Reward systems and turnover intention among academics in Malaysian private universities listed in the QS world university rankings: the mediating role of continuance commitment

Employee Turnover continues to be a chronic problem in higher education sector even in the increasingly competitive context of Malaysian private universities. Academicians play a key role in the functioning of the institution through their teaching, research and knowledge creation functions therefore, high levels of academic staff’s turnover intention represents a risk to maintain institutional stability and their future sustainability. Although studies have investigated numerous antecedents of turnover intention, there is insufficient empirical evidence on how reward system affects academicians’ retention decision via continuance commitment particularly in the context of Malaysian Private Universities listed in the QS World University Rankings. Based on social exchange theory and the Meyer and Allen three-components model of organizational commitment, this paper investigates the relationship between reward systems & turnover intention for academicians where continuance commitment is tested as a mediating variable. Reward systems were operationalised within a total rewards framework, including the dimensions of pay, work–life balance, supervisor support and employee recognition. A quantitative method was used and data were collected using a structured questionnaire with members of staff in the selected private universities in Malaysia. Among 2,306 academicians the data was processed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS. The results suggest that the analysed dimensions of the reward system did not show a direct statistically significant effect on turnover intention. However, continuance commitment yielded valuable informative significance in predicting academicians’ turnover intention as well, indicating that perceived cost to leave may also be an impact for turnover decision beyond the dimension of immediate reward. While not all proposed relationships were supported, the findings add to the higher education literature by drawing attention to the context-dependent nature of reward effectiveness and the importance of continuance commitment in academic retention. Implications for university administrators are considered, as well as areas for future research.