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Arth Prabhand: A Journal of Economics and Management Vol.1 Issue 1, April 2012, ISSN I

INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS ON TURNOVER INTENTION OF EMPLOYEES IN EDUCATION SECTOR, CHENNAI, INDIA
K.R.SOWMYA*; DR.N.PANCHANATHAM**
*Research Scholar, Bharathiyar University, Coimbatore, India. Assistant Professor, Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Department of Management Studies, Thandalam, Chennai, India. **Research Supervisor, Head, Department of Management Studies, Annamalai University, Chidambaram, India. Professor & Head, Annamalai University, Department of Management Studies, Annamalai University, Chidambaram, India.

ABSTRACT Education institutions are evergreen institutions unlike other institutions in the universe irrespective of states and different countries. Actual Turnover is different from the turnover intention of employees in any organization. Turnover intention is a condition which destroys the working condition and leads to extreme fall of productivity in the workplace. Turnover intention is a condition in which the employee is only physically present in the workplace. Negligent behaviour, job anxiety, job burnout and absenteeism are the symptoms of turnover intention in the workplace. This paper is an attempt to study the relationship between organizational politics and turnover intention of employees in educational institutions of Chennai, India. In this study relationship between turnover intention and organizational politics was analyzed using the Pearsons correlation analysis. In addition the influence of gender on the turnover intention of faculty members in the educational institutions in Chennai, India was analyzed using Independent T-Test. Multi-stage probability sampling method was adopted to choose the sector, and the respondents from the chosen sector. The findings and implications from the study are discussed in detail in the paper below. KEYWORDS: Organizational Politics, Turnover Intention, Workplace Politics, Educational Sector.

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Arth Prabhand: A Journal of Economics and Management Vol.1 Issue 1, April 2012, ISSN I

INTRODUCTION A study on Perception of politics is a topic of importance since 1990s. Mayes and Allen (1977) defined, Organizational politics as the management of influence to obtain ends not sanctioned by the organization or to obtain sanctioned ends through non-sanctioned influence means. Organizational politics has been studied in different forms as perception of politics, workplace politics and as organizational politics in various sectors. Extensive literature was done by the researchers on organizational politics and several variables were identified based on the same. Organizational politics has been tested for its relationship with turnover intention in several studies and has revealed positive relationship in the same. Those studies were done by Anderson, 1994; Cropanzano et al., 1997; Hochwarter et al., 1999; Kacmar et al., 1999; Maslyn & Fedor, 1998; Randall et al., 1999. Of all the studies mentioned no study was from educational sector or from India. Based on that gap the researcher has made an attempt to study about the relationship between turnover intention and organizational politics in among faculty members of educational institutions in Chennai. TURNOVER INTENTION Price (1977) has defined turnover as the movement of members across the boundary of an organization. Turnover Intention means intent to moving of employees from one organization to another organization; shown by the symptoms of searching for a different job, constant thinking about quitting, disinterest in the current job and much more. It leads to the decline of organizations. The employees make themselves physically present in the workplace, while their minds may be elsewhere. Employee turnover is the main cause of fall in productivity and wilting morale in any sector. However this study is restricted to education sector comprising of faculty members of engineering colleges from Chennai, Tamilnadu, India as the respondents. The intent to turnover is even more dangerous than the actual turnover in any workplace. When the symptom of turnover intention is visible it needs to be controlled, checked reasons for such intention and action taken immediately to stop employees from existing with such intention. Else, it would affect the quality of education imparted to the students in education sector. Therefore in order to have a quality employees, quality work environment, and political free environment is needed to be provided. By providing a political free environment the intent to turning over of employees can be reduced to a certain extent. Turnover may happen due to various reasons from a particular organization. It has already been discussed in detail in an earlier work by sowmya, et. al. 2012. The major reasons identified were unequal salary distribution, seniority, partiality, management intervention and workplace politics. This study is further an improved attempt to find out the relationship between organizational politics and turnover of faculty members. METHODOLOGY The methodology of the study was based on the primary as well as secondary data. The study depends mainly on the primary data collected through a well-framed and structured questionnaire to elicit the well-considered opinions of the respondents. The target respondents were the faculty members of engineering colleges from Chennai city. The research instrument

