Decent work in Ghana: towards understanding the role of positive psychological states in worker turnover intentions

Decent work contributes to healthy work and employment, and strong societies. However, accessing decent work is a major issue particularly in developing economies where large proportions of the workforce hold precarious jobs or lack social security. Yet, so far, research on decent work and its scale validation has largely overlooked developing economy contexts, and this defeats the purpose of psychology of working theory to explain work experiences of all individuals. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, we validate Duffy et al.’s Decent Work Scale (DWS) in the Ghanaian context and second, we test a theory-driven model connecting decent work to worker turnover intention. Results of our study showed a higher order model of DWS (i.e. decent work as a general factor) best represents decent work in Ghana. As theorised, access to decent work was found to lower worker turnover intention through psychological contract fulfilment and work engagement. Further, decent work had significant, strong, positive relationships with psychological contract fulfilment and work engagement. Practical and theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.