An exploratory investigation into human resource practices and employee retention outcome in the Malaysian ICT industry

Abstract

This thesis explores the human resource practices and employee turnover problem in several local and international ICT companies in Malaysia. Human resource practices are used as an intervention to investigate the turnover problem because various strategic human resource management (strategic HRM) and IT/ICT employee management studies advocate that companies should invest in employee-friendly and advanced human resource practices that are beneficial for their employees, because employees’ positive responses will benefit the employers eventually, for example, by lowering the companies’ turnover rates. However, by adopting the constructivist paradigm, qualitative research methodology and constructivist grounded theory approach along with interviews with senior managers, Human Resource Managers and ICT employees, this thesis finds that the impact of human resource practices on employees and employers is not as straightforward as what has been claimed in the studies. This thesis discovers three types of human resource practices, i.e. Paternalistic, Formal and Informal, which affect employees and employers in four different ways ranging from mutually benefitting both parties to not benefitting both parties. In addition to the three types of human resource practices, this thesis also discovers four types of employee outcomes and two types of employer outcomes, which when compiled together, provides an in-depth understanding of what is happening in the Malaysian ICT industry in relation to adoption of human resource practices and employee retention outcomes.