Determinants and outcomes of intention to quit of Indian IT professionals

Abstract

Globalisation and outsourcing have become buzzwords in the present economic boom. India is getting considerable attention, with specific focus on software services outsourcing. The Indian software services sector is growing at a phenomenal pace in terms of both revenue and global spread of clients. Indian organisations and large MNCs have set up facilities and are expanding rapidly in terms of employee strength. With this boom, there has been a significant increase in demand for skilled workforce. Firms need to retain quality talent and recruit employees with required skill sets and experience for sustainable competitive advantage. Considering the factor that attrition is a major issue, it would be interesting to look at why people want to quit an organisation. Another related aspect is employees’ actions and behaviours when they want to quit. When people wish to leave an organisation, it is plausible that they engage in deviant behaviours or reduce their efforts. These behaviours are explored in the research as outcomes of intention to quit. In order to understand the phenomenon of intention to quit, we provide the theoretical background of social exchange, equity theory, leader member exchange, and psychological contracts. These theories form the basis for an individual’s desire to quit on the basis of the following: poor quality of reciprocation for his/her efforts by the organisation, poor supervisory behaviours, lack of justice, and unmet expectations in terms of various facets of the organisational life. While reviewing the literature, we found that one of the significant gaps in this area is regarding outcomes of intention to quit. Employees thinking of quitting may exhibit organisational deviance, less citizenship behaviours, and low performance orientation. Previous research has not explored these outcomes in the context of intention to quit. The significance of exploring these outcomes is that an employee who stays in the organisation against his/her inclination can cause damage through poor quality of work and affect the morale of other employees with his/her deviant behaviours. Using the available literature also helped in developing a comprehensive understanding of the factors that are antecedents of intention to quit. This has not only enabled us to identify variables that are considered critical in the research on intention to quit, but helped us to widen the field by incorporating those factors that are considered important in recent literature on related topics but not given due importance in the research on intention to quit. In the conceptual framework based on past literature, the antecedents were divided into two categories: primary antecedents and intervening antecedents. This study has used both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Exploratory interviews were conducted with IT professionals to develop a clear understanding of the context and to refine the instrument of the survey. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted across multiple locations (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Trivandrum, Chennai, Mumbai, and Pune) and multiple organisations. The survey instrument was developed based on existing standardised scales. The survey was administered to software professionals with less than 5 years of experience. A total of 1600 questionnaires were distributed. We got 592 filled responses, of which 532 were found usable for final analysis. The proposed relationships for outcomes of intention to quit were tested using MANOVA and structural equation modelling (SEM). Results show that higher intention to quit leads to less performance orientation, higher organisational deviance, and less organisational citizenship behaviours. The strongest of these relationships was for organisational deviance. The results were supported in SEM where various measures showed that the model had a good fit. Proposed relationships of antecedents of intention to quit were examined using multiple regression and structural equation modelling. At the first level of analysis, the bivariate relationships of the antecedent variables with the intention to quit were found significant. This supported that autonomy, brand image, promotion chances, perceived external opportunities, routinisation, team integration, distributive justice, procedural justice, perceived organisational politics, job stress, job satisfaction, and organisational commitment are related to intention to quit. At the second level of analysis, the relationship of intention to quit with all the primary antecedents was tested along with the inter-links among the primary antecedents. Subsequently, the mediating effects were tested in multiple regression using the Baron and Kenny method and the Sobel test. At the final level of analysis, the intervening variables were also incorporated. Results show that job stress, perceived organisational politics, met expectations, job satisfaction, and organisational commitment act as intervening variables, whereas routinisation, perceived external opportunities, job stress, perceived organisational politics, job satisfaction, and organisational commitment have direct effect on intention to quit. Hierarchical regression was done for two models: the first one, which had only the primary antecedents, and the second one which also included intervening antecedents. These two models were also tested using structural equation modelling. Structural equation modelling could incorporate more complex inter-linkages among variables on the basis of modification indices, and helped us explore new relationships. When the mediating effects where introduced, we found that perceptions of supervisory support and pay satisfaction are basic aspects of the employees association in the organisations. They are related to creating positive or negative feelings about procedural justice and promotion chances. Apart from the hypotheses testing, a number of new relationships are explored in the study. SEM as a tool was useful is exploring interrelationships. For example: In the case of outcomes of Intention to Quit, apart from understanding organisational deviance, organisational citizenship behaviours, and performance orientation as outcomes of intention to quit, SEM showed that in a best fit model, performance orientation partially mediates the relationship between intention to quit and organisational deviance. Similarily, in the antecedents of intention to quit, perceived employer brand image was explored as an antecedent of met expectations in the SEM model. This study validates some of the previously explored relationship, explores new relationships, and attempts to use multiple analysis techniques for different complexities of data analysis. This study is also an initial effort to understand the effect of intention to quit on organisational deviance, performance orientation, and organisational citizenship behaviours. The relevance of these as indicators of intention to quit is stressed in the discussion. The study explored the role of procedural justice, team integration and brand image as antecedents of intention to quit. The use of multiple data analysis techniques helped us to explore the role of antecedent variables as mediators and provided an in-depth understanding of their inter-linkages. The study recommends practitioners to have a holistic picture of the intention to quit process. It is critical to understand that an individual’s decision to leave is based on multiple interrelated factors. However, organisations can make a difference by stressing on supervisor training, adding variety to the jobs, reducing ambiguity in describing policies and procedures especially interms of pay, focusing on creating a positive image of the organisation, and taking measures to help employees cope up with job stress. The recommendations are discussed in detail.