The impact of talent management, climate of innovation, organizational commitment and employee retention in Malaysian higher education institutions

Abstract

The phenomenon of Brain Drain has made employee retention as the ultimate challenge to the Malaysian Higher Education Institution (HEis). As one of the National Key Economic Areas (NKEAs) of Malaysia, Higher Education Institutions (HEis) have to respond to globalization, liberalization and reforms to the educational systems to improve ranking of the universities. Despite this, the alarming "Brain Drain" phenomenon in Malaysia also gives impacts on retention of academic staff. Thus, developing ways in the efforts to improve employee retention in Higher Education Institutions (HEis) is crucial. Until recently, there is no employee retention study related to talent management, organizational commitment and climate of innovation in the Malaysian context particularly on the academic staff of Higher Education Institutions (HEis). This study investigates the mediating effect of organizational commitment in the relationships between talent management and employee retention, and the mediating effect of climate of innovation in the relationship between talent management and organizational commitment. The study uses survey questionnaire for the purpose of data collection. Four hundred forty-four respondents participated in this study. The study uses Partial Least Square (PLS) of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to test the hypotheses. The findings of the study show that the collected data fits the proposed model with 9 supp01ted hypotheses and 1 unsupported hypothesis. This study which is based on conceptual framework and tested from an integrated Knowledge Based View (KBV), Life-Span Theory (LST), Three-Component Model of organizational commitment (TCM), Stimulus-Organism-Response Theory (S-O-R), Social Exchange Theory (SET) and Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) indicates that the proposed model is sufficient for a good predictive ability. Hence, contributing to the theory and practical knowledge by being among the first to justify the mediating effect of climate of innovation in the relationship between talent management and organizational commitment, and organizational commitment effect in the relationship between climate of innovation and employee retention. This study also contributes to the Organizational Behaviour (OB) and Human Resource Management (HRM) literatures. The study guides the practitioners through the proposed guidelines and a practical-based framework of employee retention. Future study can include the other mediator or moderator affecting employee retention.