Staff turnover in hotels: Exploring the quadratic and linear relationships

•The aim of this study is to assess whether the relationship between intention to leave the job and its antecedents is quadratic or linear.•There is little evidence in literature of similar analytical approaches within the context of luxury hotels in India or elsewhere being undertaken to assess staff turnover.•The implications suggest that the management can do all the good things to keep the staff, it may not work.•Further, managers must be aware that the relationship between organisational enthusiasm and stimulating job, and intention to leave the job are optimal at particular levels.•Hence over investment in any one strategy may not be the answer, what is important is to invest overall in the workforce.

The aim of this study is to assess whether the relationship between intention to leave the job and its antecedents is quadratic or linear. To explore those relationships a theoretical model (see Fig. 1) and eight hypotheses are proposed. Each linear hypothesis is followed by an alternative quadratic hypothesis. The alternative hypotheses propose that the relationship between the four antecedent constructs and intention to leave the job might not be linear, as the existing literature suggests. Findings from the analyses of 884 responses representing the staff of luxury hotels in India, suggest that the effect of two antecedents i.e. job security, earnings and organisational loyalty, were found to be linear. The two other antecedents i.e. organisational enthusiasm and stimulating job, confirmed a quadratic relationship with intention to leave the job, although one result suggesting that neither high salary nor job security are guarantees of improvements in staff turnover has been somewhat surprising. These results are unique within the context of human resource practices in luxury hotels. The study is distinctive with its findings based on quadratic analysis. It has implications for managers of luxury hotels to the effect that too much of a good thing may not ensure that employees will remain in the job. Secondly, there is little evidence in the literature of similar analytical approaches within the context of luxury hotels in India or elsewhere being undertaken to assess staff turnover. In this way, the outcomes have implications for both practice and theory.