Career Management and Employees Retention in Professional Service Organizations: An Empirical Study from Indonesia

The purpose of this study is to see how career management affects employee retention in professional service businesses (PSOs). The role of knowledge and skills as moderating variables in the relationship between career management and intention to stay is also investigated. A review of the literature on career management, which includes promotion, training, mentorship, starting salary, and the laxity-stringency of organizational entry-exit rules, leads to the hypothesis that career management positively affects employees’ intentions to stay. Such a positive impact may differ between knowledgeable and skilled employees and their less knowledgeable and skilled counterparts. Crosssectional data is obtained from 200 professionals working for various PSOs. Stepwise regression is employed to analyze the data. The research found that career management positively affects the intention to stay. The impact of promotion, training and mentorship on the intention to stay is moderated by knowledge and skills. Conversely, knowledge and skills do not moderate the effect of starting salary and the laxity-stringency of organizational entry-exit on intention to stay. The study’s findings imply that by implementing effective career management, talented professionals can be retained. However, the level of knowledge and skills should be carefully considered. These findings offer significant insights into human capital management, particularly in PSOs.