The influence of job satisfaction and job-related stress on intention to leave amongst employees in the Sime Darby Motors Group

This research explored the relationship between job satisfaction and job-related stress with turnover intention amongst the employees of Sime Darby Motor group of companies. It was conducted to achieve two main objectives: (i) to investigate the influence of job satisfaction on employees’ intention to leave; and (ii) to investigate the influence of job-related stress on employees’ intention to leave. This research involved the distribution of questionnaires to randomly-selected employees in the head office as well as seven other companies and their branches across Malaysia in the month of April 2016. The study used instruments based on Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) to measure job satisfaction, adaptation of Tate, Whatley and Clugston (1997) to measure job-related stress and adaptation of Mobley, Horner and Hollingsworth (1978) to measure intention to leave. All data have been processed using the SPSS v22. The results of factor analysis, correlation analysis and subsequent regression analysis show that self-actualisation, rewards and engagement factors of job satisfaction as well as role-clarity and work-family conflict factors of job-related stress have significant relationship to intention to leave. Thus the study recommends that both job satisfaction and job-related stress have significance influence on employee’s intention to leave. For future research, it is suggested to compare the predictive validity of the model across wider population and different industries. The study can be improved by exploring moderating effects of generational cohorts in order to generalize a more reliable results.