The Moderating Role of Organizational Identification on the Relationship between Perceived Organizational Career Management and Intention to Leave

The available literature suggests that perceived organizational career management is seen as an antecedent of intention to leave and organizational identification is considered to be superior in predicting employees’ turnover intentions. Thus, this study aims at investigating the effect of perceived organizational career management on intention to leave and to determine the moderating role of organizational identification in this relation. The data was collected from 256 employees from the banking sector in the city of Istanbul, Turkey. Hierarchical regression analysis was employed to the gathered data to test the hypotheses developed for the study. The results indicated that perceived organizational career management correlated negatively with intention to leave. It was also found out that organizational identification served as a moderator for the relationship between POCM and intention to leave. Thus, the results point out that the effect of employees’ perceived organizational career management on their intention to leave varies when they identify themselves with their organizations.


Introduction
Employees are one of the most important assets of today's organizations.Previous studies (Wright & McMahan, 1992;Huselid, 1995) point out that human resources employed in the organization are the key component in the creation of competitive advantage.To compete, thus, organizations should need to employ highly skilled and committed employees.Organizational career management can be used as a tool to keep the employees within the organization.Since organizations realized that improved efficiency, profitability, corporate growth and being sustainable depend on better use and development of talents that they employ, they are interested in career management of their employees (Selmer et al., 2002).
Career can be defined as the pattern of work-related experiences over the course of one's life (Wang & Tsai, 2012: 612).Career occurs within one's life as a development or profession or a process of experimentation.Employees try to make plans about their career and to wish to be sure about the support of an organization that they work for.Thus to be success in career is crucial to both employees and organizations.Maurer & Chapman (2013) implies that researchers studying career concept attempt to understand the individual and organizational factors that facilitate employees' career success.Organizations required to recruit and select employees who desire to make efforts towards organizational and individual goals (Başar & Basım, 2015).To accomplish such a request, organizations should make improvements and developments in their procedures and implications.For instance, focusing on career management perception of employees within the organization is one of the main concerns they may deal with.As a response to this support, employees demonstrate a range of beneficial outcomes, including decreased intention to leave and actual turnover, when they feel cared for by their organization (Dysvik & Kuvaas, 2013).
Organizational identification has gained increasing attention as it was assumed the link with behavior associated with enhanced organizational performance (Reade, 2010(Reade, , p.1269)).Although the first detailed model of organizational identification is given by March and Simon (1958), the studies on the subject increased in the 1980s.After noteworthy studies of Ashforth & Mael (1989), Mael &Ashforth (1992), the concern of scholars (Kreiner & Ashforth, 2004) who study on organizational behavior, psychology, social psychology majors on organizational identification (Fındıklı, 2014).Organizational identification which reflects how employees define the self on their organization (Wiesenfeld et al., 2001) plays an essential role in establishing a powerful link between employees and organization.Members of the organization are asked to identify with the organization when they define themselves at least partly regarding what the organization supposedly represent (Kreiner & Ashforth, 2004, p.2).
Social identity theory, developed by Henri Tajfel in 1978(Zobel, 2000) and accepted as the most prominent theory in the study of organizational identification (Boroş, 2008), is used to describe the relationship between an organization and its employees.Within this context, social identity theory highlights the categorization and comparison processes that guide employees' perception of the organization (Jones & Volpe, 2010).Social identification is the perception of oneness or belongingness to a social role or group (Mael & Ashforth, 1995, p.310), e.g., to be a member of the organization they work for.As employees begin to identify themselves with an organization, they tend to deem the prototypical characteristics of the membership as their own (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993).According to the social identity theory, identification with particularly salient groups, e.g., organizations, strongly influences employees' perceptions, behaviors and intergroup relations (Paulsen, 2003).
Employees' intention to leave has been identified as a major managerial issue in contemporary business organizations (Dysvik & Kuvaas, 2010).Intention to leave refers to a thought of quitting the current job at a working place in the consideration of getting the other one in the immediate future (Momani, 2017).As intention to leave is a concept that has a salient impact on organizational effectiveness, factors causing employees' intention to quit their jobs have been investigated with studies conducted on this topic (Karabay, 2015).Duarte et al. (2015) emphasize that employees' satisfaction with human resources management practices such as career management, etc. has been envisaged as a solid predictor of turnover.
Within this context, the need to examine the moderating role of organizational identification between perceived organizational career management and intention to leave is directed to the generation of this study.The importance of this study is based on several reasons.Firstly, as there has been little research examining the organizational identification as a moderator on the relationship between perceived organizational career management and intention to leave, this study aims to contribute to the relevant literature.Secondly, this paper provides empirical evidence regarding the relationships among perceived organizational career management, organizational identification and intention to leave in a developing country setting, Turkey.This paper is organized as follows.First, the effect of perceived organizational career management on intention to leave has been examined, and then the moderating role of organizational identification has been explored in light of conceptual framework.In addition, hypotheses developed within available literature have been presented.Next, the methodology of the study has been represented within sample, measures and analyses used in the study.Finally, the findings gathered from data have been discussed, and implications and directions for future research have been highlighted.Arnold (1997, p.19) defines career management as "attempts made to influence the career development of one or more people".When these attempts were largely planned and managed by the organization, then the role of organization comes out and it can be termed as organizational career management (Sturges et al., 2002).Pazy (1987) states that "organizational career management consists of the policies and practices designed to enhance the career effectiveness of employees, and thereby to improve organizational effectiveness".Kong, Cheung and Song (2012, p.712) conveys that perceived organizational career management which is also known as "organizational support for career development", refers to the programs, processes and assistance provided by organizations to support and enhance employees' career success.Perceived organizational career management indicates various activities such as meeting employees' career needs and providing appropriate career opportunities, established and practiced by organizations to improve the career effectiveness, career competencies, and career satisfaction of their employees.Thus positive perceptions regarding organizational career management can help to promote the career success of employees (Kong et al., 2012).

