Goal orientation and organizational commitment as explanatory factors of employees' mobility

Purpose – To provide a further examination into the explanatory factors of employees' mobility for organizations wishing to improve performance by keeping right employees judging from their goal orientation and organizational commitment. Design/methodology/approach – The multivariate statistical methods (MANOVA) together with a longitudinal design are used to test the hypotheses generated from the theory with data gathered from two Taiwan‐based financial institutions. Findings – Suggests that those who quit for what they perceive as upwardly mobile career moves and those who enjoy in‐house promotions both demonstrate a greater degree of positive learning goal orientation than their colleagues who remain stationary in long‐term positions with the same firm. Makes note of the inability of performance goal orientation and organizational commitment to explain employee mobility behaviors. Research limitations/implications – Generalizability is limited due to the concentration of this longitudinal‐design study on two institutions of a single industry in Taiwan. Practical implications – Provides a positive advice for organizations to create mechanisms and environment that can engage learning‐oriented employees as meaningful contributors in principal challenges and to use learning experiences to revitalize them and deepen their commitment. Originality/value – This paper clarifies the influence of goal orientation and organizational commitment upon employees' mobility and identifies their relationship with findings suggesting a direct link between positive learning goal orientation and positive job performance.