints could restrict mobility. Over time, individuals become increasingly invested in an organization, making it more difficult to leave (Becker, 1960). Perceptions of the availability and quality of alternatives may affect perceived control. There is some evidence perceptions of alternatives interact with job satisfaction in leading to withdrawal (Jacofsky et al, 1986). Steel et al recently suggested that barriers to mobility are critical components of labor market cognitions. However, turnover researches do not typically directly measure perceived behavioral control over turnover decisions and have not assessed control as a potential moderator of the relationship between turnover intentions and turnover. Behavioral control should moderate the intentions-turnover relationship such that the relationship is stronger when control is higher, and weaker when control is lowest.

2.1.2 Role Theory

For the purpose of study, role theory is used to explain the role stress experienced by the auditors. Role theory assumes that individuals’ lives are spent acting out an assortment of ‘roles’ both within and outside the organizational context (Fisher, 2001). As cited by Fisher (2001), Katz and Kahn explained that each of these roles is assumed to be more a function of social setting rather than of the individual’s own personality characteristics. Therefore, Fisher (2001) suggested that every position within an organization can be thought of as a specific role into which an individual is “socialized”. Under the role episode model, the process of socialization happens when a role senders directly or indirectly communicating to the role incumbent (focal person) their expectations of the incumbent’s responsibilities.

Role ambiguity exits when goals of one’s job or methods of performing it are unclear (Johns et al, 2007). Scholars Johns et al (2007) further explained that there are three elements that can lead to ambiguity, which are (1) the organizational factors, for example the middle management might fail to provide the ‘big picture’ as they are not in the upper management level; (2) the role sender, for example role senders have unclear expectations of a focal person, or the message is not effectively communicate between a role sender and a focal person; (3) the focal person, as a new staff need time to fully digest the work expectation communicated to him.

On the other hand, role conflict occurs when compliance with one sent role would compliance with another difficult (Cited by Fisher (2001) from Kahn et al, 1964). Kahn et al (1964) identify five major types of role conflict as below:-

1) Intra-sender conflict – conflicting prescriptions/proscriptions from the same sender

2) Inter-sender conflict – conflicting prescriptions/proscriptions from different sender

3) Inter-role conflict – conflict between roles in situations where an individual holds more than one role

4) Person-role conflict – where an individual’s role requirements are incompatible with hus/her own beliefs, values and norms

5) Role-overload – reasonable expectations may have been received from role senders, but he/she may not have enough time to address them all

(Cited from Fisher (2001) review on Kahn et al (1964) research work)

Scholars Van Sell at al (1981), Jackson and Schuler (1985) observed that both role ambiguity and role conflict are linked to negative outcomes, such as lower job satisfaction, increase on perceived job tension, lower job performance and greater turnover intention.

2.2 Conceptualization of Dependent Variable

Turnover refers to resignation from an organization (Lee and Liu, 2006; Johns et al, 2007). Turnover can be classified as ‘internal’ and ‘external’, ‘voluntary’ or ‘involuntary’ (Wiley, 1993). By ‘internal turnover’, it means that an employee is transferred to another department within the same company or group of companies. On the other hand, ‘external turnover’ refers to the resignation of an employee permanently and henceforth represents the cost outflow to an organization. Wiley (1993) further explained that involuntary turnover happens when an employee is terminated for just caused, for example: sickness, death, retirement due to old age; and ‘voluntary turnover’ is a situation whereby the employee join another organization on his/her accord, or participate in the voluntary separation scheme.

Employee is the human capital of an organization (Quote). Employees have become the important tangible asset in an organization in this new k-knowledge world, especially within the service industry. Successful and established companies such as Virgin Airline and Honda have invested substantial amount on their employees in term of training and development cost, aiming to shape their employees to maintain the competitive edge. Henceforth, an employee departure is considered a nightmare to an organization especially with the highly skilled employees such as the IT specialist and audit managers. Not only the organization is unable to recover the training cost (Quote), they also lose their competitive advantage when the highly experienced and skilled employees join another competitor firm. High turnover also experienced in the unskilled position such as in the manufacturing plant and hotel line due to the low replacement cost for unskilled employees. The ease of replacing employees for the lower rank staff no doubt will not cause substantial loss to an organization, but will affect the service or product quality as the new employees are unfamiliar with the organization’s culture and work procedures. As a result of the significance of these costs, employees’ turnover has been widely studied since the 1900s with the various publications of qualitative and quantitative researchers of exceeding 1500 (Munchinsy and Morrow, 1980).