Perceived Organizational Career Management and Intention to Leave
Since organizational career management and career self-management are not mutually exclusive, the ideal way for career management is that practiced by organization and individual jointly (Sturges et.al., 2002;Kong et.al., 2012).Noe (2009) states that responsibility of career management should be shared within the roles of managers, human resources department, employees and organization.From employees' point of view, career management provides insight and direction for themselves and constitutes a means for handling ambiguous role demands and organizational requirements (Selmer et.al., 2002, p. 19).Within this context, the success of organizational career management activities depends on active participation of employees.This means that the interaction between organization and employee empowers employees to pursuit their individual and organizational career goals.For instance, employees are required to assist in identifying their goals and targets to develop a career action plan within the organization (Verbruggen et al., 2007).Sturges et al. (2002) emphasize that organizational career management may help to promote employee's self-career management.This may be due to feeling of being a member of an organization.Organizational career management practices such as promotion, succession planning, retirement or dismissal, etc. play an important role on employees' career planning decisions and career development processes (Çalık & Ereş, 2006).Employees are more likely to be satisfied as their expectations are clearer so as to want to stay with organizations that they perceive caring (Addae & Parboteeah, 2006).Organizations, thus, need to focus whether available career management systems serve to heighten employees' perceptions so as to reduce their turnover intentions.Organizations can ensure employees to be more effective and committed to the organization by enhancing the perceived organizational career management process in order to keep them in the organization and reduce their intentions to leave.By managing employees' career to make them feel being a member of the organization, the idea of quitting the job or seeking a new job in a different organization run smoothly away from employees' minds.This helps organizations to reduce employees' intentions to leave.
Intention to leave, defined simply as the behavioral intent to leave an organization (Kuvaas, 2006), refers to the possibility of employees quitting their job and organization on their own will (Elçi et al., 2014).Konovsky & Cropanzano (1991) also state that employees think about leaving their job when they are not satisfied with their current working conditions.In this regard, intention to leave for businesses is a phenomenon whose causes and consequences should be carefully monitored (Fındıklı, 2014).As long as employees' intention to leave increases, there occurs a salient increase in job turnover rate and absences.Thus, intention to leave behavior causes sociological and economic outcomes as well as psychological problems (Karabay, 2015).Hemdi & Nasurdin (2004) highlight that highness in employees' intention to leave may mask poor management practices within the organization.Employee turnover, also, indicates significant economic and psychological challenges to organizations such as waste of investments in selection, training and promotion of employees.High turnover among employees within the banking sector can cause high costs regarding employee recruitment and selection processes for the organization.
The effect of perceived organizational career management on intention to leave has been investigated by some recent studies.For instance, Guan et.al. (2015) did a research study on 654 employees in China who have worked for different organizations and found that the perceived organizational career management correlated negatively with intention to leave.Guan et al. (2014) determined that perceived organizational career management reduces turnover intention of employees.Within this context, perceived organizational career management (POCM) was seen as an antecedent of intention to leave and it was posited that organizational identification exerts a significant influence on the relation between perceived organizational career management and intention to leave.Thus, as a result of literature stated above, the first hypothesis of the research is composed as given below: H1: Perceived organizational career management predicts intention to leave negatively.

