Job satisfaction and turnover in the Chinese retail industry

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate employee turnover in a leading Chinese retail organisation, where high turnover rates are recognised as being a major issue for human resource strategy. The study seeks to focus on the job satisfaction-turnover relationship, examining how this is...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Tian, Amy
Format: Journal Article
Published: Emerald Group Publishing 2009
Online Access:http://www.emeraldinsight.com/
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/40716
_version_ 1848755945550643200
author Tian, Amy
author_facet Tian, Amy
author_sort Tian, Amy
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate employee turnover in a leading Chinese retail organisation, where high turnover rates are recognised as being a major issue for human resource strategy. The study seeks to focus on the job satisfaction-turnover relationship, examining how this is moderated by occupation. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review on employee job satisfaction and employee turnover provides the basis for the research model and hypotheses. A self-completion questionnaire survey, involving 164 respondents (95.4 per cent response rate) from a leading Chinese retail organisation was used to gather data and test existing theory in a Chinese context. Findings – The results provided strong support for the hypothesised negative relationship between employee turnover intention and job satisfaction. Occupation is also significantly associated with job satisfaction, turnover intention and the job satisfaction-turnover relationship: non-management/frontline employees expressed higher levels of intention to leave their job than management/office employees. Research limitations/implications – The sample was limited to one retail organisation in China. It may not be appropriate to generalise the findings across other populations or settings. However, the sample can be viewed as a representative case typical of many other organisations in the same industry. Practical implications – The results provide insight into the impact of employee job satisfaction on turnover intention in the particular Chinese retail setting which could benefit managers and policy makers in the focus organisation as well as other organisations operating in the same sector in general.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T09:04:22Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-40716
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T09:04:22Z
publishDate 2009
publisher Emerald Group Publishing
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-407162017-09-13T14:02:54Z Job satisfaction and turnover in the Chinese retail industry Tian, Amy Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate employee turnover in a leading Chinese retail organisation, where high turnover rates are recognised as being a major issue for human resource strategy. The study seeks to focus on the job satisfaction-turnover relationship, examining how this is moderated by occupation. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review on employee job satisfaction and employee turnover provides the basis for the research model and hypotheses. A self-completion questionnaire survey, involving 164 respondents (95.4 per cent response rate) from a leading Chinese retail organisation was used to gather data and test existing theory in a Chinese context. Findings – The results provided strong support for the hypothesised negative relationship between employee turnover intention and job satisfaction. Occupation is also significantly associated with job satisfaction, turnover intention and the job satisfaction-turnover relationship: non-management/frontline employees expressed higher levels of intention to leave their job than management/office employees. Research limitations/implications – The sample was limited to one retail organisation in China. It may not be appropriate to generalise the findings across other populations or settings. However, the sample can be viewed as a representative case typical of many other organisations in the same industry. Practical implications – The results provide insight into the impact of employee job satisfaction on turnover intention in the particular Chinese retail setting which could benefit managers and policy makers in the focus organisation as well as other organisations operating in the same sector in general. 2009 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/40716 10.1108/17506140911007503 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/ Emerald Group Publishing restricted
spellingShingle Tian, Amy
Job satisfaction and turnover in the Chinese retail industry
title Job satisfaction and turnover in the Chinese retail industry
title_full Job satisfaction and turnover in the Chinese retail industry
title_fullStr Job satisfaction and turnover in the Chinese retail industry
title_full_unstemmed Job satisfaction and turnover in the Chinese retail industry
title_short Job satisfaction and turnover in the Chinese retail industry
title_sort job satisfaction and turnover in the chinese retail industry
url http://www.emeraldinsight.com/
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/40716