Workplace Friendship, Trust in the Leader and Turnover Intention: The Mediating Effects of Work Engagement

The job demands-resources model hypothesizes work engagement’s positive mediating effects between job resources and positive outcomes; its mediating effects between job resources and negative outcomes have rarely been examined. We propose workplace friendship and trust in the leader as job resources and turnover intention as a negative outcome and hypothesize that workplace friendship and trust in the leader will positively predict work engagement, and that work engagement will negatively predict turnover intention. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a study among 166 bank tellers in Bangkok, Thailand using a questionnaire survey. Regression analysis with bootstrapping was used to test the hypotheses and the mediation model. The hypotheses and the model were supported. The results of our study provide support for the job demands-resources model and suggest for the bank management the advisement of encouraging friendship among bank tellers and cultivating their trust in the managers.