Abstract

Dissatisfaction with work-related factors such as pay package, work environment, working conditions, promotion and advancement opportunities are some of the reasons why university teachers have intention to leave their current organizations. The intention to leave is an immediate precursor of actual labour turnover and the growing labour turnover intention among lecturers in Nigerian universities in the present time has raises great concern for academic administrators in Nigeria. This research paper therefore examined the influence of job satisfaction on employees’ intention to leave an organization with special reference to private universities in South-West, Nigeria. Basically, a descriptive survey research design was employed, and data were collected through structured questionnaire administered to selected academic staff of five selected private universities. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to arrive at the sample for the study. Sample size for the study was initially 310 but was expanded by 50%, making it 465. The data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics and simple regression analysis and tested at 5 percent significance level with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22. The findings revealed that job satisfaction had a significant negative influence on employees’ intentions to leave the selected private universities in the South-West, Nigeria. It also revealed that satisfaction with co-workers was the highest rated job satisfaction variable, followed by satisfaction with work itself, advancement opportunities, supervision, promptness of salary payment, working conditions, promotion opportunities, and recognition. The satisfaction with benefits and pay had the least average positive response. Subsequently, recommendations were made to the management of the selected private universities to do whatever is feasible to increase the level of job satisfaction among their academic staff so as to reduce the level of intention to leave. Key Words: Employees Turnover, Intention to Leave, Job Satisfaction, Private Universities