Investigating accountants' occupational commitment and occupational turnover intention: evidence from Turkish accountants

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between accountants’ attachment to their occupation and its influence on their turnover intentions to their profession. The data used in this study were taken from 162 accountants that are members of Istanbul Chambers of Certified Public Accountants (ICCPA). Accountants’ commitment to their occupation was assessed with the 18-item occupational commitment instrument which was developed by Meyer et al. (1993) and their occupational turnover intention measured by Meyer et al.’s (1993) three-item and Moore’s (2000) two-item. All items are measured on five-point scale, ranging from 1 ‘strongly disagree’ to 5 ‘strongly agree’. Structural equation modelling was used to estimate the relationship between occupational commitment, three dimensional occupational commitment and turnover intention using competing configuration models. The results reveal that affective occupational commitment has statistically significant negative impact on turnover intention whereas other dimensions such as continuous and normative occupational commitment did not have significant effect on turnover intention.