A Test of Direct and Partially Mediated Relationships Between Leader Member Exchange, Job Embeddedness, Turnover Intentions, and Job Search Behaviors in a Southern Police Department

Abstract

Job embeddedness has been found to predict turnover intentions, job search behaviors and turnover, and job embeddedness researchers assert, but have not tested, that job embeddedness is a mediator of other organizationally significant factors relative to organizational outcomes. A relationship not previously explored is the role of a supervisor in job embeddedness, which was operationalized in this study as leader-member exchange. A single panel survey was conducted in a police department in the southern United States with 276 current members holding the rank of police officer. Usable surveys were completed by 128 of those police officers, which is a response rate of 46 percent. These surveys assessed the participant's perceptions of leader-member exchange, organizational job embeddedness, turnover intentions, and job search behaviors. The results indicated statistically significant positive correlations between leader-member exchange and the organizational job embeddedness, and significant negative correlations between leader-member exchange and turnover intentions, leader-member exchange and job search behaviors, organizational job embeddedness and turnover intentions, and organizational job embeddedness and job search behaviors. The literature suggested an a priori model in which the exogenous variable leader-member exchange directly affected organizational job embeddedness, which directly affected turnover intentions, which directly affected job search behaviors. In this a priori model the relationship between leader-member exchange and turnover intentions and job search behaviors was mediated by organizational job embeddedness. A measurement model, a saturated structural model, and 4 nested models were tested through structural equation modeling and each was found to be an acceptable fit to the data. There was no statistically significant difference between any of the models and the most parsimonious was accepted. In that model leader-member exchange had a direct positive effect on organizational job embeddedness, which in turn had a direct negative effect on turnover intentions, which in turn had a direct positive effect on job search behaviors. These findings support the proposition that having a good relationship with a supervisor improves the extent to which the employee is embedded in the organization and that embeddedness reduces turnover intentions which reduces job search behaviors.