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DETERMINANTS OF TEACHERS’
TURNOVER INTENTION IN BAHRIA
SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES AT KARACHI
Rafique Ahmed Khan1
Bahria University Karachi Campus
13, National Stadium Road, Karachi, Pakistan
ABSTRACT
Purpose: This paper basically aims at exploring and investigating the impact of factors
including career growth opportunities, workplace environment, managerial support, rewards
& recognition system , and work-life balance on ‘turnover intention’ of teachers, in Bahria
Schools and Colleges at Karachi. For the sake of ascertaining influence of these factors
on employee turnover intention, six Bahria Schools and Colleges at Karachi were chosen.
Methodology: By adopting a quantitative approach, views of 120 respondents (both male
& female) were obtained with the help of a well structured questionnaire. The data were
treated by applying correlation and regression analysis tools with the help of SPSS software,
version 22.
Findings: The results indicated that all five factors were negatively related with teachers’
turnover intention. However, impact of work-life balance was not insignificant. Similarly,
results of the female employees varied from those of the male respondents. Male employees
were comparatively less concerned about the issues related to work-life balance as compared
to their female counterparts. Since all independent variables, if suitably practiced, also
lead to employee satisfaction, the study clearly reflected the inverse relationship between
employee satisfaction and turnover intention.
Implications: This study can help the management of Bahria Schools and Colleges to
understand the factors responsible for employee turnover intention. By paying due attention
towards the identified factors, the Bahria Schools and Colleges can significantly enhance
the motivation level of teachers, thereby reducing their turnover intention. The study is
considered equally useful for other Schools and Colleges. In the end, future researchers
have been advised to further explore the likely contribution of other factors towards
employee satisfaction and reduced turnover intention.
* The material presented by the author does not necessarily portray the viewpoint of the editors
and the management of the Institute of Business & Technology (IBT)
1. INTRODUCTION
Almost all leading organizations, irrespective of their size or the nature of business,
try to maintain appropriate level of cohesiveness with employees by developing and
motivating them. It is a universally recognized fact that long term retention of loyal
and committed employees is the prime consideration of all employers who believe in
maintaining a competitive edge through human resource. Excessive attrition and high
turnover intention is neither in the interest of employer nor it is good for career
progression of an employee. In the context of education sector, this is also critical for
the private schools and colleges, especially in Mega cities like Karachi, either due to
cultural issues or because of more job opportunities for the teachers. This problematic
state can also be attributed to its instructional and fiscal impacts. Given the rising trend
of opening new schools and colleges in private sector and in the present of tough
competition prevalent in the education sector, this problem has been focus of many
researchers and practitioners alike. However, most of the researchers have adopted
segmented approaches which included teachers’ job satisfaction, internal social factors
and policy-related matters which have been used to identify the causes of teachers’
perceived turnover intentions (Borman & Dowling, 2008; Connolly & James, 2006;
Crossman & Harris, 2006).
1.1 Significance of Reduced Turnover Intention
Although, there are no single universal measures which can deliver similar results
in different cultures or business types, experts have identified a number of factors that
can guarantee anticipated outcomes. Moreover, these measures have varying impact
with regard to the time frame and gender difference. Like other employees, teachers
of private schools and colleges of present era are not faced with challenges similar to
what their predecessors had few decades ago; their needs, social trends, moral values,
business ethics and the like, have been transformed by the global forces including the
media and internet. The present era has brought a number of new opportunities,
concurrent to the challenges. Due to the blessings of globalization, present day employees
have become more confident, better informed and well connected with the outside
world. As soon as they feel dissatisfied with the current employer or the job, they switch
over to the next job. Career oriented teachers, who have enough potential for growth
and also perceive lot of opportunities in their present organization, shall have quite a
different turnover intention than the ones who either do not have sufficient potential
for further growth or do not see any career opportunity for them. Long term retention
of teachers, therefore, has the potential to create a win-win situation both for the faculty
and the institution itself. In today’s dynamic business environment, which is characterized
by less predictability and more surprises, retention of better performers is becoming a
real challenge. It is the responsibility of the institutions to take appropriate measures
to retain their best faculty. If they fail to do that, they would lose good teachers and
only the incompetent or incapable, having least job opportunities elsewhere, shall stay
back. As opposed to their earlier counterparts, today’s employers are finding it more
difficult to keep the workers satisfied and committed. Employers have to pay more
attention to the factors that are responsible for employee satisfaction, loyalty and
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Determinants of Teachers’ Turnover Intention in Bahria Schools and Colleges at Karachi
retention. Any laxity in this endeavor shall tantamount to losing good employees
which is a recognized recipe to organizational failure.
