Transformational leadership, employee turnover intention, and actual voluntary turnover in public organizations

ABSTRACT

This research seeks to make contributions to the organization-level analysis of voluntary turnover in public organizations. Structural equation modelling is used to explore how transformational leadership makes a difference on employees’ actual quitting behaviour. Moreover, the research provides empirical evidence on the relationship between turnover intention and actual turnover. The findings suggested that transformational leadership not only directly prevents employees from forming intentions to leave but also indirectly does so by cultivating a collaborative culture. Additionally, we found that higher turnover intention leads to higher actual turnover rate, so turnover intention may be a valid proxy of actual turnover behaviour.

KEYWORDS:

• Transformational leadership
• collaborative culture
• turnover intention
• actual voluntary turnover

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rusi Sun

Rusi Sun is an assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Her research interests include leadership and organizational behavior, organizational goals and design, personnel management and performance measurement in public and nonprofit organizations

Weijie Wang

Weijie Wang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Administration, State University of New York at Brockport. His research focuses on collaborative governance and public personnel management.