Personality traits in relation to the turnover intentions of the qualified employees in the manufacturing industry

: Background: Turnover has a significant negative impact on an organization. This phenomenon can have an impact within an organization; when employees leave there may be a reduction in the productivity of employees who remain because of reduced employee morale. Turnover can affect the organization's overall performance and results (Abbasi, & Hollman, 2008; Tnay, Othman, Siong, & Lim, 2013). The Slovak Republic is one of the countries where the manufacturing industry has expanded, with large manufacturing companies such as Volkswagen Slovakia, a.s., Kia Motors Slovakia, a.s., PCA Slovakia s.r.o., Samsung Electronics Slovakia s.r.o., Schaeffler Skalica s.r.o., and U.S. Steel Košice. Therefore research about turnover and turnover intentions in this area is more than necessary. Turnover is generally described as a voluntary act of leaving a current job, or organization (Milovanovic, 2017). In our study we will deal with personality traits in relation to the turnover intentions of qualified employees in the manufacturing industry. In his meta-analytic study, Zimmerman (2008) notes that in the past, researchers have focused in the context of reducing turnover intentions, on the working environment and its changes, and on how to increase the level of job satisfaction, which is an effective turnover predictor (Griffeth, Hom, & Gaertner, 2000; Zimmerman, 2008), while neglecting the personality aspect. Staw, Bell and Clausen (1986;

organization, loss of personal relationships, loss of income, health insurance or costs can all influence the decision to leave the job accepting the choices of uncertainty and risk. Vardmann with colleagues found that the relationship between turnover intentions and turnover is stronger in those with lower risk perceptions than those with a higher level of risk taking (Vardaman, Allen, Renn, & Moffitt, 2008). Objective: The aim of the paper is to find out what the relationships are between the personality traits and the turnover intentions of qualified employees in the manufacturing industry. Method: The participants in the research were respondents who were offered a job by our employment headhunting company. These respondents were not looking for jobs at the time of research, but were already employed. They were contacted via the LinkedIn service (on-line anonymous data collection), and offered a specific job position at a place of work in the Slovak Republic. The research sample consists of 229 respondents, of which 63.3% (145) were men and 36.7% (84) were women, aged between 21 and 60 (M = 35.39, SD = 9.50). The respondents were qualified employees in the sense of having the requisite special education, experience or qualifications for the jobs offered to them. The employees work in the manufacturing companies which are focused on plastics, automotive parts, and are subcontractors for automotive companies. 53.3% (122) of the respondents at the time of data collection were in a position without management duties, while 46.7% (107) were in a management position. The average length of work experience (overall, not just in their current work) ranged from 6 months to 42 years (M = 13.59, SD = 10.44). In their current jobs our respondents length of employment ranged from newly employed to 30 years (M = 6.83; SD = 6.37). The research tools used in the research was the Scale of Turnover Intentions (Colarelli, Dean, & Konstans, 1987, Kuvaasa, 2006, Chen, Ployhart, Thomas, Anderson, & Bliese, 2011, NEO-FFI (Ruisel, & Halama, 2007) and subscales from GET2 questionnaire (Caird, 2006). Results: Using Pearson's correlation coefficient and linear regression, we found that within the personality traits there is a positive significant relationship between neuroticism and turnover intentions (r = ,277; p < ,01) ; the higher the level of neuroticism the employee has, the higher the level of turnover intentions. We also found a weak positive relationship between the willingness to risk (r =, 338; p < ,01) and the aspiration level (r = ,206; p < ,01) and the turnover intentions level; the higher the level of willingness to risk and aspiration level, the higher the level of turnover intentions. The personality traits of qualified employees in the manufacturing industry explain approximately one-fifth of turnover intentions variation. We found that neuroticism (β = ,367; p < ,01) and willingness to risk (β = ,309; p < ,01) were significant predictors of turnover intentions among workers. Other personality variables (extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness, and aspiration level) did not contribute significantly to explaining the turnover intentions variance. Conclusion: Neuroticism, level of aspiration and willingness to risk are related to the turnover intentions of qualified employees in the manufacturing industry. Neuroticism and willingness to risk are significant predictors of turnover intentions and, together with other personality traits, explain one-fifth of turnover intentions variation. Cross-sectional data collection can be considered as one of the study's limitations. Due to the nature of the variable (turnover intentions) it would be better to observe this construct for longer periods of time and also observe those employees who have actually experienced turnover. Due to the number of employees in the manufacturing industry within the Slovak Republic, we can not consider our sample as representative. In future research, it would be interesting to observe the turnover intentions of qualified employees in the manufacturing industry within the job positions, since they differ in the nature of the work. The results of such research could be considered more valid. The main benefit of our research is the examination of the turnover intentions of a specific sample -qualified employees in the manufacturing industry -which is very current due to the boom in the manufacturing industry in the Slovak Republic, as staff turnover has far-reaching consequences for the economy and performance of an organization.