There are a number of studies which have been conducted on how important is
the employee turnover intention and what are factors responsible for it, both at National
and International level. As researched by Osteraker (1999), employee satisfaction and
retention are the foundation stones for long term success of an organization. Turnover
intension is not only an undesired factor, it is said to be a costly affair both for the
employee and the employer; replacement cost is found to be quite high by the employers
(Mitchell et al. 2001). As mentioned by Klein and Kozlowski, (2000); Raudenbush &
Bryk, (2002); Yammarino & Danserau, (2004), as when an employee leaves a company,
the employer loses not only the employee but also the loyal customers, ethical values
and traditions. Employee retention is an important strategy for an organization, which
begins with recruitment of the best available candidates and continues to implementing
programs that keep employees happy, committed and engaged (Freyermuth, 2007).
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Although main causes of employee turnover intention are, more or less, similar
across the organizations, many researchers have highlighted some factors which are
culturally influenced. In this regards, a number of articles of renowned journals and
publications were studied with an aim to quote only those publications which were
credible and latest. According a study conducted by Morrell et al. (2004), ‘turnover
intention’ is referred to deliberate cessation of employment in organization by an
employee. The involuntary turnover also occurs when employees are forced to leave
201 Journal of Business Studies
Rafique Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Ihsan Qadir
the organization, which may be triggered by reasons such as the real or perceived
need to reduce costs, restructuring an organization or downsizing its structure; or for
individual reasons related to an employee, such as poor performance, due to lack of
training or dissatisfaction at workplace.
As a whole, employee turnover intention can be directly associated with low job
satisfaction because dissatisfied workforce is always in search of an alternate employment.
In order to stop the employees from looking at greener pastures and reduce their turnover
intention, it is imperative for the employers to be people oriented also, rather is merely
focusing on end results. It is a proven fact that happy workers do not intend shifting
their job so easily. Similarly, employers also want their good employees to continue
to work with them. Employee job satisfaction, turnover intentions and other factors
have been discussed in the ensuing paragraphs.
Being the most important resource, employees have always been the focus of
employers. The significance of HR has been amply highlighted by many scholars and
there is a wealth of literature on employee motivation, job satisfaction and employee
turnover intention, across the globe. Even in a developing country like Pakistan, there
is no exception and a lot of research has been conducted by the academia and the
practitioners alike. Due to obvious importance of human resource for an organization
and turnover intention, there is an ongoing struggle by the employers to keep their
employees happy, loyal and committed, both in developed and developing world. Job
satisfaction leads to reduced turnover intention whereas turnover intention of an
employee is encouraged by the factors causing de-motivation including those present
at workplace (e.g. job itself, non-supportive peers, least bothered supervisors and the
firm having non-conducive culture), or those factors which are related to individual
employee (e.g. degraded performance or high rate of absenteeism (Bigliardi, Petroni
& Ivo Dormino, 2005). If an employee leaves an organization, it adds negatively in the
index of organizational effectiveness (Staw,1980). As per the study of Cordery J. (2006),
on Strategies for Improving Employee Retention, there are increasing challenges for
the organizations in retaining skilled and effective employees and therefore companies
need to devise a robust strategy for employee retention. According to a study, by Tan
et al. (2007), on Singaporean companies, it was found that there were three categories
of factors responsible for employee turnover intention; these factors included ‘demographic
factors’ – e.g. age, gender, marital status and number of children, ‘organizational factors’
– e.g. length of service, salary and number of staff and ‘attitudinal factors’ – e.g. job
satisfaction, work stress and level of commitment in the organization.
According to Zeynep & Huckman, (2008), the issue of employee turnover has
received significant attention, both by the managers and the academics. They have
focused more on the reasons behind turnover intention of employees than just the
turnover rate. They have assumed that there are some recognizable characteristics of
workers, tasks, firms, and the markets, which are responsible for the employee turnover
intention. The turnover rate can be brought down to the minimum if management
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Determinants of Teachers’ Turnover Intention in Bahria Schools and Colleges at Karachi
According Kreitner (2004), financial rewards are said to be better motivators for
those employees who seek protection through material resources. On the other hand,
By nature, employees prefer a work setting that involves interaction with colleagues,
subordinates and superiors. Being an important factor for employee motivation, social
support by peers in general and managerial support in particular creates a sense of
comradeship within a team, department or an organization. Managerial and supervisory
support is a major contributory factor for enhancing motivation and reducing employee
turnover intention. New entrants always look towards their managers and supervisors
for support in skill development, career counseling and career development. Through
sincere efforts, managers can create a strong relationship with subordinates which
ultimately act as a bondage that reduces turnover intention (Eisenberger, 1990). By
working closely with subordinates, managers afford them opportunity to develop existing
and learn new skills. This helps in smooth career progression of employees, leading
to enhanced job satisfaction and reduced turnover intention (Russell and McManus,
1997). A research conducted by Seta et al. (2000) has concluded that among other
factors like nature of work, rewards, and relationship with co-workers, managerial
support and work supervision also contribute, to a large extent, towards enhancing job
satisfaction. In a work environment where managers are supportive, encourage their
subordinates for learning new skills and help them in meeting career milestones, job
satisfaction increases and turnover intention reduces (Smith, Eisenberger and Shanock,
2006).
