• Perceived Organizational Support:
Organizational support is explained as the employees’ perception about the extent to which the firms concern about the individuals well-being and values their efforts at work (Singh and Srivatsava, 2015). Perceived organizational support would be measured in terms of the firms responses to potential occurrences such as an employees future illness, lapses made by the staff and the companies responsibility to remunerate its work force with a fair salary and make the employees jobs meaningful and interesting (Eisenberg et al.,1986). According to Singh and Srivatsava,(2015) Individuals who have experienced favorable treatment from the firm such as higher levels of perceived organizational support would treat the organizational objective as a personal responsibility to contribute to. The study By Wayne et al., (1997) have given primary evidence that managerial
Level employees, as well as employees with lower job profiles, Show their appreciation for Perceived Organizational Support with extra-role behaviors that benefit the company by providing assistance to others in the company in order to perform better at their jobs. By assisting their colleagues carry out their tasks more effectively, employees’ efforts benefits the organization, as well as the other staff member, resulting in high levels of productivity. Employees tend to quit their organizations due to high work demands, Bakker and Schaufeli (2008) have suggested that factors such as autonomy, supervisor support, and social support helps employees manage to overcome stressful work demands. There is a research gap regarding the link between Organizational support and employee engagement, irrespective of the fact that Perceived Organizational Support has been found to be linked to various positive outcomes such as job Satisfaction, organizational commitment, performance (Eisenberger et al., 2002). The current research intends to analyze whether the impact of perceived organizational support on an employees willingness to stay is mediated through employee engagement. Jawarski and Kohli, (1991) have stated that factors such as fair treatment by the manager, feedback on performance and trust in the management/Superiors positively affects organizations loyalty and employee engagement. Supervisors are considered as a representative of the company and the result will be more engagement as reciprocity. Mitchel et al., (2001) suggested that companies should have a better understanding about their employees’ lives both on and off the job in order to retain them in the long term.
Perceived supervisor support:
• Perceived Supervisory Support is explained as the extent to which the staff creates an impression that their supervisors are genuinely concerned about their well-being, appreciates their efforts at work and are generally supportive (Eisenberg et al., 2002). According to Jose and Mampilly, (2015) the relationship between the supervisor and subordinates is a vital component for companies in India because of the hierarchical structure present in the Indian society. With regard to the link between engagement and perceived supervisor support, Singh and Srivatsava (2016) have stated employee engagement and organizational loyalty aspects like fair managerial decisions by their supervisors, critical feedback and trusting relationship with the manager extremely important. (Muhammad and Hamdy, 2005) have provided a result regarding an employee’s tendency to leave their organization reduces when they are provided support from their superior. In certain nations that have a collectivistic culture, employees may prefer to identify themselves as a part of a highly integrated hierarchy of organizational authority. Such references could increase the staffs’ perception that the supervisor personifies the organizations character, concluding in a greater Perceived Supervisory Support-Perceived Organizational Support relationship in comparison to individualistic cultures (Eisenberg et al., 2002). The Perceived Organizational Support as a result from managerial Support would increase an individuals felt obligation to support the company achieves its set goals; improve the organizational commitment levels, with an overall declining trend in turnover intentions and other withdrawal behaviors. (Eisenberger, Armeli, Rexwinkel, Lynch, & Rhoades, 2001; Shore & Shore, 1995; Eisenberger et al., 1986), the same was reiterated by Eisenberg and Rhoades (2002), Study 3 found proof consistent with Organizational Support negatively mediating the effect on PSS-turnover intention. Individual who felt that the managers appreciated their efforts and were concerned about their welfare exhibited increased levels of POS, resulting in the dip in turnover intentions. Both quantitative and qualitative data have stated the importance of the supervisor or the manager and his or her effect over the level of engagement in an employee and their contentment with the firm (Harter et al., 2002). There has been Insufficient consideration given as to why perceived supervisor support and perceived organizational support have been linked with employee withdrawal behavior (Eisenberg et al., 2002). The purpose of this study is to study the above-mentioned variables can have an inverse affect on an organizations turnover intention with positive outcomes such as Job Embeddedness. According to Tymon et al. (2011) research in the United States have also consistently highlighted the connection between turnover intentions and the perception of the managerial support, similarly evidence has been found in India with regard to this link.
