The Influence of Organizational Commitment in Climate for Innovation and Employee Retention Relationship: An Empirical Study in Higher Education Institutions

Organizational commitment is one of the most widely used variables in the research of management and Organizational Behaviour (OB). However, lapses examine its mediating role, specifically between climate for innovation and employee retention relationship. This research sets out as a cross sectional study that incorporates several theories, namely Social Exchange Theory (SET), Three Component Model (TCM) of organizational commitment, and Life-span theory. Judgemental nonprobability sampling was adopted as the method for data collection. A total of 444 academics from both public and private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) all over Malaysia participated in this research. Data was analyzed using SmartPLS 3.25. Bootstrapping procedure was used to test the mediating effect of climate for innovation. One of the major findings of this research expressed a positive significant association of climate for innovation, organizational commitment, and employee retention. On top of that, climate for innovation was discovered to have a mediating effect on this relationship. This research is significant in terms of theoretical and practical contribution. This study adds to the growing body of research by making up for the absence of reliable evidence in the literature particularly the mediating role of organizational commitment. Together, this paper enlightens practitioners in employee retention planning.