The effect of job plateau on turnover intention: The role of perceived organizational support, learning self-efficacy, work centrality, ambiguity tolerance, and coaching

Document Type : Original Article

Author

• Alireza Saremi

Ph.D. in Human Resource Management, Payam Noor University

https://doi.org/10.22067/tmj.2022.68312.1027

Abstract

 

INTRODUCTION

Although the literature has paid enough attention to affecting factors of turnover intention, not much attention has been paid to the job plateau comprehensively; even when employees stay in their posts for a long time and few opportunities exist for advancement or increment of responsibilities. This study was aimed at investigating the antecedents of job plateau and its effect on turnover intention moderated by ambiguity tolerance and coaching.
 
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Most of the studies related to turnover intention are focused on the private sector or have examined healthcare employees. Focusing on public sector organizations, municipalities are selected as the biggest service provider in Iran. Although the number of leavers is low in public organizations such as municipalities, the variable of turnover intention should be investigated because of its potential influence on variables such as commitment, job satisfaction, performance, motivation, organizational engagement, and participation. Given the increasing social pressure to improve the quality of services and considering its large number of staff, municipalities should understand the effects of job plateau on their performance, in terms of both the structure and content. Most of the existing studies have considered the affecting factors of turnover intention and neglected the moderating variables.
 
3- METHODOLOGY
The current research is an applied study in terms of purpose, and regarding the method, it is a descriptive survey that describes understudy conditions and phenomena. The research literature was compiled by the library method, and data collection was done by distributing questionnaires. The gathered data was analyzed by structural equation modeling in SmartPLS software. The statistical population was comprised of 2120 experts from municipalities of grades 1 to 7 in the Fars province. Based on Cochran's formula, the sample size was determined to be 325, and the final sample size was 330 people selected by conducting a systematic random sampling method.
 
4- RESULTS & DISCUSSION
The results indicated that perceived organizational support, learning self-efficacy, and structural and content plateau had negative and significant effects on turnover intention. Work concentration negatively affected the structural plateau but not affected the content plateau. Furthermore, coaching negatively moderated the relationship between structural and content plateau with turnover intention. Additionally, ambiguity tolerance positively moderated the relationship between the structural plateau and turnover intention. In general, the research found that employees who are high at ambiguity tolerate the intention to leave the organization by understanding the structural plateau. This finding is not applied to the content plateau.
 
5- CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS
Due to the impact of the structural and content plateau on employees' turnover intention, it seems to be necessary for municipalities to revise the employees' career development plans. According to the investigations, for municipal employees, the starting and ending point of job promotion is not clear, the willingness of political individuals and groups precedes the results, and party and group preferences are very influential. Accordingly, the organization of municipalities and rural districts of the country is suggested to revise the employees' career promotion path by determining the expectations and behaviors that cause employees to perform at high levels. The written expectations should be appropriately informed to employees by holding workshops and training courses. This presents clear information to employees, allows them to define achievable goals for themselves, and improves the subjective criteria of success in the employees' minds. Therefore, it is predicted that this affects the plateau phenomenon and, consequently, the intention to leave the organization.
 
Keywords: Job Plateau, Turnover Intention, Ambiguity Tolerance, Coaching.
 

Keywords

• Job plateau؛ Turnover Intention
• Ambiguity Tolerance
• Coaching

References

References

Allen, M. W.; Armstrong, D. J.; Reid. M. F., & Riemenschneider. C. K. (2008). Factor impacting the perceived organizational support of IT employees, Information & Management. 45, 556-563.

Allen, T. D.; Russell, J. A.; Poteel, M. L., & Dobbins, G. H. (1999). Learning and development factors related to perceptions of job content and hierarchical plateauing, Journal of Organizational Behavior. 20, 1113-1137.

Armstrong-Stassen, M. (2008). Factors associated with job content plateauing among older workers, Career Development International, 13 (7), 594-613.

Arshadi, N., & Hayavi G. (2013). The effective of perceived organizational support on effective commitment and job performance: mediating role of OBSE, Journal of Procedia- social and behavioral sciences. 84, 739- 743.

Ajzen, I. (2002). Residual effects of past on later behavior: Habituation and reasoned action perspectives, Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6(2), 107-122.

Blazeviciene, A., & Milonas, D. (2019). Moral Distress and Intention to Leave the Profession: Lithuanian Nurses in Municipal Hospitals, Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 0(0), 1–9.

Chin, W.W. (2010). How to write up and report PLS analyses. In V. E. Vinzi, W. W. Chin, J. Henseler, H. & Wang (Eds.), Handbook of partial least squares: Concepts, methods and applications in marketing and related fields. Berlin: Springer.

