The role of organizational career development programs, work/life balance programs, and commitment to career and personal life for retention of professional employees

This dissertation was motivated by an attempt to fill in a theoretical gap in the study of the relationship between organizational support for career development and work/life balance, respectively, and retention. No comprehensive theory exists that explains how such practices are related to retention, or elaborates on the diverse relationships observed between the spheres of work and non-work. Through an application of social identity theory, this dissertation suggested such encompassing theoretical framework. It proposed and tested a model according to which the relationships between participation in career development and work/life balance programs and intentions to leave were mediated by career success and work/life balance. Further, it suggested that some of the relationships in the model would be moderated by individual perceptions of importance of career and personal life.; The model was tested on a sample of 209 MBA alumni, using path analysis and multiple regression. No overall support was found for the originally proposed model. Specifically, no empirical support for the moderation proposition was found but evidence was found for some of the mediated links included in the model. Specifically, the results underscore the mediation role of career satisfaction, and to a lesser extent, work-life enhancement. The findings of this study differed across types of support practices used by the respondents. Overall, the results imply that there are no direct relationships between program participation and retention. No convincing evidence was found for negative “cross”-relationships between participation in career development programs and work/life balance and between participation in work/life balance programs and career success. Among all proposed mediators, career satisfaction appeared to exhibit the strongest relationship with turnover intentions. While modest in terms of explanatory power, the model accounts for significant variance in intention to turnover. The results provide directions for new research and have important practical implications.