DO COMMITMENT BASED HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES INFLUENCE JOB EMBEDDEDNESS AND INTENTIONS TO QUIT?

Debjani GHOSH and L. GURUNATHAN

A growing body of evidence suggests that although the relationship between commitment based human resource practices (CBHRP) and employee turnover is well established, the intermediate elements are still not clear. Building on the social exchange theory, the paper argues that employees’ perception of CBHRP significantly influences employees’ intention to quit by fostering workplace ties.  Most of the prior CBHRP–employee turnover studies have been carried out from the HR manager’s perspective.  The present study has taken a different approach and looked at this relationship from an employee’s perspective. Under CBHRP, the organisation views employee management as an investment and is concerned with the long-term well-being of its employees. In exchange, the employees’ reciprocate with discretionary role behaviours or contributions that benefit the organisation over the long term. Such characteristics of high-quality relational systems enmesh individuals within a relational web, thus embedding employees more extensively into the organisation. Survey questionnaires were used to collect data from 501 employees working in financial service companies in India.  Hierarchical linear regression analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses. The study not only confirmed that CBHRP lower employee intentions to leave, but also that this relationship is partially mediated by on- the - job embeddedness. Consequently, the present study builds on emerging literature linking strategic human resource management (SHRM) and on – the- job embeddedness and off- the job embeddedness by focussing on CBHRP.