Retention Strategies to Increase Organizational Commitment and Reduce Employee Turnover in Hospitality Sector of Karachi, Pakistan

This study aims to explore the relationship between retention strategies and employee turnover. In addition to that, the effectiveness of these strategies to enhance organizational commitment of employees working in the hospitality sector (fast-food chain) of Karachi, Pakistan. The study considered five decades of managerial literature to explain the relationship between variables.
Semi-structured matrix based survey questionnaire and open-ended unstructured interview questions as research instruments to investigate the relationship. The research philosophy has been interpretive and deductive research is used. The sample size in this study is 426 participants in survey and 34 interviews with the management from the entire chain of fast-food restaurants in different regions of Karachi. The sampling technique is non-probability "convenience sampling". The findings revealed that high employee turnover is due to part time employment and high number of temporary employees or drop out from college and universities. Moreover, there is a relationship between employee turnover and organizational commitment. The higher job satisfactions leads to increase employees' commitment. It is recommended to the management of restaurant that friendly environment and training workshops are essential to retain good quality employees.

The paper contributes to enhance the body of knowledge regarding job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and employee turnover. Moreover, the paper contributes to the managerial literature regarding the variables of interest from developing country's context, specifically hospitality industry. The previous studies were mainly conducted in developed countries while it has considered developing country to explore the variation among research variables.