An empirical investigation of turnover intentions of internal auditors.

摘要

Excessive turnover in any organization should be of concern to its management. The high cost of turnover, which includes losing qualified personnel, necessitates management's continuing efforts to seek out reasons valued employees leave voluntarily. Prior studies show that organizational events requiring layoffs can lead to undesirable outcomes, such as turnover. This study examines how outsourcing, a management decision that results in layoffs, impacts turnover intentions of internal auditors. Although outsourcing is not a new phenomenon, management's plans to improve efficiency and enhance financial performance by outsourcing have brought the topic to a higher level of attention. The study proposes that outsourcing creates a degree of job insecurity and can result in undesirable changes in professional and organizational commitments and a higher probability of turnover intentions. Internal auditors respond to survey items that measure their psychological state (job insecurity), the consequences of job insecurity (professional commitment and organizational commitment), and the outcome (turnover intention). Structural equation modeling is used to analyze the relationships among the study variables. Results of the study show that the internal auditors in this sample have relatively low levels of job insecurity. The results also suggest that it is in the organization's best interest, when engaged in outsourcing, to monitor job insecurity. The significant relationships among variables indicate that an increased level of job insecurity negatively affects professional commitment and organizational commitment and is positively related to turnover intention.