Predictors of Job-Hopping Intention and Academics' Engagement in Southwest Nigeria: A Moderating Role of Generational Diversity

Many universities worldwide have lost a sizable portion of their critical faculty regarding physical removal, work engagement, and loyalty, reducing involvement in their fundamental tasks (research production, teaching engagement, and community service engagement). In this study, we explored the moderating role of generational diversity on academic attention and the desire to change jobs. The job embeddedness theory serves as the study's theoretical foundation. A five-point Likert scale questionnaire surveyed 620 academics from a few universities in Southwest Nigeria. The respondents were chosen for this study using a convenience random sampling method. Five hundred and forty-five copies of the questionnaire, or an 87.9% response rate, were returned and used in the analysis. The moderating impact of generational diversity on the perceived link between predictors of the desire to change jobs and academic engagement was assessed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results demonstrate that indicators of exogenous factors (predictors of job-hopping intention and generational diversity) accounted for 62.7% of the variability in academics' involvement in the chosen universities. Generational diversity's moderating effects, however, were determined to be insignificant. Consequently, generational variation has to predict the impact on academic involvement. Therefore, the study recommends that the university's management should promote diversity management by harnessing the inherent benefits of diversity to enhance academic engagement. Also, to foster generational synergy in the workplace, management must understand the variations among generational cohorts.