Background
Turnover has a significant negative impact on an organization. This phenomenon can have an impact within an organization when employees are leaving; there may be a reduction in the productivity of employees who remain because of reduced employee morale. Fluctuation can affect an organization's overall performance (Abbasi, & Hollman, 2008;Tnay, Othman, Siong, & Lim, 2013). The Slovak Republic is one of the countries where the manufacturing industry has expanded, with large manufacturing companies such as Volkswagen Slovakia, a.s., Kia Motors Slovakia, a.s., PCA Slovakia s.r.o., Samsung Electronics Slovakia s.r.o., Schaeffler Skalica s.r.o., and U.S. Steel Košice. Therefore, research of turnover intentions in this area is more than necessary. Turnover is generally described as a voluntary act of leaving a current job, job position or organization (Milovanovic, 2017). Price andMueller (1981 in Milovanovic, 2017) consider turnover as the product of the (non) satisfaction and commitment towards an organization, influenced by intra-organizational factors as well as factors outside the organization (demographic, environmental) (Milovanovic, 2017). In the context of turnover intentions, constructs such as burnout (eg Huei-Ling, & Venhwei, 2017), work engagement (eg Alfes, Shatz, Truss, Soane, 2012, Gupta, & Shaheen, 2017 commitment to an organization (Jaros, 1997) and work locus of control (e.g., McGee, & McGee, 2016) are connected to our construct. These variables are often studied among the turnover intentions, and are often also investigated in different contexts; including Herda, Lavalle's (2012) burnout syndrome, organizational commitment and turnover intentions (Cannon, & Herd, 2016 -replication of research), and Bakker and Demerouti (2014) in their Job Demand -Resources Model (JD-R) which exhaustively describes a number of variables as the model has changed and evolved since its first versions -including constructs such as burnout syndrome, work engagement and commitment and other variables that we can include in resources or demands of a job. According to some authors (Milovanovic, 2017), job satisfaction is a significant factor in turnover and turnover intentions, pointing to a negative relationship between them (McKnight, Phillips, & Hardgrave, 2009;Huei-Ling, & Ven-hwei, 2017). The last of the variables we consider to be important in the research of the turnover intentions is the conflict between work and family. Carr, Boyar and Gregory (2008) point out that the relationship between work-family conflict and turnover intentions is weakened if work is considered to be of central importance in an employee's life. In general, however, we can expect that the larger the work-family conflict is, the more likely turnover intentions of the employees are (O'Neill, Harrison, Cleveland, Almeida, Stawski, & Crouter, 2009). In our study, we will deal only with personality traits in relation to the turnover intentions of qualified employees in the manufacturing industry. In his review study, Zimmerman (2008) notes that in the past, researchers have focused in the context of reducing turnover intentions, on the working environment and its changes, on how to increase the level of job satisfaction, which is seen as an effective turnover predictor (Griffeth, Hom, & Gaertner, 2000;Zimmernan, 2008) and neglected the personality. Staw, Bell and Clausen (1986;in Zimmerman, 2008) further emphasise this gap, pointing out that the previous research has focused mainly on situational factors, the characteristics of work as the primary determinant of job satisfaction, with little regard for the dispositional causes of job attitudes. Maintaining high-performing employees is very important after their recruitment, and scientists should explore if some individuals tend to leave their job regardless of whether they have a working environment tailored to job satisfaction, and whether other employees may be more likely to remain in the job despite not entirely ideal circumstances; precisely here is the possibility for an explanation based on personality traits. In addition to the theoretical importance of understanding the relationship between dispositional features and turnover, it is also important to validate this relationship and use it in practice. While understanding how personality traits affect turnover can lead to a reduction in turnover intentions, organizations also can identify personality traits through personality questionnaires to avoid potential turnover. We briefly describe individual personality factors in the context of turnover tendencies.