According to a study conducted by Bishop & Scott (1997) and quoted by Aamodt
(2004), employee satisfaction was related to managerial support and which further
resulted in organizational and team commitment, leading to higher productivity and
lower turnover intention. Many researchers have disclosed that employees need
supervisors who understand their needs, provide them required support and treat them
on the basis of equity and justice. On the contrary, managers who display rude and
indifferent attitude towards their subordinates have to face de-motivated employees
who do not contribute to the best of their abilities. Employees who receive expected
managerial support, whether, formally or informally, and who feel valued and respected,
shall display productive behavior in the form of low absenteeism, job involvement, and
reduced turnover rate. Such employees take part in all activities of the organization,
helping it to achieve company targets. Employees having good academic record and
possessing excellent skills may find a lot of employment opportunities outside the
organization but specific work environment and strong bondage between manager and
employees shall stop them from leaving by reducing their turnover intention (Freyermuth,
2007). Managers having high sense of organizational ownership shall always go ahead
beyond their normal call of duty and job description and help their subordinates even
in private matters in order to create more cohesiveness at workplace. As mentioned by
Kim (2002), participative management that involves effective supervisory communication
can increase employees’ job satisfaction, leading to reduction in turnover intention.
According to a meta-analysis conducted by Wagner and LePine (1999), the influence
of job participation and managerial support is quite significant on employee job
satisfaction. Similarly, Daniels and Bailey (1999) also found out that when supervisor
involves employees in participative decision making, satisfaction level enhances and
turnover intention reduces.
In the recent past there has been a greater emphasis on protecting human rights
in every aspect of life. The issue of leading a balanced life has also gained much support
in the developed business world. Although the idea was initially floated in the developed
world, being an area of common concern for the people living anywhere in the world,
it has quickly spread all over the globe. Both the employers and employees have realized
that their long term association and healthy workplace environment is only possible
if employees are facilitated in maintaining a balance between work life and family live.
According to a study by Deery M. (2008), work-life balance plays an important role
in employee intention to leave an organization or stay back. The study focused at
importance of employee attitudes including organizational commitment, job satisfaction
and work-life balance. The study concluded that healthy work-life balance measures
proved more effective in employee turnover intention than the other factors. As cited
by Cappelli (2000), the factors like career development, work environment and work-
life balance are believed to have a direct impact on employee turnover intention. A
study, undertaken by Aslam R. et al. (2011), has drawn a relationship between work-
life conflict and turnover intention, in Pakistani culture. It was found that there was a
weak relationship between work-family conflict and employee retention and that
2.7 Hypotheses
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Presently a total of 932 teachers (population) are serving in Bahria Colleges. Out
of these, 492 are the female teachers whereas remaining 440 are male teachers.
Data was collected from 120 teachers out of which 70 (58%) were females and
remaining 50 (42%) were male teachers. It was found that number of female employees
in Bahria Schools and Colleges was more than the male teachers. The sampling technique
used was non-probability convenience sampling technique (See Table-1 in APPENDIX).
4. DATA ANALYSIS
All hypotheses were tested by using ‘Correlation’ and ‘Regression Analysis’
tools; results and interpretation are given in the ensuing paragraphs.
4.1 Correlation
Statistical tool correlation is considered appropriate for determining the relationship
of the independent variables with and dependent one. This statistical instrument
commonly used to find out the degree to which each independent is linearly associated
with dependent variable (William, and Anuchit, 2002). Having collected primary data
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Determinants of Teachers’ Turnover Intention in Bahria Schools and Colleges at Karachi
4.1.1 Interpretation
Table 2 indicates the correlation between five factors and turnover intention. A
significant inverse relationship has been found between first four factors and turnover
intention. The first factor ‘Career Growth Opportunities’ has value of r = -.726 at P <
0.01; it indicates that one unit increase in CGO corresponds with .635 points decrease
in TI. The second factor ‘Workplace Environment’ has value of r = -.813 and P < 0.01;
it indicates that one unit increase in WE corresponds with .813 points decrease in TI.
The third factor ‘Rewards & Recognition System’ has the highest value among others
i.e. value of r = -.867 at P < 0.01; it indicates that one unit increase in Rewards &
Recognition System corresponds with .867 points decrease in TI. The fourth factor i.e.
