Should I Stay or Should I Go? Explaining Turnover Intentions with Organizational Identification and Job Satisfaction^*

TLDR

The social identity approach explains that individuals act on behalf of their group, and in organizations, strong identification is linked to lower turnover intentions. The study aims to test whether job satisfaction mediates the effect of organizational identification on turnover intentions. The authors model identification as a shared‑fate perception that predicts turnover through the mediating role of job satisfaction. Across four samples, identification increased job satisfaction, which in turn reduced turnover intentions.

Abstract

The social identity approach is a powerful theoretical framework for the understanding of individuals' behaviour. The main argument is that individuals think and act on behalf of the group they belong to because this group membership adds to their social identity, which partly determines one's self‐esteem. In the organizational world, social identity and self‐categorization theories state that a strong organizational identification is associated with low turnover intentions. Because identification is the more general perception of shared fate between employee and organization, we propose that the relationship between identification and turnover will be mediated by job satisfaction as the more specific evaluation of one's task and working conditions. In four samples we found organizational identification feeding into job satisfaction, which in turn predicts turnover intentions.