Given the significance of the study, the determinants of turnover intention is widely studied in various industries, such as the hotelier (Atang, 2010), manufacturing (Udo et al, 1007), teachers (Currivan, 2000) information system (IT) (Rahman, 2008; Muliawan et al, 2009) and among public accountants or auditors (Lander et al, 1993; Perryer et al, 2010; Reed et al, 1994; Viator, 2001; Law, 2005; Lui et al, 2001; Hsieh et al, 2009; Hasin and Omar, 2007). The reasons for voluntary turnover are numerous and the list of determinants is still expanding. The most common reasons given by leavers are due to job dissatisfaction, lacking of career growth opportunities, poor relationship between supervisor and subordinate, to name a few. Khatri et al (2001) studied high turnover in Asian countries with sample size of 422 taken from food and beverage industry, shipping and marine industry and retailing industry suggested that the main reasons for high turnover were procedural justice and low organizational commitment. The researchers also reported that managers had more turnover intention than non-managers and procedural justice was considered more important than the distributive justice, while organizational commitment was found to be very critical in turnover intention. Job satisfaction, organizational commitment and intention to leave are among the most commonly proposed antecedents to turnover (Tett and Meyer, 1993).

The reasons of having turnover intention might vary based on individualistic (Atang, 2010). The recent research noted that researchers used other new variables sust as employees’ personality (Dole and Schroeder, 2001; Hsieh et al, 2009), hardiness (Law, 2005), gender (Reed et al, 1994) and organizational tenure (Udo et al, 1997) to determine the moderating effect on the turnover intention. It is observed that there are not many research done in the local setting and hence it is doubtful that if those results obtained from the Western countries can be generalized in Asia, in particular, Malaysia. Henceforth, the primary focus of this study is to examine the relationship between role stress and job satisfaction towards turnover intention amongst the auditors in Sabah, using organizational commitment as mediating variable.

In the academic writing, most of the research that focus on employee turnover used direct determinant of turnover, intent to stay (Iverson, 1992; Price 1997) or turnover intention (Perryer et al, 2010; Hsieh et al, 2009; Rahman et al, 2008) to predict turnover as the data of ‘actual turnover’ is typically hard to collect. Intent to stay (or leave) is defined as employees’ behavioral intention that has been found to have a strong negative influence on actual turnover (Iverson, 1992). A link between behavioural intentions and behavior has been well documented in the social psychological literature (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980), as has a link between turnover intentions and turnover (Irvine and Evans, 1995; Richer et al, 2002; Tett and Meyer, 1993). Richer at al (2002) further commented that most employees having the intention to leave their job would most likely to quit if they have the choice. Other researchers agreed that behavioral intention is the most determinant of actual behaviour (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980; Steel and Ovalle, 1984) and Rasch and Harrell (1990) further commented that there is positive relationships exist between intention to leave and turnover behaviour. The finding that turnover intention is the strongest predictor of turnover is similarly consistent (Meyer at at., 2002; Tett and Meyer, 1993).

The turnover intention for this present study will be conceptualized as the “having the intention or behavior to leave the organization voluntary” (Atang, 2010). Based on the above discussion, turnover intention would be used interchangeable with ‘Intent to stay (or leave)’.

2.3 Independent variables

For the purpose of this study, role stress and job satisfaction are chosen as the independent variables that are most representing determinants in influencing the turnover intention amongst auditors in Sabah.

