Polychronicity fit and turnover intentions: the mediating roles of exhaustion and work overload

Despite the deployment of state-of-the-art methodologies for project management, employee turnover in projects remains high. Such turnover has significant costs in terms of replacing personnel, potential deadline over-runs, and financial expense. One reason turnover may be high in project contexts relates to timing issues associated with multiple parallel projects and short deadlines. Using person-environment fit and time congruence theory, this research examines the relationship between individual-organizational (I-O) polychronicity fit and employee turnover intentions in projects. I-O polychronicity fit is the degree to which there is a match between individuals’ and organizational preferences for focusing on multiple tasks at the same time. It was hypothesized that I-O polychronicity fit (misfit) will be related to employees’ turnover intentions. The mediating roles of exhaustion and perception of work overload were also examined. Hypotheses were tested using polynomial regressions and response surface modelling. Survey data from 309 Pakistani software project employees found I-O polychronicity fit was related to turnover intentions. I-O polychronicity fit leads to increased exhaustion and overload which increase employee’s intention to quit. These findings contribute to the academic literature on effective project management and carry practical implications for retaining valuable project employees.