• Autonomy: Contemporary organizational behavior research has widened this concept to explain job autonomy as the limit to which a job provide flexibility, self dependence, make decisions and structure their work in order to complete tasks (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006). According to Hackman and Oldham (1976), job autonomy creates a pathway to the critical psychological state of “Experienced responsibility for outcomes of the work”, this leads to several company objectives such as effectiveness during work and high motivation amongst the work force. The positive outcomes and expenses of autonomy are numerous. An example of a beneficial outcome would be in a scenario where an employee who relates to productivity as a desirable outcome would feel that autonomy could pave way to showcase their productive behavior. Increased roles and responsibilities are the key factors of autonomy. This sense of empowerment could be embraced by the staff who are intrinsically motivated and value their job, resulting in increased work effort (Dysvik and Kuvaas, 2011). Employees could perceive job autonomy as a sign of trust, this could enable them to become pro socially motivated and reciprocate by working to their optimum potential (Batson, 1987). According to Pitts et al., (2011) autonomy is linked to empowerment and employees who feel empowered are less likely to leave their organization. Andrews and Wans (2009) have also stated the positive influence autonomy has on turnover intentions. With relevance to job autonomy and job embeddedness, George (2014) has stated that professional employees tend to stay in their current company when they are provided with a certain degree of autonomy, with flexibility provided in workload decisions, the payment structure is transparent and fair and where there is some opportunity for the workforce to craft their jobs with a suitable work-life balance. Job stress has been linked to turnover intentions (Jung and Yoon, 2014) and perceptions of decision making authority and control (Pamela et al., 2016). Reason for this could be either job constraints or workplace constraints. Due to the lack of autonomy, could lead to issues such as over dependence between the person’s tasks and the efforts and contribution of others, resulting in a stressful situation.
A survey of 306 IT professional have provided results suggesting that learning motivation and work exhaustion can be reduced by designing job autonomy in the presence of learning demand leading to decreased levels of turnover intention (Shih et al., 2001).
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• Engagement:
Engagement independently from job resources and positive organizational outcomes—such as commitment—as a positive, fulfilling, affective-motivational state of work-related well-being that is the antipode of job burnout (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter,2001). According to Singh and Srivatsava (2015), engaged employees are willing to invest their optimum potential and are willing to do extra work. The employees work with a lot of passion and have a deep connection to the firm. Employee engagement is a vital factor in influencing the success or failure of the tenure of an employee in an organization. The Characteristics of engagement are expressed through positive physical, cognitive and emotional actions during tasks (Jose and Mampilly, 2015). Organizational objectives such as turnover, profitability, productivity and retention are positively influenced by work engagement (Harter et al., 2002). There are several key outcomes in an employee and corporate level has been positively affected by job engagement. Positive outcome that benefit the organization such as higher levels of employee commitment, job satisfaction and has been negatively related to turnover intentions (Saks, 2006). Bakker and Shaufeli (2004), have also stated the positive impact employee engagement has on organizational commitment and turnover intention. With the increasing attention given to Employee Engagement, scholars are trying to understand what influences engagement in the workforce and how it can be improved (Jose and Mampilly, 2015). The link between the independent variables- Perceived organizational support, supervisor support, autonomy and job embeddedness with engagement, as the mediating factor has yet to be measured. There has been several study on Engagement for the business management community, however it lacks content in the academic sector (Saks, 2006). With reference to the link between job embeddedness and engagement, Mitchel et al.,(2001) have suggested that comparatively job engagement predicts voluntary turnover and intention to quit more than job satisfaction and organizational commitment. With regard to the potential mediating effect of engagement between organizational/supervisor support and embeddedness, Mchugh (2001) have suggested that positive organizational behavior fosters engaged employees and this is vital determinant to enhancing the prospect of higher performance and overall positive effect for the organization and its employees, whilst increasing organizational commitment among the staff, hence reducing the potential negative effect of losing talent. In relation to the first hypothesis between the positive variables and engagement, studies on value congruence (Kristof, 1996; Chatman, 1989) has suggested that when companies cam expect certain behavioral responses from individuals that are closely tied (Congruent) with how they want their ideal self image to perceived, there are high chances of them completely investing their time, effort and emotions into their assigned tasks that is their job design resulting in them being more engaged in their jobs. Engaged employees achieve higher levels of trust from their employer and therefore portray higher organization citizenship behavior (Saks, 2006). Harter et al., (2002) conducted a meta-analysis on work engagement and found significant and positive associations to key results such as higher levels of customer service, increase in productivity, spike in profit margin, reduced employee turnover, and employee safety. Similarly Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) suggested that individuals with high levels of engagement have a sense of greater attachment to their company and decrease intentions to quit the company. Engagement can be utilized as a means to decrease turnover intention in an organization (Baskin, 2007). Bhatnagar (2007) have also supported the suggestion regarding the positive link between employee engagement and retention of talent.