2.3.1 Role Stress

Role stress is identified as stressors at individual level (Ivancevich et al, 2008) and has now becomes the focus point of the Organizational Behavior and Management study due to the importance of having a quality work-life balance. Under role theory (as explained in Section 2.1), stress can arise from a particular role episode when sent roles conflict with each other, or when information required to effectively carry out a sent role is lacking (Fisher, 2001). These situations are known as role ambiguity and role conflict.

A role is a set of expectations on individual behavior due to his/her position in an organization (Lee, 1996). Role ambiguity and role conflict are typically viewed as a consequence of audit structure practice (Wittayapoom and Mahasarakham, 2007). The definition of role ambiguity and role conflict are thoroughly examined as below:-

2.3.1.1 Role Ambiguity

Role ambiguity happens when an individual is unclear about the expectations or requirements of his/her job (Hitt et al, 2006). This includes ambiguity on the methods to be used, how performance is evaluated, an individual’s responsibility and also the limits of one’s authority (Johns et al, 2007). Black (1988) stated that role ambiguity happens when there is a lack of the necessary information available to a given organizational position. Smith (1990) in his review on Senatra’s (1988) study noted that 70 percent and 47 percent of reported role ambiguity in men and women respectively was attributed to organizational factors, such as adequacy of authority to make decisions and formalization of firm policies. Ambiguity on the audit work creates tension and anxiety, and hence leads to emotional stress, as employees are unclear of the expectations. Many of audit juniors experience role ambiguity, as they are unfamiliar with the work procedures and company’s culture. Besides, different audit environment warrants different attention from the audit staff, for example, the audit of a financial institute is different from auditing a non-profit organization. Henceforth, a new comer would easily feel lost and frustrated if there is no proper guidance and this might affect his/her work commitment or trigger the turnover intention. Vaitor (2001) in his research finding on public accounting organizations in United States concluded that informal mentors do indeed help to reduce role ambiguity among the audit staff. Ambiguity tends to decrease as length of time in the job role increases (Jackson and Schuler, 1985, as cited by Johns et al, 2007).

2.3.1.2 Role Conflict

Role conflict is termed as the degree of incongruity or incompatibility of expectations associated with the role (House and Rizzo, 1972; Johns et al, 2007). Atang (2010) stated that employees perceive a role conflict when there is incompatibility between expectations and demands from various workgroups and conflicting role to be carried out by individual employee. Katz and Kahn (1978) explained in detail that conflict is the simultaneous occurrence of two or more role sending such that agreement with one party would make more difficult for the agreement of another (see details on Section 2.1 on role theory). For example, auditor A is assigned to work on an outstation assignment by his direct supervisor, but is requested to attend a training course as requested by the human resource manager for the same working week. Hence, auditor A is said having a role conflict. Viator (2001) suggested two types of role conflict that is relevant in the accounting practice, namely the ‘inter-sender’, which occur when the expectations of one role sender are in conflict with another role senders; and the ‘person-role conflict’, which happen when the role requirements violate the needs, capacities or beliefs of the individual (Viator, 2001). Sorenson and Sorenson (1974) operationalized role conflict as ‘conflict between an auditor’s professional’ and ‘bureaucratic orientations’.

Role conflict is arguably more severe experienced with female due to the society perception that woman is the primary care-givers (Law, 2010). For example, married women with first-born children are expected to stay in-house to nurse the baby, while her career may become less priority. This perception would cause stress to career women today who valued their job above all. The significance of role conflict is discussed in Smith (1990) studies in his review on Senatra’s (1988) research work, which stated that organizational stressors accounted for 64 percent of the reported role conflict among males, 79 percent among females. The factors that resulted in role conflict for both man and female that identified in the study are excessive job and time pressures, conflicting objectives, and suppression of relevant information (Senatra(1988) as cited by Smith (1990) studies).