Conscientiousness
Maertz and his colleagues (Maertz, & Campion, 2004;Maertz, & Griffeth, 2004) stated that conscientiousness is likely to influence the moral and ethical motivation forces that influence the turnover intentions of individuals. A person who is considering leaving their employer can ask themselves whether they owe anything or have commitments to an organization which would be violated by their departure. Within the strength of commitment, those who score higher in conscientiousness are more likely to believe that these commitments and obligations exist and are more likely to respect them (Eisenberger, Armeli, Rexwinkel, Lynch, & Rhoades, 2001;Zimmerman, 2008). Conscientious employees are less likely to act impulsively or spontaneously, and instead consider the longer-term consequences of their decisions. A negative relationship of conscientiousness and agreeableness with impulsiveness was found (Eysenck, 1997;Clark, & Watson, 1999), with the impulsive termination of employment as key components in the context of turnover intentions.

Extraversion
Employees with a higher level of extraversion are more likely to search for social relationships; thus tend to have more contacts with others within the organization. Therefore, the extroverts can quickly socialize in the organization and adapt to the organizational culture (McCraae, & Costa, 1997). They are also socially integrated and therefore less likely to have a high level of turnover intentions (Maertz, & Campion, 2004;Zimmerman. 2008). When starting a new job, extraversion has a strong effect on turnover. Despite this assumption, however, there are also contradictory claims, especially due to aspects of sociability; those who have this feature stronger will probably be able to establish and maintain a network of contacts in other organizations as well. Kanfer andBanas (2000, in Zimmerman, 2008) have stated that extraverted individuals are creating and maintaining a wider network of contacts more easily and more intensely, and hence perceive a greater number of alternative employment opportunities.

Emotional stability
Low emotional stability can negatively affect job satisfaction. Employees with low emotional stability are more likely to encode and provide negative information and tend to negatively perceive themselves and the environment (Weiss, & Cropanzano, 1996;Zimmerman, 2008). Maertz and Griffeth (2004) report that those employees who have negative views about the work environment will tend to have higher level of turnover intentions. The low level of emotional stability is associated with a tendency to abandon the goals that cause stress and indecision in a career (Tokar, Fischer, & Subich, 1998;Zimmernann, 2008). Cote (2005) theorizes that those employees who are experiencing negative emotions (such as sadness and anger) are less likely to receive social support from their colleagues, instead they will experience an interpersonal conflict that will increase their level of stress and thus increase the likelihood of turnover.

Agreeableness
According to the literature, there are several reasons why it is believed that agreeable employees will be less likely to leave the job. The first reason is their adaptability and adherence to the rules. Positive relationships reinforce the affective commitment and motivate employees to remain in their employment (Maertz, & Griffeth, 2004). The second reason is the interpersonal aspects of agreeable employees (warmth, care) that make them more successful relationships with others (Zimmerman, 2008). Thirdly, their willingness to abide by rules and aspects of dependence make employees feel a strong commitment to remain in the organization (Maertz, & Griffeth, 2004).

Openness to experience
When discussing the moral/ethical motivation forces influencing the voluntary decision to leave the job, Maertz and Griffeth (2004) claim that those who score high in openness to experience would appreciate changing jobs and thus would be more willing to leave the organization. Employees with a higher level of openness to experience are more likely to leave the organization to explore other options, no matter how they feel about their work (Zimmerman, 2008).
We have added additional constructs to traditional personality traits to our research that can be related to turnover intentions: the aspiration level of employees and the willingness to take risks.

Aspiration level
According to F. Chorvát (1990in Popelková, Šišková, & Zaťková, 2010 satisfaction depends on whether one achieves goals corresponding to one's aspirations. This means that if an individual has too high a level of aspirations, with high and demanding ambitions which they cannot achieve, they can feel dissatisfied. Conversely, satisfaction occurs when what has been accomplished is more or less consistent with what was expected. The highest level of satisfaction comes when the individual has reached more than they expected (Popelková, Šišková, & Zaťková, 2010). The relationship between aspirational level and turnover intentions has been explored very little. Bigliardi, Petroni, and Dormio (2005) found that design engineers reported a lower level of turnover intentions when there were adequate opportunities within the organization to satisfy work aspirations.

Willingness to take risks
There is little literature on the role of willingness to take risks in regards to turnover intentions. Vardaman, Allen, Renn, & Moffitt, (2008) point to the negative impact on an organization, such as the reduction in the performance of other employees, the absence of experienced mentors for newly recruited staff, and the financial costs involved in selecting a new employee. Just a little focus is given to the losses that may occur to an employee who decides to leave their job. Factors such as the position of an "experienced" employee in the organization, loss of personal relationships, loss of income, and health insurance costs, can all influence the decision to leave the job along with the choices of uncertainty and risk. It was found that the relationship between turnover intentions and turnover is stronger for those with lower risk perceptions as well as for those who are more prone to risk (Vardaman, Allen, Renn, &Moffitt, 2008).