• Job embeddedness:
Embeddedness can be referred to as an infusion of several elements that influences an individual to become tied down to differents aspects of ones life as one’s job or social group. Consequently, job embeddedness, as its name suggests, was developed with the Intention of explaining how different factors play a role in why people choose to stay in their jobs (Mitchell et al., 2001). The purpose of the research is to understand the elements that influence an individual to stay in the organization, According to Kusulvan et al., (2010) job embeddedness is an essential determinant to why people stay. Job satisfaction and organizational commitment are important variables for predicting employee performance and turnover intentions/turnover. Retaining employees, especially high skill workers are important. Tymon et al., (2011) stated how retention of the best high skill workers is of great management benefit to companies as it removes the recruiting, selection and miscellaneous expenses of their substitution cost, maintains progression in their field of expertise and creates an environment where good work is recognized and appreciated. Based on the job demands resource model (Bakker and demerouti, 2007) social relationships in a work context such as the relationship between the employee and their manager, colleagues, management are identified as job resources because they are aspects of work life that are treasured and an inspirational elements for individuals. Conversation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989) state that individuals tend to protect, maintain and value resources that are important to them. This can be interpreted as employees wanting to make sure factors such as the relations with their teammates, personal resources like job related benefits such as status within the job, perks seniority are maintained by them hence being more embedded in the company. Baskin (2007) state that engaged employees tend to stay in their organizations, similarly employees who are not engaged are more likely to quit their tenure at their organization. To date, the specific dynamic of this research has not yet been studied before, and this could help give a unique insight into understanding the relationship between job embeddedness, employee engagement and the predictor. According to George (2014) positive characteristics such as management style, supervisor support, positive work environment, flexibility, friendly and caring colleagues, opportunity of career growth and promotion prospects are highly influential features for employee retention. Employees form relationships with their group members and managers that influences attachment (Graen, Liden & Hoel, 1982). By examining studies regarding organizational job embeddedness, analysis consistently provides a positive prediction on turnover intentions, actual turnover and overall general work attitudes (Lee et al., 2004; Mitchell et al., 2001). In order to strengthen the fit between an employee and the organization, the management need to recruit and select employees in a detailed process. Transparency of information need to be communicated to the candidates prior to the appointment, managers need to support their staff members achieve their career objectives. To enhance the relation between the individual and the society, the manager can inform the employees about community events or amenities. Employers could also consider setting up offices or factories near reasonably priced rental areas to offer an affordable dwelling for the workforce (Cem Tanova and Holtom, 2008). Our results indicate the appropriateness of studying retention and performance as tandem job behaviors and viewing job embeddedness as a meaningful mechanism through which to understand this linkage (Lee et al., 2004). Employee retention is influenced due to a number of link or attachments they have to other people, projects or organizations. The factors that individuals considers as resources or link would probably be too important for them to consider leaving the organization. The links seems to add a level of ego driven status quo. We could interpret these links as factors that adds to the complexity of wanting to leave. In addition, links appear to add “weight” to the status quo. People tent to be more worried about losing or changing these links (Lee et al., 2010).
Proposed hypothesis:
• Hypothesis 1: Employee Engagement mediates the relationship between Perceived Organizational support and Job Embeddedness:
Studies have shown that when employees perceive a good fit between their career objectives, values and skills with the company they are working for, the likelihood of staying in the organization is greater (Chetty, 2015; Mitchell & Lee, 2001). If organization takes these factors into consideration it could be perceived as a supportive action from the company leading to higher levels of organizational support (Pamela et al., 2016). Since engagement is commonly linked with organizational support and job embeddedness the study aims to analyze whether it could play a mediating role between the two variables.
• Hypothesis 2: Employee Engagement mediates the relationship between Perceived Supervisor Support and Job Embeddedness:
There have been several studies regarding how organizational support and supervisor support measures job engagement (Harter et al., 2002). There have research on how supervisor reduces turnover intentions (e.g., Houkes, anssen, de Jonge, & Nijhuis, 2001; Kuvaas & Dysvik, 2010). The purpose of this hypothesis is to analyze the effect supervisor as on engagement and job embeddedness as a separate construct without the influence of organizational support, which has been an overlapping factor while analyzing supervisor support in several studies.
