The contingent role of organizational turnover in the relationship between intangible rewards and affective commitment: a multilevel perspective

Purpose This study examines the relationship between employees' satisfaction with intangible rewards and affective commitment and investigates whether the organizational turnover rate is directly related to affective commitment and moderates the relationship between satisfaction with intangible rewards and affective commitment. By integrating individual-level and organizational-level factors, the study adopts a multilevel and contingency-based perspective on human resource management (HRM). Design/methodology/approach A multilevel research design was used, combining individual-level data from a final analytical sample of 199 employees nested within 21 organizations in the Canadian information and communication technologies sector. Organizational-level data were collected prior to individual-level data. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to test the hypothesized direct and cross-level interaction effects. Satisfaction with intangible rewards and affective commitment were measured at the individual level, whereas the organizational turnover rate was measured at the organizational level. Findings The results show a positive and significant relationship between employees' satisfaction with intangible rewards and their affective commitment. The hypothesized direct relationship between the organizational turnover rate and affective commitment was not supported. However, the organizational turnover rate significantly moderates the relationship between satisfaction with intangible rewards and affective commitment. Specifically, the positive association between satisfaction with intangible rewards and affective commitment becomes weaker as organizational turnover increases. These findings suggest that the relationship between employees' evaluations of intangible rewards and their affective commitment depends, in part, on the organizational context in which these rewards are experienced. Originality/value This study contributes to the HRM literature by integrating employees' satisfaction with intangible rewards and organizational turnover within a multilevel framework. More specifically, it extends research on organizational turnover by examining turnover as a cross-level moderator of the relationship between an individual-level evaluation of HRM rewards and affective commitment. The findings highlight the contingent nature of this relationship and show that its strength varies according to an organizational-level condition, thereby contributing to multilevel and contingency-based approaches to HRM.