HR practices are how companies shape employee behaviour, perception, and attitude. ^{32 , 35} HR practices like development opportunities, performance evaluation, and compensation have been investigated extensively, and significant impacts on OC were reported. ² Organisations should achieve their goals primarily dependent on human capital if HR practices are appropriately designed and implemented. As human capital nowadays becomes the primary asset in organisations, managing them to make them perform and think in the ways employers desire is pertinent. The level to which employees are willing to exert extra effort for the company’s success and the degree of alignment between employee and company values is measured by OC. ¹⁹ HR practices that directly influence employees' OC significantly influence company success, and OC is an important criterion to measure HRM effectiveness. ^{2 , 33} Employees interpret good HR practices positively and reciprocate with high OC. ³

Examining the impact of HR practices on OC requires a closer look at HRM elements. Because of their unique characters, each factor should be investigated separately because it may have a different impact on OC. Ideally, HR practices should be integrated and intertwined. They should be regarded as a single entity, but some organisations have yet to develop systematic HR practices and implement them, so examining individual HR practices is still necessary. ¹³

Following a review of the research and evaluation of the environmental and cultural circumstances within the RE business in Tehran, six HR practices were identified by the authors as critical antecedents to employee OC:

Recruitment and selection. The recruitment operations and selection process aim to recruit and appoint the best candidate for the vacancy. Hiring the right individual increases organisational productivity, with lesser performance issues and greater job satisfaction, translating into long-term OC and, more importantly, a lower tendency to quit. ^{8 , 22}

Training and development opportunities. The influence of a company's focus on training opportunities on turnover intention was found contradictory. It was asserted that training is an essential aspect that positively and significantly influences an employee's attitude and the efficacy and productivity of an organisation, reducing turnover. ^{22 , 26 , 28 , 30} However, several studies also suggested that training may not significantly impact OC; hence it’s worth investigating. ^{3 , 15 , 31}

Performance appraisal and evaluation. Employee performance is assessed based on several factors, and if performance evaluations are poorly designed and executed, employees will fail to recognise the value of such exercises. ²² This situation could arise because of a faulty link between performance appraisal and compensation or because employees have lost faith in performance appraisal, ³¹ resulting in lower OC and higher turnover. ^{2 , 4}

Teamwork. The term “teamwork” refers to a group's coordinated actions, and it directly impacts employee OC. Employees who work in teams feel more fulfilled and accomplished at work, which leads to increased employee retention. ³⁵

Compensation and pay. Fair compensation methods have been demonstrated to have several advantages in employee motivation, retention, and attraction. In addition, researchers discovered an indirect link between intention to leave and performance-based pay. ^{13 , 18 , 31 , 34} Hence, performance-based compensation has been acknowledged as essential HR practice. However, it is interesting that several studies report that compensation has no significant impact on OC. ^{4 , 17 , 28}

Job security. The term “job security” relates to an employee's sense of how secure they feel in their current position. Employees quit insecure organisations. Job security creates a stable workforce, which leads to essential and pleasant outcomes. As a result, an employee's intention to quit is lower. ^{1 , 29}

Intentions, according to researchers, are the most direct drivers of actual turnover behaviour. ^{12 , 23} Lack of OC has been shown in previous studies to influence quit intentions. ^{10 , 24} Thus, managers must pay close attention to employees' increased OC. OC could forecast turnover intentions. ^{20 , 21 , 25} OC is one factor contributing to employees' turnover intentions, according to previous studies that looked into the components influencing turnover intention. ^{6 , 27}

The literature supports the existence of a link between HR practices and turnover intention. ^{7 , 11 , 16} Employees are more likely to stay if their welfare is well-cared for by excellent HR practices. As previously said, the turnover intention is significantly connected with OC, ^{5 , 9 , 14} and it is worth investigating which measure might better predict turnover intention at this juncture. However, empirical tests conducted to support the claims are still sparse, especially in the Tehran context. Similar research was restricted to investigating the effectiveness of HRM in OC and failed to show the consequential impact on turnover intention. ²¹

Given the scarcity of research in this area, it's worthwhile considering the role of OC. We previously discussed the critical function of HR practices in managing human capital that might increase OC and reduce employee turnover intention. Therefore, we proposed OC as a mediating factor in the relationship between HR practices and turnover intention.