• Hypothesis 3: Employee Engagement mediates the relationship between Job Autonomy and Job Embeddedness:
Perceived job autonomy has been considered as the core aspect of work design, resulting in various positive outcomes. However, researchers have consistently doubted its predictive strength for various outcomes (Johns, 2010). With regard to the increasing need for further research on the predictive ability of job autonomy on employee outcomes (Dysvik and Kuvaas, 2013). The aim of this research is to investigate whether there are positive relations between job autonomy with an employee’s willingness to be retained in an organization and if this is affected by certain influences (Job Engagement).
RESEARCH AIM AND OBJECTIVES
Research aim
The aim of this research is to analyze the relative impact of positive job characteristics (Perceived Organizational support, Supervisor Support, Job Autonomy) on Job Embeddedness.
Objectives
1. Perceived Organizational support has a positive influence on job embeddedness
2. Perceived Supervisor support has a positive impact on job embeddedness
3. Job Autonomy has a positive impact on job embeddedness
4. Job Engagement mediates the relationship between the predictor variables and job embeddedness
Method
The participants consisted of only Indian employees. All Individuals involved in the project were above the age of 20. The majority of the individuals were from the IT sector 9.9%. The sample population had individuals working across various industries. In total, there were 234 respondents with 50% of the sample completing the survey; the sample consisted of 80.9% male and 18.4% women. The questionnaire was distributed to employees in an operational level to a managerial level, out of which 54.6% held a senior level post.
Conceptual Framework
The proposed framework in Figure 1, illustrates the identified gaps in the literature. The framework is a casual model depicting the flow of influence from the predictive variables (Organizational support, Supervisor support and job autonomy) to Job Embeddedness with Job Engagement as a mediator between the dependent and independent factors.
Type of Investigation
Quantitative research methodology will be used for this research as this method is suitable for testing theories by examining the relation between the variables (Zikmund, 2000). There are several research methods that could be adopted. According to Sauders et al., (2009) the three main types of methods used based on the relevance to their purpose are as follows- Causal, exploratory and descriptive research/hypothesis tests. The suitable method is based on the level of information that exists in the area of research (Sekaran and Bougie, 2010) and the literature in similar fields of study (Sauders et al., 2009). Using a similar approach to other studies increases the accuracy and reliability of results (Bryman and Bell, 2011). The research topic requires a causal research type of investigation in order to identify the relationship between factors and their flow of action (Zikmund, 2000). Stated that causal research
Examines each cause variable and examines the cause and examines the impact these factors have on the end outcome. Since, the objective of the study is to understand the cause and effect relationship of organizational support, supervisor support and job autonomy on an employees willingness to stay (Job Embeddedness) this would be appropriate approach.
Measures and Measurement
In a research design measurement of variables is essential (Sekaran and Bougie, 2010). Ghauri and Gronhaug (2005) have stated that the validity of the results is highly influenced by the scales used to measure the data. The appropriate measure is key to analysis the required hypothesis.
Constructs
There are 5 constructs measured in this study namely Perceived Organizational Support, Work design Questionnaire, Utrecht work engagement scale-9, Global Job Embeddedness Scale, Perceived Supervisor Support scale The proposed measures of these constructs are listed in Appendix 1.
4.4.2 Scales
Engagement- Utrecht Work Engagement Scale UWES-9; Schaufeli, Bakker and Salanova, 2006) The 9 item self report scale was used to analyze work engagement. The scale is characterized by 3 dimesionsions: Vigour (e.g: “At my job, I feel strong and vigorous”), Dedication (“I am enthusiastic about my job”), Absorption (“I am immersed in my work”) Items were rated in a seven-point frequency scale ranging from 1=Never to 7=Always. The chronbach’s alpha of this scale was .900.
Perceived Organizational Support: The shorter 8 item Survey of Perceieved organization support scale was used to analyze POS (Eisenberg et al.,1986). In order to control for an agreement response bias the scale have two items that were negatively scored (e.g: “My organization shows very little concern for me”, “If given the opportunity, my organization would take advantage of me”).The items were rated in a seven point Likert scale from 1=Strongly disagree to 7=Strongly agree. The Cronbachs alpha for Organisational support signified high reliability at .828.
Autonomy: The job autonomy scale was assessed by nine items validated by Morgeson and Humphrey (2006). The scale was measured in a 5 item likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree. The Cronbachs alpha for this scale was .929, which signifies high reliability.
