Eastern philosophies and employee retention in emerging Southeast Asian economies - the case of Vietnam

The study investigated five factors impacting employees' intention to stay: organisational commitment, employee-manager relationship, motivation and rewards, work environment, and Vietnamese family values. We sought to examine how Eastern philosophies such as Confucianism and Taoism moderate these factors in Vietnam. We surveyed all the employees in a large Vietnamese furniture-making organisation. The findings indicate that affective commitment had a stronger influence on employee retention than normative and continuance commitment. The research found strong impact of motivation and rewards on intention to stay. The results confirmed that positive work environment with fair treatment, open communication, career growth opportunity, and work-life balance strongly affect retention. We found a significant influence of Eastern family values on employees' intention to stay, thus denoting the pertinence of Eastern philosophies on retention in Vietnam. Collectivism in Eastern culture entails that intention to stay in a company is a collective decision involving family and managers. This study is the first to specifically examine the weight of Eastern philosophies (Taoism and Confucianism) on employee retention in Vietnam.