Transformational Leadership and Turnover Intention: The Mediating Effects of Trust and Job Performance

Abstract

Transformational leadership has been found to have a negative relationship to employee turnover intention, but there does not seems to be any study that examines the mediating effects of trust and job performance on the relationship of transformational leadership to turnover intention. This study attempts to fill this knowledge gap by investigating the mediational effect with multiple mediators. The study was conducted among 187 employees of the international fast food chains in Bangkok, Thailand. A non-probability convenience sampling technique was used to collect the data. Transformational leadership was operationalized as the extent a leader who transforms followers to perform beyond their expectation by triggering their intellectual works, raising confidence and creativity. Trust was operationalized as the extent to a psychological state comprised the expectations, assumptions or beliefs about the likelihood that another’s future actions will be beneficial, favorable or, at least, not detrimental. Job performance was operationalized as the extent to an aggregated set of behaviors that an employee contributes directly and indirectly to the organization. Turnover intention was operationalized as a cognitive process of thinking, planning and desiring to leave a job. Regression analysis with bootstrap method was used to analyze the data. The results supported the mediational model whereby transformational leadership was both directly and indirectly predicted turnover intention, and the mediating effects of trust and job performance were significantly negative on the relationship of transformational leadership to turnover intention.