Organizational Identification as a Moderator
Organizational identification has received little attention from scholars until recently but nowadays have witnessed in interest in researches of this unique topic (Riketta, 2005).It has been seen in available literature that organizational identification was defined from different aspects as there is no clear statement whether organizational identification is used as a noun or as a process.As a noun, when organizational identification is the outcome of an identification process, refers to the self-definition of an individual in terms of organizational membership (Zobel, 2000, p.10).As a process, Mael and Ashford (1992) defines organizational identification as perception oneness with an organization and the experience of the organization's success and failures as one's own.
Organizational identification plays a key role in integration of employees within the organization wherein they have been employed.Organizational identification leads to the presumption of a common in-group perspective on the world and increased relational closeness among in-group members (Hekman et.al., 2009(Hekman et.al., , p.1326)).In identifying with the organization, employees may realize themselves as personifying the organization (Mael & Ashforth, 1995, 312). Miller et.al. (2000) imply that organizational identification reduces the uncertainty in employees' organizational roles.Pratt (1998, p.172) suggest that organizational identification occurs when as an employee's beliefs about his or her organization become self-referential or self-defining.According to Ashforth & Mael (1989), organization identification refers to the extent to which an organizational member defines himself or herself with reference to his or her organizational membership.Wang et.al. (2017) state that the more employees identify with their organizations, the more the organization's values, goals and norms are included in employees' self-concept.According to Scott et.al. (1999) employees identifying themselves with their organizations are more likely to act in the organization's best interest.Organizations wish their employees to be committed to the mission of organization and made responsible efforts to achieve unit's goals.Organizations, therefore, should cultivate employees who identify themselves with the organization's mission.As much as employees identify themselves with their organization, they believe there is not a better alternative place to work and choose to remain in organization (Miller et.al. 2000).Hekman et.al. (2009) contend that when organizational identification increases, employees believe that organizational administrators are on their side.Thus, employees' sense of self is closely tied to organization group members that include administrators as well.As long as employees feel themselves as a part of their organization, they ambitiously desire to stay in organization they work for.This opinion supports the argument that organizational identification decreases the wish of intention to leave.
Recent studies in available literature examine the moderating role of organizational identification between some behavioral attitudes and outcomes.Ashforth et.al. (2008) studied the topic of organizational identification as reviewing the available literature in terms of some questions, and they express the combination of career and organizational identification from some point of views.For instance, Wang et.al. (2017) explored the link between transformational leadership and subordinates' adaptability will be moderated by organizational identification and their hypothesis has been fully supported.Klimchak et.al. (2016) investigated whether organizational identification moderated the relationship between employee entitlement and proactive work behaviors and found that organizational identification to moderate these relations.Therefore, at organizational level, when employees identify themselves with organization's values, support and emotions, they expect their career to be managed carefully and effectively.
Many studies (Randall, 1990;Shore et al., 1990;Tett & Meyer, 1993) show that intention to leave is the most evident indicator of one's leaving their job (Dinç, 2015, p. 262).Wiesenfeld et.al. (1999) suggest that strength of identification between employee and organization determines some salient behaviors such as willingness to cooperate with other members of organization, goal-setting processes, feelings of interpersonal trust and desire to remain with the organization.The relationship between organizational identification and intention to leave was researched by some scholars (Riketta, 2005;Scott et.al., 1999;van Knippenberg &Sleebos, 2006;Mael & Ashforth, 1995;Abrams et.al., 1998;van Dick et al., 2004;Cole & Bruch, 2006).For instance, van Dick, et al. (2004) found that organizational identification was closely and negatively related to turnover intention.They assume that highly identified employees would contribute to the organization's well-being and they would have intention to stay rather than quit (van Dick & Monzani, 2017).Klippenberg & Sleebos (2006) also revealed the negative relationship between identification and turnover intention of employees.Ashforth et.al. (2008) convey that organizational identification to be superior in predicting employees' turnover intentions.The results of another empirical study conducted by Scott et.al. (1999) revealed that organizational identification significantly reduced the employees' intention to leave.A meta-analytic study conducted by Riketta (2005) revealed that organizational identification was a salient indication of organizational outcomes e.g., reduced turnover intentions.Abrams et.al. (1998) expect identification with the organization to be negatively related to turnover intentions.
The argument for this study is based on the notion that by fostering organizational identification of employees, organizations can make an impact on their employees' attitudes and behaviors are likely to be positively influenced (Witting, 2006).In light of available literature discussed above, it was realized that the moderating effect of organizational identification on the relationship between perceived organizational career management and intention to leave had not been fully addressed.Based on social identity theory, this study aimed to examine the organizational identification served as moderator for the relationship between POCM and intention to leave.As a result of literature scan, the second hypothesis of the research is composed as given below: H 2 : Organizational identification moderates the direct effect of perceived organizational career management on intention to leave.

