International Journal of Manpower

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of key human resource (HR) practices on permanent employees' organizational commitment and intention to stay. These practices include facilitating of person-organization fit (P-O fit), designing effective remuneration and recognition, creating sufficiently challenging assignments, and implementing training and career development.

Design/methodology/approach – The study was carried out in three phases. First, 13 experts (e.g. academics, HR managers and organizational psychologists) were interviewed using the Delphi technique. Second, in-depth interviews with 12 HR managers were conducted. Third, 457 employees from nine Australian organizations responded to a survey. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

Findings – Organizational commitment was positively affected by P-O fit, remuneration, recognition, and an opportunity to undertake challenging employment assignments. Intention to stay was significantly related to P-O fit, remuneration, recognition, training and career development. Surprisingly, training and career development was not significantly related to organizational commitment and challenging assignment was not significantly related to intention to stay.

Originality/value – This paper contributes to existing knowledge by testing HR practices in large public and private Australian organizations, which are impacted by demographic changes, increasing dependence on outsourcing, and industrial relations reforms. Thus, the results of this study will provide practitioners with better insights into some practices that could elevate organizational commitment and retention of employees.