2.3.1.3 Empirical Evidence of Role Stress in the Accounting Profession

As cited by Fisher (2001), Senatra (1980) was the first study in the accounting literature to examine the sources of role stress with public accounting firms. Senatra identified ten specific elements of the organizational climate of the public accounting firms in which he hypothesized would affect perceptions of role ambiguity and role conflict, which were(1) violations in the chain of command; (2) formalization of firm rules and procedures; (3) emphasis on subordinate personnel development; (4) tolerance of error; (5) top-management receptiveness to ideas and suggestions; (6) adequacy of work coordination; (7) timeliness of superiors’ responses to problems; (8) information suppression by superiors and subordinates; (9) adequacy of authority; (10) adequacy of professional autonomy. Using a survey of 88 senior accountants, Senatra (1980) concluded that ‘violations in the chain of command’ tends to increase both role ambiguity and role conflict.

For the purpose of this study, role ambiguity is defined as the lack of clear and precise information regarding what is expected of the role incumbent (Muliawan et al, 2009), which is important to perform the job (Rizzo et al, 1970). Role conflict refers to occasions when an individual receives conflicting information or requests (Muliawan et al, 2009) when there is incompatibility between expectations and demands from various workgroups (Harris et al, 2006).

2.3.2 Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction is the degree of positive emotions an employee has towards a work role (Currivan, 1999), or the amount of pleasure or contentment associated with a job (Du Brin, 1988). Locke (1969), a famous psychologist, defined job satisfaction as “the pleasurable positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences” (Locke, 1976, p1298). Oshagbemi (1999) stated that Locke’s definition has been widely accepted in among the academic researchers and also in the industrial psychology field. Kalleberg (1977) who studied the importance of job rewards and job values on job satisfaction, conceptualized job satisfaction as “an overall affective orientation on the part of individuals towards work roles which they are presently occupying” (Kalleberg, 1977, p126). For the purpose of this study, job satisfaction is defined as a collection of attitudes that employees have about their jobs (Johns et al, 2007), which is resulted from the workers’ perception of the job (Ivancevivh et al, 2008).

The early interest of job satisfaction was initiated by an Australian, which also known as the Hawthorne Studies, concluded that productivity and satisfaction with work are related (Howarth, 1984). High satisfaction has a strong relationship with motivation (Kinicki et al, 2002). Generally, employees with high job satisfaction will intent to stay in the company longer due to the “feel good effects” cultivated by working with the existing company. Job satisfaction receives wide attention from the researchers and practicing managers due to its direct or indirect effects on absenteeism (Kolasa, 1978; Fred Luthans, 1989), unionization (Schriesheim, 1978), productivity, job performance (Vroom, 1978; Brayfield and Crockett, 1955), organizational commitment (Brown and Peterson, 1994) and which ultimately affect the employees’ turnover decision (Porter and Steers, 1973; Muchinsky and Tuttle 1979; Arnold and Feldman, 1982; Hasin and Omar, 2007). Employees with high job satisfaction is said to be less likely to look for alternative employment (Sager, 1994) or to resign from an organization (Boles et al, 1997).

Job satisfaction is indeed a highly individual experience as it is affected by personal emotion on perceived values and beliefs on the work (Johns et al, 2007). For example, individual will satisfy if they meet or exceeded the expected performance, and belief that the job outcome is valued fairly and be rewarded equitable as compared to others. As job satisfaction is highly dependable on individual perceptions on the levels of intrinsic and extrinsic outcomes derived from working in a particular environment, researchers have used many variables adopted from the motivation theory to test the relationship with job satisfaction. For example, Vroom (1964) reported that variables such as promotional opportunities, job content, and supervision were possible factors affecting job satisfaction. Using income or pay, Lawler and Porter (1963) found positive correlation between income and overall job satisfaction. Indeed, job satisfaction is a function of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards offered by a working environment (Tuch and Martin, 1991), a particular status obtained inline with the job position (Cox and Nkomo, 1991) and work values (Drummond and Stoddard, 1991). Locke (1976) categorized job satisfaction into three general areas: (1) the values that an employee has or want, (2) the perception of how the organization meets these values, (3) their relative importance to the individual (as cited by Colin, ___ year), and listed the key contributors to job satisfaction as pay and compensation, career opportunities, and people.