‘Managerial Support’ has value of r = -.653 at P < 0.01; it indicates that one unit increase
in MS corresponds with .653 points decrease in TI. In case of fifth factor i.e. ‘Work-
life Balance’, the value of r = -.371 but value of P=.061 (p>.01); it indicates that one
unit increase in WB corresponds with .371 points decrease in TI whereas value of p
being greater than 0.01 shows that inverse relationship of WB with TI is not significant.
Hence, with the help of Pearson Correlation results, it is proved that the first four factors
have significant inverse relationship with teachers’ turnover intention whereas the last
factor, i.e. work-life balance, has a weak inverse relationship with employee turnover
intention which is not significant. Thus first four hypotheses have been accepted whereas
the last one stands rejected.
In order to further test the hypotheses, a multiple regression tool was applied to
4.2.1 Interpretation
The multiple regression analysis result (table 4) indicates different values, against
each of the five independent variables, which help in accepting or rejecting the
hypotheses. Details are discussed under each hypothesis:
Hypothesis-1:
§ Career Growth Opportunities (CGO): In case of Career Growth Opportunities,
the beta value is -.085 and p value is .001 which is less than 0.05; it indicates that there
is a significant negative (inverse) relationship between Career Growth Opportunities
and Turnover Intention. Hence, first hypothesis is accepted.
Hypothesis-2:
§ Workplace Environment (WE): Here in this case, beta value is -.074 and p
value is .000 which less than 0.05 i.e. p < 0.05; it shows a significant negative between
Workplace Environment and Turnover Intention. Hence, second hypothesis is accepted.
Hypothesis-3:
§ Rewards & Recognition System (RRS): In this case, beta value is -.087 and
p value is .000 which less than 0.05 i.e. p < 0.05; it indicates a significant negative
relationship between Rewards & Recognition System and Turnover Intention. Thus,
third hypothesis is accepted.
Hypothesis-4:
§ Managerial Support (MS): Here in this case, beta value is -.049 and p value
is .001 which is less than 0.05 i.e. p < 0.05; it indicates a significant negative relationship
between Managerial Support and Turnover Intention. Hence, our hypothesis is accepted.
Hypothesis-5:
§ Work-life Balance (WB): The beta value, is -.031 and p value is .061 which
is > 0.05; it indicates that the negative relationship between Work-life Balance and
Turnover Intention is not significant; the last hypothesis is rejected.
5. FINDINGS
Results obtained through statistical tools, ‘Pearson Correlation’ and ‘Multiple
Regression’ indicate that all independent variables (i.e. CGO, WE, RRS, MS, WB) are
having an inverse relationship with employee turnover intention. However in case of
last variable (WB), although the relationship is negative but value of p is greater than
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Determinants of Teachers’ Turnover Intention in Bahria Schools and Colleges at Karachi
§ Hypothesis-1
§ Hypothesis-2
Second factor considered for the study i.e. ‘Workplace Environment’ is perceived
to be of immense importance for the teachers’ satisfaction if suitably handled; leading
to their reduced turnover intention. Education institutions therefore need to create and
maintain a conducive and supportive workplace environment where teachers can work
with pleasure, pride and honor. High level of comradeship, cohesiveness and trust
within peers and between management and teachers can significantly reduce turnover
intention. Such an environment can easily be created with mutual support of teachers,
headmasters, VPs and the top management.
§ Hypothesis-3
§ Hypothesis-4
with psychological contract between employee and employer, the same is also
likely to result in low absenteeism and reduced turnover intention. The significant
relationship between managerial support and employee turnover intention indicates
that perhaps teachers of Bahria schools and colleges do get sufficient attention of their
headmasters, VPs and Principals.
§ Hypothesis-5
6. CONCLUSION AND R E C O M M E N D AT I O N S
Having conducted detailed analysis of the data, it can be concluded that all five
independent variables considered for this study have inverse relationship with teachers’
turnover intention (dependent variable) at Bahria schools and colleges. However, lack
of awareness about ‘Work-Life Balance’, especially among male teachers needs to be
further investigated. This can further be attributed to cultural constraint and financial
hardship that teachers may be facing in Karachi. From Management’s perspective, it
is important to ensure that teachers are facilitated in creating a balance between workplace
and family life, as it will help them in establishing better relationship with their institution;
it will ultimately result in satisfied faculty that would help in raising overall standard
of education. Since, rewards and recognition factor has higher scores, Bahria schools
and colleges may further focus on this area and improve rewards and recognition system
with an aim to remain competitive in fast growing private education sector. It will also
be a step towards better employee-employer relationship and reduced employee turnover
intention.
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APPENDIX