Goal
The aim of the paper is to find out what the relationships between the personality traits and the turnover intentions of qualified employees in the manufacturing industry are. Based on the theoretical backgrounds, we assume that conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, aspiration level and willingness to take risks will have a positive relationship on turnover intentions, while neuroticism will have a negative relationship on turnover intentions.

Research sample
The participants in the research were respondents who were offered a job by our employment headhunting company. These respondents were not looking for jobs at the time of research, but were already employed. They were contacted via the LinkedIn service (on-line anonymous data collection), and offered a specific job position at a place of work in the Slovak Republic. The research sample consists of 229 respondents, of which 63.3% (145) were men and 36.7% (84) were women, aged between 21 and 60 (M = 35.39, SD = 9.50). The respondents were qualified employees in the sense of having the requisite special education, experience or qualifications for the jobs offered to them. The employees work in the manufacturing companies which are focused on plastics, automotive parts, and are subcontractors for automotive companies. 8.9% (89) of the respondents reported a permanent residence in a towns of over 50, 000 inhabitants, 22.7% (52) in towns between 10, 000 and 49,999 inhabitants, 13.1% (30) in towns between 2,000 and 9,999 inhabitants and 26.3% (58) in places up to 1,999 inhabitants. 53.3% (122) of respondents were in a position without management responsibilities while 46.7% (107) were in management positions. The average length of work experience (overall, not just current employment) ranged from 6 months to 42 years (M = 13.59, SD = 10.44). In current employment, our respondents employment tenure ranged from newly employed to 30 years (M = 6.83; SD = 6.37).

Methods
The Turnover Intentions Scale was created based on existing literature. Items of the scale were choosen from already used methodssee for example, Colarelli, Dean, & Konstans, 1987;Kuvaasa, 2006, Chen, Ployhart, Thomas, Anderson, & Bliese, 2011 Together, it contains six items: "I'm asking people about job opportunities", "My current work does not meet my important personal needs", "Sometimes I think about leaving this organization", "Opportunities for achieving my most important goals are very often threatened in my work", "I used to look for a job position with another employer", "I think very often I will become an entrepreneur" along with a five-point scale response option with numerical and verbal anchors from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (totally agree). The items of the scale were translated to Slovak and then translated to English by two independent Englishspeaking translators. NEO-FFI -The questionnaire consists of five subscales; each scale is saturated with twelve items. This questionnaire consists of 60 statements, where the respondents choose their answers from the scale of 1 (strongly disagree) up to 5 (strongly agree). The authors of the Slovak version of NEO Five-factor Personality Inventory are Imrich Ruisel and Peter Halama (2007). The questionnaire measures five personality dimensions: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness). GET2 -General Measurement of Enterprising Tendency 2 -In this questionnaire, respondents answer yes or no to 54 items that are divided into five subscales: need for success (aspirations), need for autonomy, creative tendencies, willingness to take risks and locus of control. For the purposes of our research, we used a subscale of the aspiration level (11 items) and willingness to take risks (13 items) (Caird, 2006). This questionnaire was also used in Slovak conditions (e.g. Mesárošová, & Mesároš, 2013;Holienka, Holienková, & Gál, 2015) The inner consistencies (Cronbach's alpha) are shown in Table 1.

Statistical analyzes
We used G * Power (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, Buchner, 2007 to calculate the effect strength and the appropriate size of the research sample for the correct use of statistical methods. IBM SPSS Statistics 21 and JASP were used for statistical analysis. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to determine the related personality traits and turnover intentions. Linear regression (the Enter method) was used to determine the predictive power of personality traits in relation to the examined variable. The conditions for the use of methods have been met (normality, extreme cases, linear relation between turnover intentions and personality characteristics -scatterplot, homoscedasticity, size of the research sample: number of predictors) (Pallant, 2013;Field, 2017).

