ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, WORKPLACE BULLYING AND TURNOVER INTENTIONS: EVIDENCE FROM PUBLIC SECTOR UNIVERSITIES IN BALOCHISTAN

Abstract

The research study is focusing on the impact of organizational culture and workplace bullying on the turnover intentions among the employees of public sector universities of Balochistan, Pakistan. Human capital has strategic importance in the higher education institutions in the region but there are still weak cultural systems, unreported bullying behaviours and bureaucratic leadership that leads to high staff turnover. The study focuses on using a quantitative cross-sectional design that was collected from 230 employees of three public sector universities of Balochistan by using properly validated scales for organizational culture, workplace bullying and turnover intentions. SmartPLS 4 was used for assessing the structural and measurement models. The results show strong reliability and validity across the constructs as the model is explaining around 67% of the variance in the turnover intentions. Organizational culture has a significant negative relation with turnover intentions with (β = −0.48, p < 0.001), in comparison the workplace bullying is also having a strong positive effect (β = 0.53, p < 0.001). The findings confirm clearly that toxic workplace environments increase the employees desire to leave a job substantially. If participatory and supportive culture is emphasized that improves the retention of the employees. The study is extending the Social Exchange Theory that shows the way interpersonal and cultural factors help in shaping the turnover behavior in the developing country based academic contexts. The research is sharing important implications for leadership development, policy and human resource reforms. The recommendations include properly establishing anti-bullying policies, strengthening the communication process and recognition system for properly promoting the participatory and ethical leadership practices in all the public sector universities of Balochistan, Pakistan.