Stay or not to Stay: An Analysis of Diversity Management and Abusive Leadership Relationship with Turnover Intention

Abstract

With the emergence of economic globalisation, HR executives strive to provide a fairer working environment as there is an unprecedented shift of increased participation of people with different demographic backgrounds, genders and belief systems at workplaces around the globe. Simultaneously, there has been a tremendous rise in the occurrences of abusive leadership behaviours leading to increased turnover ratios. Hence, this study aims to investigate the effects of abusive leadership and diversity management practices on turnover intention. This study data has been collected from the employees of pharmaceutical companies based in Karachi, Pakistan using a non- probability purposive sampling technique. Data was taken from (n = 403) participants. The results show a significant negative relationship between diversity management and turnover intention and a significant positive relationship between abusive leadership and turnover intention. The results also indicate that job satisfaction mediates the relationship of both diversity management and abusive leadership with turnover intention. The study emphasises that organisations should consciously channel their resources effectively into creating an all-inclusive environment to cater the psychological needs of a diverse workforce. The study also implicated that organisational leadership should pay special attention to ensure that they treat their subordinates fairly across the board, as the behaviour of the leaders has far-reaching effects on the performance, productivity and psychological well-being of the employees.