Abstract
Orientation: Attracting and retaining academic staff needs to become a priority for tertiary institutions.Research purpose: Instead of spending funds on replacing staff members, tertiary institutions need to invest in interventions to keep staff committed to and embedded into the organisation.Motivation for the study: Lecturing staff are valuable resources that need to be nurtured, taken care of, and retained to keep tertiary institutions functioning effectively. This study focused on factors that impact lecturing staff’s decision to stay at or leave the University of Namibia.Research approach/design and method: Making use of quantitative research (a questionnaire), data was collected from lecturing staff (n = 242) to investigate the relationship between organisational commitment, job embeddedness and turnover intention.Main findings: Affective commitment, normative commitment, organisational fit and organisational sacrifices reported significant negative relationships with turnover intention. Affective commitment, organisational fit and organisational sacrifice were found to be significant predictors of turnover intention.Practical/managerial implications: Including lecturing staff in the decision-making process, ensuring that there is an equitable exchange for their labour and being fair during interactions enhances psychological meaningfulness and affective commitment. Providing career development opportunities enhances organisational fit, effectiveness of staff and reduces turnover intention. Assessing the job demands-resources relationship remains of cardinal importance.Contributions/value-add: Provision of benefits, employees identifying with the organisation and having the needed resources mitigate the demands of the job, reduce exhaustion, enhance levels of commitment and decrease turnover intention.
Highlights
The alarming rate at which academic staff members leave tertiary institutions could result in the ineffective functioning of this profession (Bezuidenhout &; Cilliers, 2011; Derbew, Gebrekiros, Hailu, Fekade, & Mekasha, 2014)
Affective commitment reported a relationship with continuance commitment (r = –0.13, p < 0.05; small), normative commitment (r = 0.61, p < 0.05; large), organisational fit (r = 0.69, p < 0.05; large), organisational links (r = 0.33, p < 0.05; medium), organisational sacrifice (r = 0.50, p < 0.05; large) and turnover intention (r = –0.49, p < 0.05; medium)
This study identified the importance of organisational fit, matching resources to job demands; matching skills to job roles and how it impacts on affective commitment
Summary
The alarming rate at which academic staff members leave tertiary institutions could result in the ineffective functioning of this profession (Bezuidenhout &; Cilliers, 2011; Derbew, Gebrekiros, Hailu, Fekade, & Mekasha, 2014). It was observed that younger academics are experiencing a higher level of turnover intention compared with older academics (Gurmessa & Tefera, 2019). These younger academics are needed for sustainability and continuation of academic institutions: The changing and unstable workplace and its profoundly negative impact on employee loyalty, morale, motivation and job security have led to a renewed interest in the motives and values that determine individuals’ psychological attachment to their organisations and occupations. The job demands–resources theory was developed by Bakker and Demerouti (2007) to explain the interaction between the job demands and job resources employees experience at work. This study will assess the relationship between organisational commitment, job embeddedness and turnover intention amongst lecturing staff in Namibia. It will evaluate whether organisational commitment and job embeddedness predict turnover intention of Namibian lecturing staff
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