Damnjanovic,V.; Proud, W., & Milosavljevic M. (2020). Mentoring development at student international business case competitions, Euro Med Journal of Business. DOI 10.1108/EMJB-12-2018-0092.

Deranty, J. P. (2015). Historical Objections to the Centrality of Work, Constellations, 22(1), 105-121.

Drucker-Godard, C.; Fouque, T.; Gollety, M., & Flanchec, A. L. (2015). Career Plateauing, Job Satisfaction and Commitment of Scholars in French Universities, Public Organiz Rev. 15, 335–351.

Ettington, D. R. (1998). Successful Career Plateauing, Journal of Vocational Behavior. 52 (11), 72-88.

Kline, R. B. (2012). Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling. New York: Guilford Press.

Eys, M. A.; Beauchamp, M. R.; Bray. S. R., & Carron A.V. (2003). The effect of role ambiguity on competitive state anxiety, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. 25, 77–92.  

Foster, B. P.; Shastri, T., & Withane, S. (2011). The Impact of Mentoring on Career Plateau and Turnover Intentions of Management Accountants, Journal of Applied Business Research. 20(4), 33-43.

Godshalk, V. M., & Fender, M. C. (2014). External and Internal Reasons for Career Plateauing: Relationships with Work Outcomes, Group & Organization Management. 40(4),529-559.

Hajdu, G., & Sik, E. (2018). Age, Period, and Cohort Differences in Work Centrality and Work Values, Societies, 8(1), 1-33.

Hajkarimi, A.; Rezaian, A.; Alamtabriz, A., & Soltani, M. (2012). An intermediate model to explain the relationship between perceptions of organizational support, perceptions of organizational respect, and participation in decision-making with organizational commitment, Strategic management thinking. 6(2),177-200.

Hair, J. F.; Ringle, M., & Sarstedt, M. (2011). PLS-SEM: Indeed, a silver Bullet, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice. 19(2), 139–151.

Heijden, B. I. J. M.; Dam, K. V., & Hasselhorn, H. (2009). Intention to leave nursing, Career Development International, 14(7), 616-635.

Homburg, V.; Heijden, B., & Valkenburg, L. (2013). Whydo nurses change jobs? An empirical study on determinants ofspecific nurses’ post-exit destinations, Journal of Nursing Man-agement, 21(6), 817-826.

Heilmann, S. G.; Holt, D.T., & Rilovick, C. Y. (2008). Effects of career plateauing on turnover: A test of a model, Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studie, 15:  59-68.

Hofstetter, H., & Cohen, A. (2014). The mediating role of job content plateau on the relationship between work experience characteristics and early retirement and turnover intentions, Personnel Review, 43(3), 350-376.

Hom, P. W.; Lee, T. W.; Shaw, J. D., & Hausknecht, J. P. (2017). One hundred years of employee turnover theory and research, Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 530.

Honicke, T., & Broadbent, J. (2016). The influence of academic self-efficacy on academic performance: A systematic review, Educational Research Review, 17, 63–84.

Hwang, J., & Chang, H. (2008). Explaining turnover intention in Korean public community hospitals: occupational differences, Int J Health Plann Mgmt. 23,119-138.

Hwang, J., & Chang, H. (2009). Work climate perception and turnover intention among Korean hospital staff, International nursing review. 56(1), 73-80.

Jang, K. R., & Kim, T. H. (2009). Impacts of career plateau on job commitment, organizational commitment, and counterproductive work behaviors among sport management professionals, Korean journal of physical education, 48(6), 335-346.

Kang, M., & Sung, M. (2019). To leave or not to leave: the effects of perceptions of organizational justice on employee turnover intention via employee-organization relationship and employee job engagement, Journal of Public Relations research. 31(5-6), 1-24.

Kaur, H., & Kaur, R. (2021). Career adaptability and job outcomes: a moderated mediation model of proactivity and job content plateau in educational sector, Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, 4, 929-945.

Kavanaugh, J.; Duffy, J. A., & Lilly, J. (2006). The relationship between job satisfaction and demographic variables for healthcare professionals, Management Research News. 29 (6), 304-25.

Kim, S. D., & Kim, I. G. (2020). The Relationship among Employee Career Plateau, Job Satisfactions, Organizational Cynicism and Turnover Intention of Public Sports Facility in Korea Local autonomy, International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 29(4), 229-238.

Lentz, E., & Allen, T.D. (2009). The Role of Mentoring Others in the Career Plateauing Phenomenon, Group & Organization Management. 34(3), 358-384.

