The Role of Workload, Nepotism, Job Satisfaction, and Organizational Politics on Turnover Intention: A Conservation of Resources Perspective

Background: Despite extensive research on employee turnover intention in the existing literature. Previous studies have paid rare attention to the role of workload (WL), nepotism (N), job satisfaction (JS), and organization politics (OP) on turnover intention, especially, mediating the effect of harassment between WL, N, JS and OP on turnover intention in the Pakistani context. This study is using Hobfoll’s conservation of resources (COR) theory. Methods: Data were collected from 189 female employees (doctors and nurses) working in public and private hospitals in the province of Sindh, Pakistan, by adopting a purposive sampling technique. SmartPLS and SPPS were used to analyze the data. Results: The results demonstrated that workload and job satisfaction are positively related to harassment. At the same time, harassment has a direct effect on turnover intention. More importantly, harassment partially mediated the effect between workload and job satisfaction on turnover intention. In contrast, nepotism and organizational politics did not observe any significant relationship with harassment. However, it also did not have any mediating impact of harassment between nepotism and organizational politics on turnover intention. Conclusion: There is a lack of research on the antecedents of turnover intention in the existing literature especially in the developing country context (Pakistan). Furthermore, this study examined the mediation mechanism of harassment on turnover intention. In this way, this is an original contribution to the body of knowledge. Finally, COR theory has been utilized to explain how antecedents of turnover intention play their role along with harassment at the workplace. This study also advances the existing literature on human resource management. The current study provides insightful guidelines to policymakers, managers, and HRM practitioners for devising employee-friendly policies at the workplace.