Impact of supervisor, co-worker, external social support and social network on employee retention perspectives in information technology organisations

Retention of employees had become a daunting challenge for information technology (IT) organisations in India. As the existing management literature on employee retention had focused only upon organisational, psychological and contextual issues, an attempt was made to explore the opinion of respondents from selected IT firms in the NCR of Delhi whether social factors like supervisor, co-worker, external social support and social networks had implications on their intention to stay. Using a descriptive research design, the study randomly collected data from 225 respondents. Using structural equation modelling (SEM), the research presented an empirical model indicating that social network mediated the relationship of co-worker and supervisor support on employee intention to stay. Supervisor support had significant influence on employee intention to stay, apart from influencing social network and co-worker support. The empirical model further showed that external support did not have significant implications on employee intention to stay.