Investigating the relationship between managerialist employment relations and employee turnover intention. The case of Nigeria
| Date | 06 January 2020 |
| Pages | 52-74 |
| Published date | 06 January 2020 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-08-2018-0226 |
| Author | Emeka Smart Oruh,Chima Mordi,Akeem Ajonbadi,Bashir Mojeed-Sanni,Uzoechi Nwagbara,Mushfiqur Rahman |
| Subject Matter | Hr & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
Investigating the relationship
between managerialist
employment relations and
employee turnover intention
The case of Nigeria
Emeka Smart Oruh
University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
Chima Mordi
Brunel Business School, Uxbridge, UK
Akeem Ajonbadi and Bashir Mojeed-Sanni
Higher Colleges of Technology, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Uzoechi Nwagbara
University of Sunderland, London, UK, and
Mushfiqur Rahman
School of Management, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between managerialist employment
relations and employee turnover intention in Nigeria. The study context is public hospitals in Nigeria, which
have a history of problematic human resource management (HRM) practice, a non-participatory workplace
culture, managerialist employment relations and a high employee turnover intention.
Design/methodology/approach –Based on a qualitative, interpretive approach, this paper investigates
the process by which Nigerian employment relations practices trigger the employee turnover intention of
doctors using 33 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in public hospitals.
Findings –This study found that Nigeria’s managerialist employment relations trigger the employee
turnover intention of medical doctors. Additionally, it was found that although managerialist employment
relations lead to turnover intention, Nigeria’s unique, non-participatory and authoritarian employment
relations system exacerbates this situation, forcing doctors to consider leaving their employment.
Research limitations/implications –Studies on the interface between managerialism and employment
relations are still under-researched and underdeveloped. This paper also throws more light on issues
associated with managerialist employment relations and human resources practice including stress, burnout
and dissatisfaction. Their relationship with doctors’turnover intention has significant implications for
employment policies, engagement processes and HRM in general. The possibility of generalising the findings
of this study is constrained by the limited sample size and its qualitative orientation.
Originality/value –This paper contributes to the dearth of studies emphasising employer–employee
relationship quality as a predictor of employee turnover intention and a mediator between managerialist
organisational system and turnover intention. The study further contributes to the discourse of employment
relations and its concomitant turnover intention from developing countries’perspective within the medical sector.
Keywords Nigeria, Managerialism, Employment relations, Employee turnover intention
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Given the nature of workload, stress and lack of flexibility in the medical profession
(Sibert, 2011), organisations are expected to provide engaging and participatory employment
relations framework to enable participation, satisfaction and motivation as well as to reduce
conflict and stress in the workplace (Dysvik and Kuvaas, 2010). These issues are crucial for
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 42 No. 1, 2020
pp. 52-74
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-08-2018-0226
Received 30 August 2018
Revised 15 March 2019
24 May 2019
Accepted 28 May 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
52
ER
42,1
sustainable organisational success. Thus, a key challenge for organisations is the long-term and
sustainable retention of good employees, who are the main resources that organisations
use to provide effective service and create wealth within the organisation. Long-term and
sustainable employee retention is related to job satisfaction among the workforce and reduced
employee turnover (intention) (Armstrong, 2011). Furthermore, long-term employer–employee
relationships are often affected by a number of factors, including managerial practice (Mueller
and Carter, 2005), organisational commitment (Cho and Lewis, 2011), relational satisfaction (Cho
and Lewis, 2011) and ultimately, an employment relations system (Kim et al., 2017). As argued by
Kim et al. (2017), employee turnover in a high-performing organisation is particularly harmful to
organisational performance (Hussain and Asif, 2012) and success (Mosadeghrad et al.,2008).
Employee turnover can be defined as individual movement across the membership boundary of
a social or organisational system, which is initiated by the individual (Kim et al., 2017).
Employee turnover has received substantial attention in the relevant literature (Cho and
Lewis, 2011; Joo and Park, 2010). It is thus crucial to identify and understand the likely
triggers thereof, which can help in predicting employee turnover. A range of factors can be
responsible for employee turnover, including lack of job satisfaction (Egan et al., 2004),
motivation Dysvik and Kuvaas (2010), organisational justice (Timinepere et al., 2018) and
perceived organisational support (Ertas, 2015) as well as managerialism (Brunnetto, 2002).
Given that employee turnover can jeopardise an organisation’s performance and success
and that it can be expensive for an organisation, scholars (Hussain and Asif, 2012;
Mosadeghrad et al., 2008) have explored the concept in great detail to understand why
people leave organisations and/or intend to stay or leave.
Similarly, employee turnover intention has also been widely investigated by scholars
( Joo and Park, 2010) because of its relationship with actual employee turnover (Kim et al.,
2017). Employee turnover intention explains the withdrawal cognition process in which an
employee thinks of quitting a particular job as well as their intention to leave a job (Kim
et al., 2017). It is often used as the dependent factor in a number of works on actual employee
turnover. Employee turnover intention is generally considered to be a common issue at
work; however, it is a widespread phenomenon in the medical profession (Timinepere et al.,
2018). For example, a study by Wen et al. (2018) concluded that improving job satisfaction in
relation to increased salary, job safety and promotion among other factors is critical for
decreasing turnover intention among primary-care doctors. However, as suggested by
Clarke and Newman (1997), an organisation that is managerialist in its orientation and
practice is inclined not to ensure that doctors or other employees have job satisfaction, given
the pressures of managerialism for managers to make profit for shareholders (Brunnetto,
2002). Hence, managerialism promotes transaction-cost economic ideals and the belief that
employers or capitalists are rational entities driven by economic self-interest (Klikauer,
2015). This philosophy maintains that managers (who act in the interest of employers) are
constantly rational and parochially self-interested agents who customarily advance their
subjectively defined interest maximally at the expense of employees.
A report by the International Labour Organization (Yildiz, 2018) states that there is a
growing trend of negative physiological, psychological and social challenges experienced in
the workplace by employees, and that these challenges are rooted in managerialist human
resources (HR) policies and practices. For instance, studies by both Tham (2007) and Asegid
et al. (2014) confirm this observation. As ar gued by McIntosh et al. (2012)in an environment in
which doctors are perennially pressured to deliver quality services, their work–life balance
(WLB) challenges are intensifiedgiven the dynamics of the managerial HR practicesprevalent
in Nigeria (Adisa et al., 2016). To this end, Timinepere et al. (2018) concluded that a lack of
organisational justice,such as poor HR practice(including managerialistemployment relations
system, (Mueller and Carter, 2005), necessitates empl oyee turnover intention for both medical
and non-medical employees in Nigeria. In Nigeria, a lack of flexibility in the medical sector
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Managerialist
employment
relations
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