Job satisfaction can be measured either by (1) various facets of the job, or (2) with an overall satisfaction (Johns et al, 2007). Example of measuring the job satisfaction via various facets of the job includes the work itself, compensation, career opportunities, recognition, benefits, working conditions, relationships with supervisor and co-workers and company’s policy (Rice, 1991). On the other hand, the overall satisfaction is an average or total of the attitudes individuals hold toward various facets of the job (Johns et al, 2007).

In the organizational study on job satisfaction, both extrinsic factors such as pay and salary (Muliawan et al, 2009; Hasin and Omar, 2007) and intrinsic factors as growth opportunities (Muliawan, 2009), social support (Currivan, 2000) is equally important. As tailor to suit the accounting professional environment, Hsieh et al (2009) used employees’ overall evaluative judgments about the position, satisfaction with supervision, affective experiences at work and beliefs about the workplace to assess employees’ job satisfaction. On the other hand, Lui et al (2001) used interrole conflict as a predictor of job satisfaction for professional accountants in Hong Kong and concluded that interrole conflict was associated with low job satisfaction and high propensity to leave. The importance of role conflict also shared with Reed et al (1994) whereby the researchers used role conflict and role overload as dimensions of the job satisfaction. In a local setting, Hasin and Omar (2007) studied the job-related stress, in the context of job satisfaction on intention to leave among audit staff in Melaka.

For the purpose of this study, job satisfaction is defined as ________________________, and will be measured with an overall job satisfaction using Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire that includes both intrinsic and extrinsic factors.

2.4 Mediating variable: Organizational Commitment

Past literature defined organizational commitment as a stabilizing force that enables individual to attach to an organization (Meyer and Herscovitch, 2001; Ng and Felman, 2008; Cho et al, 2009). Other scholars Mayer et al (2002) and Johns et al (2007) term organizational commitment as an attitude that measures the strength of the bond between an employee and an organization. Organizational commitment also explained as the psychological attachment that an employee feel and is reflected by the particular individual to adopt the organization characteristic (Currivan, 1999). Such characteristics are ‘meeting of the development of an organization’, in terms of the organization’s goals, purposes and infrastructures (Kim et al, 2005).

Steers and Porter (1979) operationalised organizational commitment in three board components, which are (1) Acceptance of the firm’s goals, (2) Willingness to work hard for the firm, (3) Desire to stay with the firm (cited by Colin Silverthorne, ___ year, in his book titled ‘Organizational psychology in cross cultural perspective’). Using a different terms, scholars Meyer and Allen (XXXX) conceptualized organizational commitment into 3 groups as below:-

(a) Affective commitment, which refers to attachment based on sharing of values with other members of the organization resulted from involvement and identification with an organization (Johns et al, 2007; Perryer, 2010)

(b) Continuance commitment, which refers to employee’s perception that he or she as no other alternative or choice but to remain stay with the company probably due to cost outweigh potential benefits (Johns et al, 2007; Perryer, 2010)

(c) Normative commitment, which refers to an ideology due to sense of obligation to an organization (Johns et al, 2007; Perryer, 2010)

Organizational commitment is viewed as a stable attitude, reflecting a general affective response towards the organization as a whole and is generally viewed as more stable and global than employee satisfaction, and consequently more closely related to the achievement of long-term organizational goals due to its broader reaching implications (Quote). It is noted that committed employees would contribute significantly to the organization, perform better, engage in organizational citizenship behaviors and are less likely to engage in unproductive or destructive behaviours, also are less like to leave the organization. (Meyer et al, 1993,2002). The rewards of having positive organizational commitment are having positive working environment thereby generate positive work experiences, job satisfaction and build trust in the management (Meyer et al, 2001). This is consistent with Huselid (1995) and MacDuffie (1995) studies that high commitment human resources policies are positively associated with positive organizational outcomes, such as increase productivity, profitability and quality. At the flip side, high levels of organizational commitment may cause conflicts between family life and work life (Johns,2007); also resulted to resistance when a change in the culture is a necessary (Randall, 1987).

