The Effects of Employment Development and Other Factors on Intention to Stay Among Employees of Four-Year, Public Institutions of Higher Education in Texas

Abstract

Structural equation modeling was used to examine the influence of hypothetical constructs on employee intention to stay with employers of four-year, public institutions of higher education in Texas. The effects of four latent, construct variables: a) employment development; b) team effectiveness; c) supervisor effectiveness, and d) job satisfaction on employee intention to stay were examined. Respondents consisted of staff and faculty employees of twelve institutions of higher education represented in two datasets for fiscal years 2008 and 2010. Additionally, Differential Item Functioning of the indicator variables employed during the study was examined. For both the 2008 and 2010 study samples, none of the estimates associated with turnover intention were significant at a .05 level of significance. Therefore, there were no statistically significant relationships indicated between Employee Intention to Stay and Employment Development, Supervisor Effectiveness, Team Effectiveness and Job Satisfaction among survey respondents. The study also revealed some concerns regarding the construction and utilization of the Survey of Organizational Excellence (SOE) instrument related to construct development and differential item functioning. It is highly recommended The Institute for Organizational Excellence investigate the factorial validity of the construct variables utilized in their data analyses. Finally, it is recommended the institute investigate gender and other group response differences associated with the SOE to determine whether such differences are truly indicative of inherent bias linked to instrument items.