Staying to leave: The organizational commitment and turnover intention of call center agents from Metro Manila and Cebu City

• Main Authors: Carranza, Caress, Franco, Katrina, Mendoza, Diana
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2011
• Subjects: Contracting out > Philippines; Call center agents; Labor turnover; Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/11235
• Institution: De La Salle University

Over the years, the BPO in the Philippines has grown exponentially, fuelled primarily by strong global demands with an increased recognition of its potential to pave the way for better business performance a t significantly lower cost, while maintaining focus on their company core competencies. Specifically, the call center industry has become one of the countrys bright prospects in the area of business process outsourcing (BPO) providing hundred and thousands of Filipinos job opportunities and at the same time significantly contributing to the countries total revenue. The country, in a short span of time, emerged as a popular site for contact center destinations in Asia because the Filipinos possess innate advantages that are attractive to outsources such as strong command to the English language and cheaper labor. However, among the areas and challenges that need to be addressed in order to sustain the call center agency in the country is the high turnover rate among call center agents. This study tackled the organizational commitment and its correlation to voluntary turnover rate in the context of call center industry. The paper aimed to determine the roots of voluntary turnover in the industry specifically in investigating the socio-demographic and work characteristics of the call center agents and how these affect their organizational commitment. Respondents in the study are from selected call center from Metro Manila and Cebu City. To examine the variables associated with organizational commitment and turnover rate, the study made use of the descriptive method research and utilized self-administered questionnaires as an instrument for data gathering. Results for this study have shown a high negative correlation between the affective or the emotional attachment of respondents and overall organizational commitment with the turnover intention of the call center agents. A moderate negative correlation is found between normative commitment or the feeling of moral obligation to stay in the company and turnover intention , and a low level of negative correlation for the continuance commitment or the need to stay based on non-transferable investments in terms of time, effort, energy, salary, promotions and benefits offered by the call center companies. Lastly the study has found that interestingly, time shift has come out to be a significant in affecting organizational commitment.