Leadership and Turnover Intentions in a Public Hospital: The Mediating Effect of Organisational Commitment and Moderating Effect by Activity Department

Abstract

This research aimed to study the effect of leadership (transformational and transactional) on turnover intentions and whether this relationship is mediated by organisational commitment and moderated by the department of activity. To this end, it was hypothesized that: (1) leadership has a negative and significant association with turnover intentions; (2) leadership has a positive and significant association with affective organisational commitment; (3) organisational commitment has a negative and significant association with turnover intentions; (4) organisational commitment has a mediating effect on the relationship between leadership and turnover intentions; (5) the department to which the employee belongs has a moderating effect on the relationship between leadership and organisational turnover intentions. The sample consists of 477 participants working at the Hospital Professor Doutor Fernando Fonseca (HFF) in Portugal, performing their functions in several departments. This is a quantitative, correlational, and cross-sectional study. The results indicate that transformational leadership has a negative and significant effect on turnover intentions and a positive and significant effect on affective and normative commitment. Transactional leadership negatively and significantly affects all three components of organisational commitment. Affective and normative commitment has a negative and significant effect on turnover intentions. Calculative commitment has a positive and significant effect on turnover intentions. Affective commitment and calculative commitment have a partial mediating effect on the relationship between transformational leadership and organisational turnover intentions. The department to which the employee belongs does not have a moderating effect on the relationship between leadership and turnover intentions. It has been proven that leadership plays an extremely important role in the smooth running of this hospital unit.

The Mediating Effect of Affective Commitment on the Relationship between Competence Development and Turnover Intentions: Does This Relationship Depend on the Employee’s Generation?

“…The strength of the effect was practically the same between the three generations. Once again, among the variables under study, the one that proved to be the best reducer of intentions to leave was affective commitment, in line with the results obtained in previous studies Martins et al 2023).…”

“…At a time when one of the biggest problems facing organizations is high employee turnover (Reiche 2008;Martins et al 2023), leading to substantial financial losses for organizations, as the loss of a highly competent employee will affect the organization's reputation, profitability, and performance (Kumar et al 2021;Kakar et al 2023), this study has confirmed that if an organization wants to retain its best employees, it must invest in developing their skills in order to boost their emotional commitment and reduce their intentions to leave (Koster et al 2011;Nguyen et al 2020;Rodrigues et al 2019). It was also concluded that, of all the development practices studied, individualized support acts as the greatest reducer of intentions to leave, results that are maintained when analyzing the effect by generation.…”

The Mediating Effect of Affective Commitment on the Relationship between Competence Development and Turnover Intentions: This Relationship Depends on the Employee’s Generation?

“…Once again, among the variables under study, the one that proved to be the best reducer of intentions to leave was affective commitment, in line with the results obtained in previous studies Martins et al, 2023).…”

“…At a time when one of the biggest problems facing organizations is high employee turnover (Reiche, 2008;Martins et al, 2023), this study has confirmed that if an organization wants to retain its best employees, it must invest in developing their skills in order to boost their emotional commitment and reduce their intentions to leave (Koster et al, 2011;Nguyen et al, 2020;Rodrigues et al, 2019).…”

Patterns of occupational commitment among nurses: a latent profile analysis

“…Research on workplace commitment dates back to the 1960s and has focused primarily on the concept of organizational commitment ( Cohen, 2011 ). Organizational commitment refers to a psychological state that binds the individual to the organization ( Martins et al, 2023 ). With the current workforce becoming increasingly complex and flexible, people can no longer assume that organizational commitment is the only or primary commitment in the workplace ( Cohen, 2011 ).…”