Predictors of Faculty Intent to Exit the Organization: Potential Turnover in a Large University

Abstract

A comprehensive model of intent to exit (leave) the employing organization was developed to include personal traits, early childhood socialization, higher education socialization, occupational status, personal values, general attitudes, professionalism, dissatisfaction, and support for collective bargaining variables. A representative stratified random sample yielded a 69.7% return rate of university faculty of a major state university in the midwest. The findings of the regression analysis of all variables in the model demonstrated that attitudinal support for collective bargaining, job dissatisfaction variables, personal traits of age and sex, and selected measures of professionalism were the major predictors of intent to exit the organization. This analysis further demonstrated the need for a more comprehensive model of intent to exit which includes not only the more often used psychological variables but also structural variables and alternative methods of modifying the employing organization which may be available to employees, in this case collective bargaining.