Faculty’ turnover intention in Vietnamese public universities: the impact of leader-member exchange, psychological safety, and job embeddedness

Abstract

Vietnam has recently faced a turnover crisis in state-owned organizations, especially in higher education. This study investigates both whether leader–member exchange (LMX) mitigates employees’ intention to leave and the underlying mechanism of this relationship. By administering structured surveys to 246 employees in higher education institutions, the researchers found that LMX negatively influences employees’ intention to leave and indirectly affects individuals’ turnover intentions through an increase in psychological safety and job embeddedness. This research enriches the existing literature on the serial mediating mechanism of psychological safety and job embeddedness in the relationship between LMX and turnover intention.