For the purpose of this study, the researcher adopt Muliawan et al (2009) definition of organizational commitment that refer as the strength of an individual’s identification with, and involvement in, an organization, and measure the variable using Porter et al (1974) three facets of organizational commitment.

2.4 The Relationship Among The Variables Studied

2.4.1 Role Stress and Turnover Intentions

2.4.1.1 Role Stress and Turnover Intentions

Role stress is commonly measured using the dimensions role ambiguity and role conflict (Quote). Auditors, which commonly refer as boundary spanners are exposed to a significant number of role stressors. Boundary spanners represent people who occupy organizational position that require extensive “interactions with many people, both inside and outside the organization, with diverse needs and expectations” (Goolsby, 1992, 156). As explained by Goolsby (1992), people in boundary-spanning roles are exposed to particularly high levels of role stress due to the need to understand and satisfy the expectations of the many role senders within their relevant environment. Both role ambiguity and role conflict have been linked to negative outcomes in occupational settings (Fisher, 2001).

The earliest research work on role conflict in the audit environment was carried out by Sorenson and Sorenson (1974). In their study, role conflict was operationalised in terms of conflict between an auditor’s professional and bureaucratic orientations. Sorenson and Sorenson’s (1974) findings revealed that role conflict had an adverse impact on auditors’ job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Using 794 valid data collected from the CPA firms in the United States, Viator (2001) concluded that role ambiguity and role conflict were positively associated with turnover intentions. Sharing the same view, Lui et al (2001) revealed that interrole conflict ( a specific type of role conflict) was positively related to propensity to leave among professional accountants in Hong Kong, with the effect only appear to be significant at a level of 0.1. Using both interview and questionnaire methods to investigate factors that lead to the actual turnover decision made by the female auditors in Hong Kong, Law (2010) stated that role conflict has the highest explanatory power among the independent variables studied that influence the respondents’ turnover decisions.

Based on the above, it is concluded that studies in organizational behavior support the position that role ambiguity and role conflict are negatively associated with job satisfaction, which are also supported by other researchers such as Gregson et al, 1994; Rebele and Michaels, 1990; Udo et al, 1997; and tends to be negatively associated with turnover intention (Gregsin, 1992; Johns et al, 2007).

2.4.1.2 Role Stress and Organizational Commitment

There is no much literature on the relationship between role stress and organizational commitment. Past results in this area are mixed. Currivan (2000) in his study on the possible models of the causal relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment in models of employee turnover concluded that there was also no support that greater role ambiguity and role conflict will produce lower organizational commitment. Muliawan et al (2009) in their study on turnover intention among the information system auditors stated that role conflict has a direct, negative effect on organizational commitment, but found no support on the hypothesis that role ambiguity has a direct, negative effect on organizational commitment. The researchers cautioned that the research findings must be treated with care due to the limited sample size of 131 only.

(X find any accounting literature in this area)

2.4.1.3 Role Stress and Turnover Intentions, and Organizational Commitment as mediating variable

(X find any literature in this area)

2.4.2 Job Satisfaction and Turnover intentions

2.4.2.1 Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intentions

Research shown that job satisfaction was an effective predictor of turnover (Tett and Meyer, 1993, Griffeln et al, 2000; Hsieh et al, 2009). Job satisfaction is found to negatively associate to occupational turnover intentions (Mobley, 1977; Tett and Meyer, 1993; Dole and Schroeder, 2001; Hasin and Omar, 2007; Ryan and Sagas, 2009; Muliawan et al, 2009). Irvine and Evans (1995) published a meta-analytic study investigating the causal relationship between job satisfactions, behavioural intentions and turnover behavior in nurses. The model proposed by Irvine and Evans (1995) also shows satisfaction to be negatively related to turnover intentions. Griffeth et al (2000) provide empirical evidence which support that job satisfaction was highly negative associated with the turnover intention. Rahman et al (2008) in their study on IT professional reported that the job satisfaction has a negative modest correlation with turnover intention, which suggesting that there may be other factors influencing the IT professional turnover intention.