Sample and Procedure
This study was conducted on call center employees who are working in banking sector in Istanbul, Turkey.Call center departments of banks have been chosen to gather data as these departments were assumed to have higher turnover rates than other departments in related sector.A total of 300 employees who work in head office of chosen private bank were surveyed and 274 responds returned (overall response rate =%91,3).Out of the returned questionnaires, 256 were found to be usable for the analysis since the other 18 questionnaires were incorrectly completed.The obtained data through questionnaires were analyzed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, v.23).the participants have master's degree.In terms of marital status, most of the participants are single (71,9%).Finally, in terms of professional seniority of the participants, it was presented in Table 1 that the majority of the employees (61.7%) had been on the job between 1-5 years.

Instruments
In order to fulfill the purpose of the study, questionnaire technique was chosen as data gathering method since it provides certain advantages as convenience, accessibility and minimal costs (Lee & Salleh, 2009).The scales used in the study were explained below (see Table 2).

Organizational Identification
To measure organizational identification, a 6-item scale developed by Mael & Ashford (1992), used by Jones & Volpe (2010) and adapted to Turkish by Tüzün (2006) was used.A sample item for organizational identification is "What others think about my workplace is very important for me".The scale allows questions to be answered on a 5-point Likert basis from Strongly Disagree (1) to Strongly Agree (5).

Perceived Organizational Career Management
Perceived organizational career management was measured on 10-item scale taken from the study of Sturges, et.al. (2002).This scale allows measuring employee's experience of career management help undertook by their organization (Verbruggen et.al., 2007).The items in the scale were translated into Turkish by blind translation-back-translation method as described by Brislin (1976).One of the sample items is presented as "I have been given training to help develop my career".Participants were asked to respond to questions on a 5-point Likert basis from 1=Strongly Disagree, 5=Strongly Agree.

Intention to Leave
In order to measure "intention to leave", the 4-item scale developed by Blau & Boal (1989) and adapted to Turkish by İşçi (2010) was used.A sample item for intention to leave is "If I have a better alternative, I would consider leaving this job".The scale used in this study allows questions to be answered on a 5-point Likert basis from Strongly Disagree (1) to Strongly Agree (5).

Factor and Reliability Analysis
Exploratory factor analysis was employed to gathered data to find out the dimensionality of the scales used in the study and the results of factor analysis were presented in Table 3. Drawing from the factor analysis results, 10 items that loaded on factor 1 were named as perceived organizational career management, 6 items that loaded on factor 2 were named as organizational identification, and lastly 4 items that loaded on factor 3 were named as intention to leave.These findings are consisted by original scales.These three factors explained 71.484% of the overall variance.The Cronbach's alpha of the factors is respectively 0.891, 0.894 and 0.910.According to the analysis, the KMO of the sample is 0.922 and Barlett Test of Sphericity is 4317,245, p < 0.000.All these findings indicate that the scales are appropriate for further analysis.

Correlation Analysis
In the first analysis of the present study, factor averages, standard deviations and the correlations among factors were examined through correlation analysis and the results were presented in Table 4.The findings revealed that there are significant relationships among the variables.According to the findings presented in Table 4, employees show that they highly identify themselves with their organizations (M=3,68).Similarly, employees' perceptions regarding organizational career management are relatively high as their mean average stands for 3.47.On the other hand, in terms of intention to leave (M=2,75), employees show better results as they do not much think about leaving their organizations.When the correlations among variables have been taken into consideration, it was found out that perceived organizational career management correlated significantly and negatively (r=-2.33)with intention to leave while it significantly and positively correlates with organizational identification (r=.617).In addition, organizational identification negatively but insignificantly correlated with intention to leave (r=-.091).As it can be observed in Table 4, there are significant relationships between both independent variables and dependent variable.More reliable interpretations will be made after the hierarchical regression analysis.

