The impact of push factors on the intent to quit amongst private security officers

Abstract

The primary objective of the current study was to establish the impact that certain push factors (namely, job satisfaction and organizational commitment) have on the intent to quit amongst private security officers. Literature indicate that a strong negative relationship exist between both job satisfaction and organizational commitment and the employee‟s intent to quit his or her employing organization. Moreover, a number of studies indicate that push factors, such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment, are antecedents to turnover intentions and that both these variables are negatively related to intent to quit (Chen, 2006; Elangovan, 2001; Slattery & Selvarajan, 2005). “For too long, private security has been rated an inferior job” (Potgieter, Ras & Neser, 2008, p. 39). Berg (2007) proffers that government officials have frequently commented on the poor treatment of security officers in terms of the long hours, low pay and job instability. The current study investigates whether security officers are satisfied with their jobs, and if not, which facets of satisfaction they are least satisfied with. Furthermore, the current study attempted to establish which of the two variables (namely, job satisfaction and organizational commitment) predicts intent to quit better. The literature presents opposing views with regards to this, however, various researchers (Bateman & Strasser, 1984; Ben-Bakr, Al-Shammari, Jefri & Prasad, 1994; Slattery & Salvarajan, 2005; Elangovan, 2001) postulate that organizational commitment predicts intent to quit better than job satisfaction. Despite the differences in views in the literature, there is overwhelming evidence that both job satisfaction as well as organizational commitment are strong 6 predictors of intent to quit (Chen, 2006; Firth, Mellor, Moore & Loquet, 2004; Igbaria & Greenhaus, 1992; Slattery & Selvarajan, 2005; Tumwesigye, 2010) and it is a topic worthwhile investigating, especially in a South African private security industry context.