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Arth Prabhand: A Journal of Economics and Management Vol.1 Issue 1, April 2012, ISSN I

consisted of questions test the perception of politics and turnover intention. Based on the responses the association between organizational politics and turnover intention was tested and results were arrived at. SAMPLING DESIGN The Multi-Stage Random Sampling was adopted to obtain the responses from the faculty members from engineering colleges in Chennai. A multistage random sample was constructed by taking a series of simple random samples in stages. The sample respondents were the faculty members from educational institutions inclusive of self-financing engineering colleges, deemed universities, government arts and science colleges. RESEARCH MEASURES PERCEPTION OF POLITICS Kacmar and Ferris (1991) in one attempt developed a universal tool containing 31 statements to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Perception of Politics scale (POPS). Kacmar and Carlson (1997) further used the above measure and suggested that it be reduced to 15 items after testing it in various settings. However the researcher has considered the 31 items proposed by Kacmar and Ferris (1991) and the 15 items modified by Kacmar and Carlson (1997) for this study. 38 items were selected from the total 46 items according to the relevance of the study area and was modified in words according to the requirement of Indian Scenario. The modified questionnaire was tested for its reliability and its Cronbachs Alpha Co-efficient was 0.837. Sample items include : I will disagree with my superior to implement my ideas at work, Favoritism rather than merit determines the success of a person in my organization, Hard workers are not rewarded in my organization. TURNOVER INTENTION Pinnacle Research 21 Journals http://www.pinnaclejournals.com A six-item scale was used, and respondents were asked to report how much they agreed with the items. This scale was previously tested by Eran Vigoda-Gadot & Danit Kupan (2005) and found valid & Reliable. It was measured on a Likerts 5 point scale ranging from strong agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree and Strongly Disagree. Its Cronbachs Alpha Co-efficient Reliabilty Score was tested and found as 0.815. The Items used were I often think about quitting, I will probably not stay with this organization for much longer, Lately, I have taken an interest in job offers in the newspaper, I sometimes put in less effort in my work than I know I can, Sometimes I postpone important duties for an unlimited period of time, I do not work hard in my job. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY To identify the influence of gender on the turnover intention of the educational institutions in Chennai. To study the association between Turnover Intention and Politics among the faculty

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Arth Prabhand: A Journal of Economics and Management Vol.1 Issue 1, April 2012, ISSN I

members of educational institutions in Chennai. HYPOTHESIS OF THE STUDY There is influence of gender on turnover intention of faculty members of educational institutions in Chennai. There is association between Organizational politics and Turnover Intention of faculty members of educational institutions in Chennai. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION TABLE (4.1) FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES (N=472) Variable Gender : (1) Male (2) Female Total Age : (1) 21-30 (2) 31-40 (3) 41-50 (4) >50 Total Marital Status: Single Married Total Personal Monthly Income : < 20000 ) 21000-40000 41000-60000 Total Designation: Upper level Middle level Lower level Total Total Experience: < 3 years 3-6 years 6-9 years 9-12 years >12years Total F 130 142 272 sss 71 88 104 9 272 102 170 272 89 136 47 272 57 134 81 272 58 56 25 26 107 272 % 47.8 52.2 100% 26.10 32.35 38.24 3.31 100% 37.5 62.5 100% 32.7 50.1 17.0 100% 21.0 49.3 29.7 100% 21.2 20.6 9.1 9.6 39.5 100%

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Arth Prabhand: A Journal of Economics and Management Vol.1 Issue 1, April 2012, ISSN I

INDEPENDENT T-TEST

Group Male Female

N 130 142

Mean 3.6913 3.1412

Std. Deviation 0.72144 0.70450

t-test 4.342

Independent T-test was used to estimate the difference in the intent to turnover between male and female workers. The value of male respondents was greater than female respondents i.e. 3.6913. It indicated that female employees perceived lesser turnover intention in the educational institutions than male employees. The female employees considered the teaching profession as the most suitable profession due to its time flexibility and the leave facilities. In addition, several colleges provide crche facilities for the children of the faculty members. This indirectly shows that the stay of women faculty members in the educational institutions is more than the male faculty members. Male faculty members have opportunity to move from one institution to another easily as they do not have to worry about various factors unlike women faculty members. Karl Pearsons co-efficient of correlation was brought into the context to explore the parametric relationship between Organizational Politics and Turnover Intention among the faculty members of educational institutions in Chennai. Turnover Intention Pinnacle Research 23 Journals http://www.pinnaclejournals.com Perception of politics. Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) Perception of Politics (0.634) positively correlated with Turnover Intention. It reveals clear that employees perception of politics leads to developing of turnover intent among the faculty members. Major studies have already demonstrated positive relationship between politics and turnover intention in workplace. This study also is in correlation with the same. Sowmya. b Et. al (2011) in an earlier study have found that, I often think about quitting and I will probably not stay with this organization for much longer were the major forms of turnover intention that the banking sector employees possessed. The present study is however in the education sector. The hypothesis is thereby accepted that organizational politics leads to turnover of faculty members in the educational institutions in Chennai. .634(**) .000 272