The results
First, we present in Table 1 the descriptive characteristics of the variables we will work with: mean, standard deviation, minimum, maximum, skewness and kurtosis, scale reliability. Then we examined the relationship between the turnover intentions of qualified employees in the manufacturing industry and their personality traits. The results are shown in Table 2. Within the personality traits, there is a positive significant relationship between neuroticism and turnover intentions (r = ,277; p < ,01) ; the higher the level of neuroticism, the higher the level of turnover intentions. We also found a weak positive relationship between the willingness to take risks (r = ,338; p < ,01) and the aspiration level (r = ,206; p < ,01) and the level of turnover intentions; the higher level of aspiration and willingness to risk, the higher level of fluctuation tendencies.
Subsequently, we analyzed the data using linear regression (the Enter method). The regression model was significant -F(7,221) = 7,922; p < ,01. The Durbin-Watson test for the model with seven predictors was 1,687 (critical value 1,613; p < ,01) (Savin, & White, 1977). Tolerance values varied from ,670 -,904 and VIF from 1,106 to 1,492. Table 3 lists the resulting regression model coefficients for qualified employees in the manufacturing industry. The regression model gave a 20.1% variance of turnover intentions of qualified employees in the manufacturing industry. The personality traits account for approximately one-fifth of turnover intentions variance. We found that neuroticism (β = ,367; p < ,01) and willingness to take risks (β = ,309; p <,01) were significant predictors of turnover intentions of employees; the higher the level of neuroticism and the willingness to risk, the higher the level of turnover tendencies among employees.

Discussion
At times when job vacancies exceed demand, qualified workers have the option of alternative jobs. The employer should therefore be aware of the mechanisms by which a high-quality employee will remain in their job. The aim of the paper was to find out what the relationships between the personality traits and turnover intentions of qualified employees in the manufacturing industry are. Zimmerman (2008) in his review study pointed out that as part of turnover intentions, researchers focused on situational factors and neglected personality traits. We assumed that neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness would be related to employees' turnover intentions. This has only been shown in neuroticism (r = ,277; p < ,01); the higher the level of neuroticism, the higher the level of turnover intentions. Low emotional stability adversely affects job satisfaction (Weiss, & Cropanzano, 1996, Zimmerman, 2008, which ultimately has an impact on employees' turnover intentions. According to Judge and Iliesa (2002), employees with a higher level of neuroticism are more likely to leave a job especially at the beginning of their employment due to higher demands on them, such as learning new tasks, new work teams, and various responsibilities.
In addition to traditionally investigated personality traits, we also found out what relationship turnover intentions have regarding willingness to risk and the employees' aspiration level. We found a weak positive significant relationship; the more willing the employee is to take risks and has higher aspirations, the higher the level of turnover intentions is. If the employee in the manufacturing industry has a high level of aspirations, and ambitions and demands that they cannot achieve, they are dissatisfied (Popelková, Šišková, & Zaťková, 2010), which may result in thinking about changing jobs. If the employee has such an opportunity within an organization, as Bigliardi, Petroni and Dromio (2005) found, there is a lower level of turnover intentions. In the context of willingness to take risks, we can assume (based on the theoretical origins) that employees who are more willing to take risks (such as being without income, health insurance costs, loss of personal relationships) will also have a stronger relationship between turnover intentions and turnover (Vardaman, Allen, Renn, & Moffitt, 2008). These personality traits are not very well researched regarding turnover intentions. The personality traits of qualified employees in the manufacturing industry account for approximately onefifth of turnover intentions variance. We found that neuroticism and willingness to take risks were significant predictors of turnover intentions; the higher the level of neuroticism and the willingness to risk, the higher the level of turnover intentions among employees. One of the study limitations is the cross-sectional data collection. Due to the nature of the variable (turnover intention) it would be advisable to observe this construct for longer periods of time and observe those employees who have actually experienced turnover. Furthermore, due to the number of employees in the manufacturing industry within the Slovak Republic, we cannot consider our sample as representative (despite the medium effect shown in the results).
In future research, it would be interesting to observe the turnover intentions of qualified employees in the manufacturing industry and within the job because they differ in the nature of the work. The results of such research could be considered more valid. Even though there is a relationship between turnover intentions and turnover, these tendencies do not have to be visible in behavior. Our recommendation is to replicate research with these improvements and to verify the functionality as a tool for predicting the turnover intentions of qualified employees in the manufacturing industry, using also variables measuring job satisfaction and conflict of work and family. The main benefit of our research is the examination of the turnover intentions of a specific sample -qualified employees in the manufacturing industry -which is very current due to the boom in the manufacturing industry in the Slovak Republic, as staff turnover has far-reaching consequences on the economy and performance of the organization.