The sector of renewable energy (RE) is considered a knowledge-based business where human capital is uncommon and unique. However, employee turnover is a considerable issue in all fields, ³⁷ including RE, which lead to difficulty finding qualified successors due to limited local expertise.

Thus, employers are torn between nurturing talents and the risk of losing their valued employees. That is where the need arises to examine what induces turnover. Although HR practices and turnover intention have been extensively studied, ¹ this relationship is rarely investigated with the mediating role of moral factors like OC within RE organisations. Therefore, it is imperative that employees' perceptions and interpretations of HR practices be investigated further in various situations globally. The findings are potentially valuable to employers on which HR strategies are effective in dealing with turnover. Previous studies ^{7 , 11 , 16} suggested that OC is a significant mediating factor of HRM on turnover intention. The present study aimed to explore the impact of HR practices on turnover intention regarding OC as the mediating variable in Tehran RE firms. Figure 1 presents the suggested relationships of variables in this study.

The study protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Multimedia University Technology Transfer Office (Approval Number: EA0402021).

Purposive sampling method was used to select study subjects, and survey questionnaires were distributed to gather data. Due to scarcity of talent in Tehran’s RE industry, the entire population of expert employees including 90 full-time employees from Tehran's top four RE firms were invited to share their insights. Employee information were obtained from the firms and questionnaires were sent to those that have been in the RE industry for more than five years and have been specially trained in RE via email. The data was collected between November 2019 and April 2020.

The questionnaire consisted two sections ( Table 1; Extended data): section A surveyed HR practices and turnover intention, while section B asked about the respondents' demographic profiles. The 45-item survey employed a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Participants signed their consent before answering the survey, acknowledging their anonymous data to be used. The questionnaire was piloted on 30 people with similar background in Malaysia before being released to ensure face validity.

The overall Cronbach's alpha values scored 0.905 (above 0.70) and hence the items were considered reliable (HR practices = 0.838; OC = 0.732; and turnover intention = 0.866).

The data collected was analysed with SPSS version 19 using correlational, regression and bootstrapping analyses.

All respondents approached returned the questionnaire, leading to a 100% response rate. The majority of the participants (67.8%) were male and between 25 and 40 years old (75.6%). Employees who have worked in the same company for one to two years accounted for 28.9%. The lowest percentage (10%) worked for the same company for more than 4 years ( Table 2).

Multiple linear regression analysis results confirmed the significant impact of HR practices on turnover intention (p < 0.05, R ² = 0.073), with all six dimensions being statistically significant to the prediction. Also, HR practices significantly influence OC (p < 0.001, R ² = 0.8) in all six dimensions. Furthermore, the impact of OC on employees’ turnover intention was significant (p < 0.05, R ² = 0.057). Therefore, it is suggested that OC has a significant negative impact on employees' intention to quit RE companies.

The mediating effect of OC on the relationship between HR practices and turnover intention was tested on their influence on OC using bootstrapping and path analysis.

HR practices were shown to be positively correlated with RE experts' OC (p < 0.001) (Path a). The direct effect of OC on turnover intention, however, was not significant (P _OC > 0.05) (Path b). Furthermore, the results of path c demonstrated that HR practices had no significant effect on turnover intention (p > 0.05). Therefore, as pathways b and c did not match the conditions, it can be inferred that there was no significant direct effect between the variables ( Figure 2).

Furthermore, the indirect impacts of the mediating variables (Path a*b) indicated no significant effect between the variables, as the 0 value occurred between the lower and upper values of all of the investigated variables. Finally, the results demonstrated that the mediating variable's direct influence (OC) was not statistically significant.

Harvard Dataverse: HR Practices and Turnover Intention: The Mediating Role of Organizational Commitment in Tehran, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/EYNSNP. ³⁶

Harvard Dataverse: HR Practices and Turnover Intention: The Mediating Role of Organizational Commitment in Tehran, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/EYNSNP. ³⁶

This project contains the following extended data: -

Questionnaire sent to respondents

Data are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero “No rights reserved” data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).