Factors of Influencing Civil Servants’ Job Turnover Intention
Tzu-Cheng Yu, Hsiang-Kai Dong
Abstract
Public servants are often regarded as people with better job security than those in the private sector and are considered to have higher human mobility stability and lower turnover intention than private-sector employees. However, a low turnover intention does not mean that public servants have a high degree of “satisfaction” with or “commitment” to their job. On the contrary, the public sector is affected by the unique institutional security and job scarcity, compared with private-sector, and the definition of turnover intention of public servants is more detailed. It is based on the “unit turnover intention” of internal human mobility rather than the “department turnover intention” of giving up the status of public servants. Given that the unit turnover intention of public servants is higher than department turnover intention, this study attempts to use quantitative research methods to explore the factors related to “personal motivation and attitude,” “inter-role conflict between individual and organization” and “organizational management and institution” to determine how strongly they influence the unit turnover intention of public servants and then to understand the cause and nature of the turnover intention of public servants.
This study uses a secondary data analytical method for analysis. The source of the data is the “Taiwan Government Bureaucrats Survey, TGBS V.” A total of 895 valid questionnaires were acquired. After descriptive statistics and ordinal logistic regression analysis, it was found that public service motivation and job burnout significantly increase the unit turnover intention of public servants, while job satisfaction and job fairness significantly contribute to reducing the unit turnover intention of public servants. However, work-family conflict, supervisory leadership effectiveness, and fairness of performance appraisal have no significant effect on the unit turnover intention of public servants. Based on the results of analysis, this study also gave a theory discussion and made some suggestions on managerial implication.
Keywords: turnover intention, personal motivation and attitude, inter-role conflict, organizational management and institution