How True is Turnover Intention? Assessing its Relations to University Academics’ Job Burnout and Affective Commitment

Abstract

Seo and Ko (2002) defined turnover intention as one’s intention to voluntarily terminate or withdraw his or her employment relationship. This study examines the effects of job burnout and affective commitment on university academics’ turnover intention among full-time academics working in various private Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs) within Klang Valley, Malaysia. Standardised questionnaires including Maslach’s Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey, Allen and Meyer’s Affective Commitment Scale and a Turnover Intention Scale by Kelloway, Gottlieb and Barham were used in this study to measure academics’ levels of turnover intention, affective commitment and burnout. Academics’ socio-demographic variables such as age, gender, race, academic qualifications and duration of service were controlled in all analyses. Overall, the study yielded 2 important findings: First, burnout was found to have significant effects on academics’ turnover intention and second, results also indicate that affective commitment mediates the relationship between burnout and turnover intention among academics’. The findings of this study thus provide strong suggestions for the management of private HLIs to have careful insight in formulating strategies to deal and prevent turnover intention among academic staff in the future.