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Arth Prabhand: A Journal of Economics and Management Vol.1 Issue 1, April 2012, ISSN I

CONCLUSION The researchers in this paper, suggests that there are several studies on relationship between job satisfaction, commitment etc and turnover intention but sparse research available on the relationship between organizational politics and turnover intention. Since both turnover intention and organizational politics are negative symptoms in an organization it cannot be ignored. The finding from this paper has demonstrated the usefulness of examining workplace politics in relation to turnover intent. Although faculty members are in the teaching profession, they too are not an exception to be captured by the feelings of organizational politics. Several studies have already proved that politics exists among employees irrespective of the gender, age, income and almost all other demographic factors. As the pioneers have expressed in organizational politics studies Vigoda, Ferris,G.R., Kacmar,K.M., politics can only be lived with, it cannot be completely exterminated in any workplace. Similarly the faculty members should try to solve the problems arising among themselves within their levels like friends, peers, Superiors etc. Hierarchy is not an exception in educational institutions. However it is not complicated as in corporate. Though the faculty members are governed by the management, they directly report to their department heads. The superiors should ensure a biased-free environment to their subordinates in order to avoid politics being caused as an outcome of superior influence. a Sowmya.et.al (2011) in a previous study has identified that politics is caused in a workplace due to organizational factors, supervisor behaviour, coworker behaviour, personal influence and organizational influence. The faculty members should ensure professional perfection in order to avoid any wrong clashes with coworkers and should maintain on- par with the superiors so that the department will be successful. The subordinates involving in aggressive actions against the superior will undoubtedly lead to downfall of the department thereby the institution too. If the employees align with the boss, the institution will be successful. Similarly the new entrants and junior faculty members must use their right to equality offered in a positive spirit and must not take advantage of the friendliness of the superiors. The policies should be transparent and exposed to the knowledge of all faculty members in order to give clarity of the departmental expectation from each of the employee. It is ultimately the contribution of each faculty member towards the department that can lead to the success of its functioning. Forming cliques is a great symbol of downfall of the respective workplace. However strong HRD practices when implemented it can be a direct solution for resolving politics. REFERENCES Mayer, B.T., & Allen, R.W., (1977). Toward a definition of Organizational politics. The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 2(4), pp. 672678. Eran Vigoda-Gadot., & Danit Kapun(2005), Perceptions of politics and Perceived performance in public and private organizations: a test of one model across two sectors, The Policy Press.

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Farrell, D. and Rusbult, C.E. (1992) Exploring the exit, voice, loyalty and neglect typology: the influence of job satisfaction, quality of alternatives, and investment size. Special Issue: Research on Hirschmans Exit, Voice, and Loyalty model, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, vol 5: 20118. Kacmar, K.M. & Ferris, G.R. (1991) Perceptions of organizational politics scale (POPS): development and construct validation, Educational and Psychological Measurement, vol 51: 191205. Kacmar,K.M., & Dawn S. Carlson (1997), Further Validation Of The Perceptions Of Politics Scale (Pops): A Multiple Sample Investigation, Journal Of Management , Vol. 23, No. 5, 627-658 Price, J.L., 1977. The Study of Turnover. Iowa State University Press, Ames, IA.
a

Sowmya, K.R., & Panchanatham, N., (2011) , Employees perception about organizational politics in banking sector in International Journal of Research in Commerce and Management, Issue No 2 (February), Volume 2, Pg. 27-31. Sowmya, K.R., & Panchanatham, N., (2011) , Organisational Politics Behavioural intentions of banking sector employees in Journal Of Commerce, Pakistan, January. Sowmya, K.R., & Panchanatham, N., (2012), Faculty turnover intention in educational institutions in Indian Journal of Applied Research, March 2012.
b

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