Frontline employees’ high-performance work practices, trust in supervisor, job-embeddedness and turnover intentions in hospitality industry

The purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating effect of job embeddedness on the relationships between high-performance work practices, trust in supervisor and turnover intentions of frontline employees in the hospitality industry.

Data were collected from 343 frontline employees working in four- and five-star hotels of Thailand. Partial least squares was used for analysis because it is considered as the best method to analyze the data containing both reflective and formative indicators.

Results suggest that job embeddedness fully mediates the effects of high-performance work practices and trust in supervisor on turnover intentions and turnover intention positively affects the actual voluntary turnover.

The study confirms that high-performance work practices (empowerment, training and rewards) and trust in supervisor affect turnover intentions through on-the-job embeddedness. Hence, high-performance work practices embed hotel employees in their jobs, and they are unlikely to display turnover intentions. Furthermore, low level of trust in supervisor must be addressed to maintain a healthy environment where employees are able to develop their job embeddedness.

This study contributes to the body of research on the theoretical explanation of the consequences of trust in supervisor in hospitality industry, as well as to the growing body of research on turnover intentions in frontline employees.