Hypotheses Testing
To examine the moderating role of organizational identification on the relationship between perceived organizational career management and intention to leave, the procedure recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986) was followed.Baron andKenny (1986: 1174) signify a moderator variable as a qualitative or quantitative variable that effects the direction and/or strength of the relation between an independent variable and a dependent variable.They state, within this framework, moderation implies that the causal relation between two variables changes as a function of the moderator variable.The hierarchical regression analysis conducted for testing the H1 and H2 hypotheses is presented in Table 5 and Table 6.In the first step of the analysis, only the effect of perceived organizational career management on intention to leave was examined; in the second step, organizational identification were added to the analysis; in the third and last step, interaction between perceived organizational career management and organizational identification (POCM x OI) were added to the analysis to measure the moderating role of organizational identification on the relationship between perceived organizational career management and intention to leave.Guan et.al (2015) state that to support the simple moderation hypotheses, the interactions in the moderator model should be significant.6 presents the results of hierarchical regression analysis, performed to examine the moderating role of organizational identification on the relationship between perceived organizational career management and intention to leave.The first hypothesis of the study was tested in Model 1 of hierarchical regression analysis investigated the relationship between perceived organizational career management and intention to leave.Model 1 was significant at 0.000 level with F value of 14.587, p<0,001.In light of these findings, Hypothesis 1 developed within this study was fully supported.The effect of perceived organizational career management on intention to leave is negative .Therefore, the increase in employees' perceptions of organizational career management decreases their intentions to leave.In the second step of hierarchical regression analysis, organization identification was entered into the equation in Model 2. The results showed that perceived organizational career management decreases employees' intention to leave higher when organizational identification was taken into consideration (Beta= -.285).In Model 2, organizational identification solely makes no significant effect on intention to leave (Beta=.085;p>0,001).Lastly, to test the second hypothesis of the study targeting to examine the moderating role of organizational identification on the relationship between perceived organizational career management and intention to leave, the interaction between POCM and OI was added to Lastly, the moderating role of organizational identification on the relationship between perceived organizational career management and intention to leave has been explored through hierarchical regression analysis.The results showed that the effect of perceived organizational career management on intention to leave was moderated by organizational identification.This study revealed that organizational identification strengthens the link between perceived organizational career management and intention to leave.In another word, decrease in intention to leave depends on organizational identification for employees high in perceived organizational career management.According to the findings, employees with both high levels of perceived organizational career management and organizational identification, are less likely to have intention to quit.
This study has some implications both for literature and organizations.Firstly, since there are not any studies in available literature, aimed at directly investigating the moderating role of organizational identification on the relationship between perceived organizational career management and intention to leave, findings of this study are expected to widen the scope of this research field.This study makes contributions to the understanding of the impact of perceived organizational career management on intention to leave under the influence of organizational identification.Secondly, in rapidly changing business world, the best way to compete with other organizations facilitating in the same market is to be able to employ the most qualified employees and keep them in the organization.To achieve this, organizations should constitute procedures or systems such as career management.Thus, as a practical implication for today's organizations who wish to reduce employees' intention to leave should emphasize on their perceptions of career management.In addition, organizations can ensure employees to be more effective and committed to the organization by enhancing the perceived organizational career management process in order to keep them in organization and reduce their intentions to leave.By managing employees' career to make them feel being a member of the organization, the idea of quitting job or seeking a new job in different organization run smoothly away from employees' minds.This helps organizations to reduce employees' intentions to leave.Thirdly, organizational identification has a salient impact on integration of employees within the organization wherein they have been employed.Therefore, managers, who struggle to retain qualified and valuable employees within the organization, may focus on organizational identification as much as career management procedures.By enhancing employees' identification with the organization, managers may prevent their employees to leave the organization.
Like other studies, this study has some limitations.The main limitation of this study is the participation rate.Despite all employees who formed the universe of the study were tried to be reached, response rate remained as limited due to lack of time, various shifts and flexible working times, etc.Hence, in future researches, more employees may be required to participate in the studies.On the other hand, the fact that study is conducted only in the banking sector, other sectors such as logistic, tourism, etc. whose turnover rates are relatively high may also be investigated.Increasing the number of participants and the diversity of sectors in future studies may facilitate the generalization of upcoming findings to the other sectors.Future research also may focus on cross-cultural differences.Within this frame, a comparative assessment of different cultures may be the focus of other studies.Lastly, further researches may include the moderating or mediating role of different organizational behavior subjects such as organizational support, organizational culture, organizational trust, etc.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Research model proposed for the study

Table 1 .
Summary of participants' demographic characteristics (n=256) male.In terms of age distribution, it was found out that 39.1% of the employees are aged between 18-25, 49.2% of the participants are aged between 26-35 and finally 11.7% of the employees are aged 36-45.Regarding education level, most of the participants (83.2%) had a bachelor's degree or an associate's degree while 13.3% of

Table 2 .
Scales used in the study

Table 3 .
Results of factor and reliability analysis

Table 4 .
Means, standard deviations and correlations among the factors

Table 5 and
Table