Brain drain in microfinance institutions: the role of gender and organizational factors

Abstract

PurposeUncontrollable brain drain (employees’ turnover) has been found to hamper humanitarian and sustainable objectives of socially oriented organizations. Hence, this study aims to explore the roles of gender and organizational-level factors on the rate of employees’ turnover in microfinance institutions (MFIs).Design/methodology/approachThe study used an unbalanced panel data of 235 MFIs spanning the period 2010–2019. Based on the availability of the required data set on the World Bank catalogue (in collaboration with Microfinance Information Exchange-MIX Market), this study covers four South Asian countries, namely, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Then, the authors analyzed the data using the conventional panel data regression techniques (e.g. fixed effects model and random effects model).FindingsThe regression results revealed that women leaders (board members) could significantly reduce the employee turnover rate of MFIs. Although the efficiency wage hypothesis is supported in this study, it depends on the profit orientation of the MFIs. This study also confirmed that financial sustainability and donations have helped MFIs to reduce their employees’ turnover, which reiterates the image and brand value effect of MFIs. Moreover, the overall gender development and legal status (e.g. Bank and Non-Bank Financial Institutions) have also been found to have an effect on employees’ turnover based on the sub-sample analysis.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is among the first to investigate the impact of gender and institutional characteristics on employees’ turnover based on a large and recent panel dataset from selected South Asian countries.