The relationships between servant leadership, job embeddedness, and turnover intention of information technology employees

Abstract

Besides the remarkable development of the Information Technology (IT) industry in Vietnam, the high level of turnover intention is still a great challenge among businesses in this area. Therefore, finding factors that help to improve this situation is indispensable. This study aims to provide a conceptual model to explain the role of Servant Leadership (SL) and Job Embeddedness (JE) in decreasing IT engineers’ turnover intention. Using the quantitative approach, the data collected from 240 IT engineers in Ho Chi Minh City were analyzed by the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) method with SPSS and AMOS software. The research findings show that SL positively affects IT engineers’ JE (β = 0.597, p = 0.006), and has a negative effect on their turnover intention (β = -0.366, p = 0.006). In addition, JE not only negatively influences IT engineers’ turnover intention (β = -0.237, p = 0.04) but also plays a mediating role in the indirect effect of SL on turnover intention (β = -0.141, p = 0.029). The current study contributes to the literature by explaining the detailed mechanism by which SL influences employee turnover intention and highlights the mediating role of JE in this relationship. Based on these findings, the study emphasizes the vital role of SL and JE in decreasing employee turnover intention and provides managerial implications for organizations in the IT industry.