A moderated moderation effects of employer branding and religiosity on the relationship of affective commitment and quit intention

This research sets to understand how functional and emotional employer branding in the instrumental-symbolic framework and the perceived religiosity of Muslim employees jointly moderate the relation in the organizational commitment–quit intention link within Islamic banks in Turkey. This study seeks to explore the employer branding and religiosity relationship in a Muslim-dominated context that is a different context from most of the studies on employer branding. The quantitative study collected 578 usable responses in four Islamic banks and tested the data in a moderated moderation model. The findings suggest that when functional and emotional employer branding are low, self-reported high religiosity of Muslim employees enhances the negative relationship between organizational commitment and quit intention. Overall, when self-reported functional branding is low, employees’ religiosity seems to strengthen the negative relationship between organisational commitment and intention to quit. This implies that Islamic banks that are perceived by its Muslim employees as being weak in terms of functional branding (i.e. salary, career opportunities) may benefit most from the negative effect of organizational commitment on quit intention when their Muslim employees have high perceived religiosity. However, unlike functional branding, religiosity is only important when emotional branding is low. The negative relationship weakens, be it for functional or emotional branding, when both branding and religiosity are high. These revelations provide practical implications for resource utilization and conservation in managing employer branding in consideration of the religiosity in Islamic banks to better manage employee retention.