Turnover intentions of New Zealand employees : a multi-study comparison of skill levels : Master of Management in Human Resource Management at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
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Date
2015
DOI
Open Access Location
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Massey University
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Abstract
This study investigates turnover intentions across three different skill levels of New
Zealand employees: low-skilled (Study 1), semi-skilled (Study 2), and skilled (Study 3) using
both quantitative and qualitative methods. Specifically, this study first compares job autonomy,
supervisor support, and work-life balance towards job satisfaction and turnover intentions and
then ultimately, tests a two mediator model in which firstly, work-life balance and then job
satisfaction act as the mediators towards turnover intentions. These mediator effects were
confirmed by Monte Carlo analysis. Overall, there is strong support across the studies that
work-life balance predicts job satisfaction, which in turn predicts turnover intentions. Towards
the antecedents, there is uniformity between low-skilled and skilled employee samples, with
supervisor support predicting work-life balance and job autonomy predicting both work-life
balance and job satisfaction. Finally, this study uses qualitative interviews (Study 4) to add
depth to the quantitative results and explore any additional emerging themes, while also
providing a personal narrative to the turnover literature, which is often missing. The interviews
generally reinforced the quantitative findings although additional themes were found, and two
mini-cases were explored regarding actual turnover. Overall, this thesis aids our understanding
of turnover intentions across the various skill levels.
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Keywords
Labour turnover, Job satisfaction, Work-life balance, Employee motivation, Skill levels, New Zealand