Leadership and turnover intentions of Taiwan TV reporters: the moderating role of safety climate

Abstract

TV reporters in Taiwan often encounter accidents during regular assignment runs, which may be a significant factor that increases their intentions to leave their job. Occupational hazard has always been ignored by news media organizations. Recent research has shown that a positive organizational safety climate may improve safety-related issues. To build on previous research conducted, this study investigates the moderating effect of safety climate between safety leadership and turnover intentions. This research collected 268 valid samples with an 89% response rate. Using the hierarchical linear model, results show that the transformational leadership style is negatively related to turnover intentions and the passive leadership style is positively related. Moreover, the moderation tests found a negative relationship between the interaction of passive leadership and safety and employees’ turnover intentions. This implies that when reporters are working in a positive safety climate environment, their turnover intentions will be significantly lower. On the contrary, the positive moderating effect of safety climate on the relationship between transformational leadership and turnover intention is not significant.