Impact of Supervisor Support on Employee Turnover Intention; The Mediating Effect of Employee Trust

Abstract

Competent and skilled employees are crucial contributors to an organization’s success. Losing talented employees negatively impacts the functioning of the organizations. This study focuses on identifying the impact of supervisor support on employee turnover intentions and exploring the mediating role of employee trust in the relationship between supervisor support and employee turnover intention. Drawing on Social Exchange Theory, the study investigated the role of supervisor support and employee trust on employee turnover intention among employees in selected Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry companies in the Colombo District. The study implied the cross-sectional quantitative approach and used an online questionnaire as the data collection method. Data were collected from a sample of 242 employees working in selected FMCG companies in Sri Lanka and a multistage sampling method was used to select the sample. Individual employees from five companies were selected based on the stratified sampling method and the simple random sampling method was used to select the individual samples within each stratum. The collected responses were further analyzed by entering into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The findings indicated that there is a strong negative impact of supervisor support on employee turnover intention and employee trust significantly mediates the association between supervisor support and employee turnover intention. Hence, all the study’s hypotheses were supported. Consequently, this study presents substantial implications for organizations to develop supervisor support strategies to enhance employee trust and ultimately employee retention by reducing turnover. Also, this study provided considerable knowledge required for further research related to supervisor support and employee turnover intention.