The job satisfaction and turnover literature indicates that employees who experience relatively low job satisfaction tend to change work position or environment (Dole and Schroeder, 2001). This is particularly true in the audit industry whereby the auditors frequently quote unfavorable working condition such as long working hours as main reason to leave the company. Accounting literature which is Asia based came from Hasin and Omar (2007) which supported that there is a significant relationship between job satisfaction and intention to leave. Hsieh et al (2009) in their study using 600 sample size from four large audit firms in Taiwan reported that external job satisfaction had a significant negative relationship with turnover intention, but the internal job satisfaction is found not significantly associated with turnover intention.

2.4.2.2 Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment

Currivan (2000) in his study on the causal relationship between job satisfaction and organisational commitment in models of employee turnover found that there is no significant effect between satisfaction and commitment. Currivan’s (2000) finding is not shared by Muliawan et al (2009) in which they reported that job satisfaction has a direct, positive effect on organizational commitment.

Using structural equation model, Gregson (1992) examined the causal ordering and importance of organizational commitment and job satisfaction and concluded that model with satisfaction antecedent to commitment is more reliable than the model with commitment antecedent to satisfaction.

2.4.2.3 Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment and Turnover Intentions

Organizational commitment and job satisfaction were found to have a direct, negative effect on turnover intentions, with R2 of 48% of the variance in turnover intention shown in Muliawan et al (2009) study amongst the information systems auditors in Australia. The same result also obtained by Rahman et al (2008) in their study targeted IT professionals in Pakistan. Udo et al (1997) found that job satisfaction had significant positive effects on organizational commitment and intention to stay among plant managers located in the South-eastern USA.

Findings from Cotton and Tuttle (1986) and Michaels and Spector (1982) provide evidence that job satisfaction has a direct effect on turnover intentions as well as an indirect effect through organizational commitment. Using organizational commitment as mediator variable, Thatcher et al (2003) found that the there is a relationship between job satisfaction and perceived job characteristics on turnover intention.

(X find any accounting literature in this area)

2.4.3 Organizational Commitment and Turnover Intentions

A number of empirical studies confirm the importance role of organizational commitment in influencing turnover intentions (Rizzo et al, 1970; Law, 2005; Chang, 2006; Tiamiyu and Disner, 2009). Tiamiyu and Disner (2009) citing research work from Porter et al (1974) that conducted longitudinal study for a period of 10.5 months among the psychiatric technicians concluded that organizational commitment was the key variable differentiating stayers from leavers, and that the next important variable in this regard is job satisfaction. The result of the study of the psychiatric technicians indicated that organizational commitment and job satisfaction are related but distinguishable attitudes. It indicated that organizational commitment takes more time to form and lasts longer than job satisfaction. Job satisfaction relates to specific aspects of work environment and forms more quickly and is more transitory compared to organizational commitment. However, the researcher cautioned that this finding couldn’t be generalized to all employees, as the participants were non-professional employees working for non-profit organization.

Rahman et al (2008) found that there is only modest negative correlation between organizational commitment and turnover intention among the IT professionals work in Pakistan. Other researchers Tiamiyu (2009) and Williams (2003) also reported that the relationship between organizational commitment of internal auditors and their turnover intention was not significant.

On the flip side, Chang (2006) in his study using engineers in Hi-Tech Industry as samples evident that organizational commitment is negatively related to turnover intention, and that this hypothesis was strongly supported with p-value less than 0.000, with almost 40% of variance in turnover intention was explained by overall organizational commitment (R2 of 0.309). On the same notion, Muliawan et al (2009) noted that organizational commitment among the information system auditors has a direct, negative effect on their turnover intentions. Perryer et al (2010) measured organizational commitment using two dimensions, namely the affective and continuance organizational commitment observed that same finding. Law (2005) collected 128 samples targeting public accountants suggested that affective commitment is the most salient component of commitment in predicting turnover, but an interactive of continuance and affective commitment is also significant. Meyer et al (2002) study revealed that high organizational commitment, regardless of types such as affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment shall reduce turnover intentions and actual turnover.