The use of the psychological contract to explain turnover intentions inthe hospitality industry: a research study on the impact of gender onthe turnover intentions of highly educated employees

摘要

The subject of this study is the psychological contract approach to the employmentrelationship within the hospitality industry with special reference to highly educatedemployees. The purpose was to research the differences in the psychological contractand its relation to the intention to leave between highly-educated male and femaleemployees. The research study conducted among this specific group worldwideprovided a corpus of 247 respondents. The results show that psychological contractmeasures, and in particular job content, can explain why there is a substantial amountof variance among highly-educated employees regarding their intention to leave anorganization, especially if the mediating role of affective commitment is taken intoaccount. Moreover, it would appear that for women in particular, promotionopportunities and work-family balance were related to turnover intentions while formen the clarity of the job description was an important predictor for leaving.We suggest that the results of this study should be considered when developinggender-specific HRM policies to retain highly-educated staff. Considering thelimitations of this study, we suggest that it be followed by research studies whichconcentrate on the job aspects which may be related to employee turnover.A longitudinal study concentrating on the relation between the psychological contract,turnover intentions and actual turnover behaviour should also be carried out.