The moderating effect of alternative job opportunity on the transactional leadership-turnover intention nexus: Evidence from the Ghanaian banking industry

The concept of employee turnover intention has been of great concern to corporations due to the severe cost implications it has on the bottom line of businesses. Interestingly, research has established appropriate leadership behaviours as effective means of mitigating the consequences of this phenomenon. Most of these studies were however done outside Ghana, with emphasis on transformational leadership and other styles of leadership. Given the fact that Ghana has high rate of unemployment, it was imperative to examine how the bivariate relationship in the leadership literature would be altered by alternative jobs. This paper therefore examined the influence of transactional leadership behaviours on employees' turnover intention with the moderating effect of alternative job opportunity in the Ghanaian banking industry. A cross-sectional, descriptive, correlational survey design was adopted for the study. Also, a multi-stage sampling approach was employed in selecting the three hundred and five (305) employees who completed the survey instrument. Correlational and hierarchical regression procedures were used to test the hypotheses. Even though transactional leadership was found not to statistically mitigate employees' voluntary turnover intention, the availability of alternative job opportunities was found to moderate the transactional leadership-turnover intention nexus. Within the Ghanaian banking industry, leadership behaviours that do not focus more on the needs of subordinates as a critical part of task accomplishment will not be appreciated by employees and this stimulates their intention to quit their jobs for other lucrative offers.