How Workplace Social Capital Affects Turnover Intention: The Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction and Burnout

Committed social workers are significant to organizational performance and service quality; therefore, it is crucial to explore the contributing factors of turnover intention to enhance social workers’ commitment. To reduce social workers’ turnover intention, this study used the first national survey data (N = 5620) of social workers in China to find out the relationship between workplace social capital and turnover intention in public service and explore possible solutions. This study treated workplace social capital as a comprehensive measure that captured employees’ overall perceptions of their interpersonal relations in the public sector. It covered the impact of many other organizational factors on turnover intention, such as job embeddedness, social networks, social relations, communication, and organizational fairness. The results confirmed that workplace social capital had a significant negative impact on employees’ turnover intention. Workplace social capital could be a better predictor of employees’ turnover intention than a single organizational factor or a combination of several factors. These findings not only deepened the theoretical understanding of social capital within the organization and brought insight into how workplace social capital affected employees’ turnover but also promoted a formation of a holistic organizational perspective from the fragmented organizational factors. Results also showed that job burnout and job satisfaction mediated the relation between workplace social capital and turnover intention. Public service agencies should endeavor to foster an organizational climate of cooperation and trust, encourage teamwork and altruistic behaviors among coworkers to reduce emotional exhaustion, and strengthen the professional identity and professional value of social work.