| dc.description.abstract | This study was aimed at investigating the antecedants and predictors of employee quit decision process during organizational restructuring. This was done by examining the nature of relationships between Organizational restructuring, perceived unmet expectations, dissatisfaction and quit decisions. The literature review revealed that a number of studies have been conducted on the predictors and antecedants of employee quit decisions. However, these studies did not examine any integration between them. The objective of this study was to explore the integrated relationship amongst organizational restructuring, employee quit decisions, dissatisfaction and perceived unmet promises (psychological contract violation). The study further attempts to investigate the influence of change management interventions, cognitive interpretations, personal attributes and organizational characteristics on the relationships between organizational restructuring and employee quit decisions. A sample size of 375 was selected from a total population of 15,017 employees from commercial banks in Kenya. A structured questionnaire with Likert-type statements anchored on a five-point scale ranging from 'Not at all (l)' to 'To a great extent (5)' was used to collect data. The study employed Pearson's Product Moment Correlation, Partial correlations and Step-wise Regression for data manipulation and tests.
The findings of this study indicate that Organizational restructuring, perceived psychological contract violation and employee dissatisfaction have significant positive relationships with quit decisions. The findings revealed that out of all the relationships examined in the study a very strong relationship was observed between employee dissatisfaction and quit decisions as well as the relationship between perceived psychological contract violation and employee dissatisfaction. A strong relationship was observed between organizational restructuring and perceived psychological contract violation, between perceived psychological contract violation and employee quit decisions, between organizational restructuring and employee quit decisions as well as between organizational restructuring and dissatisfaction. The findings also revealed that employee dissatisfaction and perceived unmet promises playa mediating role on the relationship between organizational restructuring and employee quit decisions. The results further show that change management interventions and cognitive interpretations have significant moderating influence the relationship between organizational restructuring and quit decisions. However,personal attributes and organizational characteristics were found'to have no significant influence on the relationship between organizational restructuring and quit decisions. Finally, the results show that during organizational restructuring, employees will respond differently based on their individual perceptions and interpretations of the effects of the restructuring.
The study shows the alternative decision paths that can be adopted by employees during organizational restructuring and these have been discussed in detail under the findings section. The results of the study show that most of the respondents would pursue the following path: Org Restructuring --+ Perceived violation -+ Dissatisfaction --+ quit decisions. The results of this study have contributed to theory and theory development. It has brought about a better understanding of the predictors and antecedents of employee quit decisions by focusing on the 'how' of employee quit decisions, deviating from the past studies which focused on the 'why' of employee quit decisions thereby increasing the stock of theoretical and empirical knowledge in related fields. Besides, the results of the study provide reference material for future studies in related fields. However, the current study has a number of limitations. One change that would be beneficial is to conduct a longitudinal study using similar procedures over several years. A longer term study would allow researchers to determine the influence of personal and institutional factors on the strength of relationship between organizational restructuring and employee quit decisions would change over time. The study also focused only on white collar employees in commercial Banks in Kenya. Future studies should consider the inclusion of blue collar workers. A similar study should be conducted in other sectors such as manufacturing, mining and agriculture for purposes of comparison. The study also focused on employees who engaged in quit decisions voluntarily. Future studies should investigate the process the restructuring organizations should take while retrenching employees who become redundant due to restructuring process. | en_US |
