Explaining employee turnover in an Asian context

Employee turnover is giving sleepless nights to HR managers in many countries in Asia. A widely‐held belief in these countries is that employees have developed ‘bad’ attitudes due to the labour shortage. Employees are believed to job‐hop for no reason, or even for fun. Unfortunately, despite employee turnover being such a serious problem in Asia, there is a dearth of studies investigating it; in particular studies using a comprehensive set of variables are rare. This study examines three sets of antecedents of turnover intention in companies in Singapore: demographic, controllable and uncontrollable. Singapore companies provide an appropriate setting as their turnover rates are among the highest in Asia. Findings of the study suggest that organisational commitment, procedural justice and a job‐hopping attitude were three main factors associated with turnover intention in Singapore companies.