Predicting organisational embeddedness through employee personality and their community embeddedness

Organisational embeddedness has emerged within the literature in the last 15 years as a strong negative predictor of voluntary turnover. However, little research has explored the predictors of embeddedness and the factors that impact the embeddedness-turnover relationship. In this study, I explore employee personality, using the Big Five' model, as an antecedent of organisational embeddedness. I also investigate the influence of community embeddedness on the often asserted organisational embeddedness-voluntary turnover relationship. Using a sample of 401 employees in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad, the multiple-step regression models provide support for most of the proposed hypotheses. Conscientiousness, emotional stability and extraversion were significant antecedents of embeddedness, organisational embeddedness negatively predicted turnover intentions and community embeddedness strongly moderated the organisational embeddedness-turnover intention relationship. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed. Limitations are overviewed and research directions are offered.