Employees’ self-enhancement motivation and turnover intention: Effects of group efficacy and directive leadership

Based on a framework of the theories of trait activation and conservation of resources, we tested the three-way interactions of self-enhancement motivation, group efficacy, and directive leadership on employees’ turnover intention with two separate samples. Participants were employees of a company in South Korea. We proposed that self-enhancement motivation would affect employees’ turnover intention, with group efficacy and directive leadership jointly affecting this relationship. That is, we proposed that high group efficacy would activate self-enhancement motivation, and directive leadership would modify the activated influence of self-enhancement motivation on turnover intention. Results were generally supportive of the predictions. The findings in this study confirm the interaction between group efficacy and directive leadership (group-level variables) and self-enhancement motivation (individual-level variable) that influence turnover intention, and provide implications for what managers can improve to reduce turnover. The hypotheses in this study will need to be further tested in various cultural contexts.