Job Embeddedness: The Global Measurement of Job Embeddedness scale (Crossley et al., 2007) was used to measure the Dependent variable Job Embeddedness. The scale consisted of 8 items with the range of options according to the 5 point Likert scale (1-Strongly disagree to 5-Strongly agree). The reliability of the scale stated that the Cronbachs alpha is at .778.
Perceived Supervisor Support: Following the procedure used by Kotke and Shafrinski (1988) and Rhoades et al., (2011) Four items from the Survey of perceived organizational support was used replacing the term organization for supervisor their adaption was used based on their adaptive form and High reliability with Cronbachs alpha at .838
Data Collection method
This study utilizes a survey technique, where a self-administered questionnaire (Bryman and Bell, 2011) is prepared and sent out to the participants. A closed structured questionnaire has been implemented. Questionnaires are extensively used in quantitative data collection (Kent, 2007). This strategy was picked as previous research that analyzed constructs that are related to this study’s conceptual model have used this survey technique, confirming its reliability and validity
(Bryman and Bell, 2011). It should also be noted that implementing a closed structured questionnaire mutually benefits the participant and the researcher, it is simple to process and complete, increases the comparability of responses and lowers the probability of variances in the answers (Bryman and Bell, 2011).
Questionnaire administration
The questionnaire is web-based and will be administered and distributed using Qualtrics. In compliance with the ethical guidelines set by BPS, an introductory page was made available with information regarding the purpose of the research, the approximate duration taken to complete the survey, the option to withdraw from completing or omitting certain questions in the survey,
Contact details are enlisted if they wish to clarify any queries and reassurance about the confidentiality of their responses in the questionnaire. The participants were asked to provide a memorable name in order for them to be identified should they wish to withdraw their results upon completion of the survey. Individuals were required to acknowledge the informed consent by clicking on the tick option before starting with the survey, instructions regarding the correct procedure of filling in the questionnaire were also provided in this section. Upon completion of the survey, participants were presented with a debrief page which thanked them for filling in the survey, an additional description of the research project and reiterate the anonymity and confidentiality of the survey with the right to withdraw at any given time.
Research Population
The participants consisted of only Indian employees. All Individuals involved in the project were all above the age of 20; the majority of the subjects were from the IT sector 9.9%. The sample population had individuals working across various industries. In total, there were 234 respondents with 50% of the sample completing the survey; the sample consisted of 80.9% male and 19.1% women. The questionnaire was distributed to employees in an operational level to a managerial level, out of which 54.6% held a senior level post.
Sampling Method
The Non-probability sampling method will be used due to time constraints in order to conduct the research. Based on the nature of the survey distribution, convenience and snowball sampling techniques will be used. Bryman and Bell (2011) have debated that though this technique is effective and used extensively, it does not provide accurate representation of the participants and findings cannot ne generalized. Since the research require working professionals without the criteria of a specific industry background the method of sampling can be implemented. The snowball and convenience sampling techniques are ideal for data collection that is time restricted (Bryman and Bell, 2011).
Sampling Size
In order to identify the ideal sample size for a research involve various factors such as time constrains, cost and resources, relative and absolute sample size (Bryman and Bell, 2011). Acccroding to Kent (2007) the choice of the sample size are established based on rule-of-thumb, previous article and journal related to the study, experience of the researcher or participant. However, irrespective of the strategy determining the sample, it must be related to the statistical analysis that is used in the research (Bryman and Bell, 2011). McGoldrick et al., (2001) suggests that a sample should have a minimum of 100 respondents for every a research study. The total sample size of the study is 250, giving room for anticipated non-responses. This study will use SPSS software to analyze the data.
Procedure:
The online survey was created through Qualtrics and distributed amongst the respondents via an email link. In accordance to the ethical guidelines set by BPS, an introductory page was made available with information regarding the purpose of the research, the approximate duration taken to complete the survey, the option to withdraw from completing or omitting certain questions in the survey,
Contact details are enlisted if they wish to clarify any queries and reassurance about the confidentiality of their responses in the questionnaire. The participants were asked to provide a memorable name in order for them to be identified should they wish to withdraw their results upon completion of the survey. Individuals were required to acknowledge the informed consent by clicking on the tick option before starting with the survey, instructions regarding the correct procedure of filling in the questionnaire were also provided in this section. Upon completion of the survey, participants were presented with a debrief page which thanked them for filling in the survey, an additional description of the research project and reiterate the anonymity and confidentiality of the survey with the right to withdraw at any given time.