Liou, S. R., & Cheng, C. Y. (2009). Organizational climate, organizational commitment and intention to leave amongst hospital nurses in Taiwan, Journal of Clinical Nursing, 19: 1635–1644.

Mannheim, B.; Baruch, Y., & Tal, J. (1997). Alternative models for antecedents and outcomes of work centrality and job satisfaction of high-tech personnel, Human Relations. 50 (12), 1537-62.

Mcline, D. L. (2009). Evidence of the Properties of an ambiguity tolerance Measure: the Multiple Stimulus Types an ambiguity tolerance Scale-11 (MSTAT-11), Psychological Reports, 105, 975-988.

Meier, K., & Alisa, H. (2008). Employee Turnover and Organizational Performance: Testing a Hypothesis from Classical Public Administration, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. 18, 573–90.

Mikkelsen, A., & Burke, R.I. (2006). Examining the career plateau among police officers, International Journal of police strategy and management, 29 (4), 691-703.

Minjeong Kang, M., & Sung, M. (2019). To leave or not to leave: the effects of perceptions of organizational justice on employee turnover intention via employee-organization relationship and employee job engagement, Journal of Public Relations Research, 31(5-6), 152-175.

Mirkamali, M.; Ebrahimi, S.; khalilbeigi, K., & Fathi, A. (2019). Relationship between job plateau with tendency to leave service, job stress and burnout of employees, Development and transformation. 36,1-9.

Mobasheri, E., & Babaee M. (2017). Investigating the relationship between job plateau and staff leaving the second refinery of South Pars Gas Complex, Research and accounting. 37, 52-63.

Nunally J. (1978). Psychometric theory. New York: Mc Graw-Hill.

Nyberg, A. (2010). Retaining your high performers: Moderators of the performance—job satisfaction—voluntary turnover relationship, Journal of Applied Psychology. 95, 440–53.

Omar, K.; Anuar, M. M.; Salleh, A. M., & Yaakop, A.Y. (2014). Career Plateauing: Is It Still a Matter of Concern, Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences. 5(7), 224-230.

Ongori, H., & Agolla, J.E. (2009). Paradigm shift in managing career plateau in organization: the best strategy to minimize employee intention to quit, African journal of business management, 3(6), 268-271.

Panaccio, A., & Vandenberghe C. (2012). Perceived sacrifice and little alternative commitment: The motivational underpinnings of continuance commitment’s sub dimensions, Journal of Vocational Behavior. 81(1), 59-72.

Park, I. J.; Hai, S.; Lee, S., & Sohn, Y. (2019). Investigating Psychometrics of Career Decision Ambiguity Tolerance Scale, Psycho, 10.

Riggle, J.; Robert, D. R.; Edmondson, J. D., & Hansen, H. (2009). A meta- analysis of the relationship between perceived organizational support and job outcomes: 20 years of research, Journal of business research. 62, 1027-1030.

Robson, A., & Robson, F. (2016). Investigation of nurses’ intention to leave: a study of a sample of UK nurses, Journal of Health Organization and Management, 30(1).

Rotondo, D. M., & Perrewe, P.L. (2000). Coping with a career Plateau: An Empirical Examination of What Works and What Doesn’t, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30, 2622-2646.

Salehardestani, A., & Sayednaghavi M. (2016). Explaining the relationship between job burnout and organizational indifference and the tendency of employees to retire, General Management Research. 9(31), 145-160.

Sarlak, M. (2011). Emerging figures of the organization in the 21st century (theories, applications and challenges). Tehran:  publication of Marjae Danesh. (In Persian).

Schneider, M., & Preckel, F. (2017). Variables associated with achievement in higher education: A systematic review of meta-analyses, Psychological Bulletin, 143(6), 565.

Song, R. G.; Kyoung, S., & Min, L. M. (2018). The curvilinear relationship between career plateauing and organizational citizenship behavior, Journal of Management & Organization. 25(6), 1– 22.

Steinmetz, S. d. V., & Tijdens, K. G. (2014). Should I stay or should I go? The impact of working time and wages on retention in the health workforce, Human resources for health. 12(1), 23.

Su, T. W.; Kuo, J. H.; Cheung, Y. H.; Hung, C. Z.; Lu, S. H., & Cheng J. W. (2017). Effect of Structural/Content Career Plateaus on Job Involvement: Do Institutional/Occupational Intentions Matter, Universal Journal of Management. 5(4), 190-198.

Trybou, J.; Malfait, S.; Gemmel, P,. & Clays, E. (2015). Nursing staff and their team: Impact on intention to leave, International Council of Nurses, 62, 489–496.