Porcelain Publishing / JCHRM / Volume 16 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.47297/wspchrmWSP2040-800502.20251602
ARTICLE

Investigating How Organizational Commitment Moderates the Relationship Between Work Stress, Occupational Identity, and Turnover Intention Among Highway Transportation Drivers in China

Yin Quan12 Oscar Dousin1*
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1 Faculty of Business, Economics and Accountancy, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, 88400, Malaysia
2 School of Economics and Management, Huanghe Jiaotong University, Jiaozuo Henan, 494950, China
Submitted: 17 January 2025 | Revised: 21 February 2025 | Accepted: 25 February 2025 | Published: 8 April 2025
© 2025 by the Porcelain Publishing International Limited. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

This research has been focused on China's trucking industry, which is the very backbone of the economy as well as a backbone for trade. Truck drivers work really hard and have several occupational problems that create high work stress such as working long hours, cost explosion, and difficult working conditions. The study tries to examine how these factors create a link to work stress, occupational identity, organizational commitment, and turnover intention. Hence, this research has aimed to investigate how different organizational stress factors such as psychological demand, job control, social support and occupational identity influence turnover intention among highway transportation drivers in China while also evaluating the moderating role of organizational commitment in the relationship between these factors. The study surveyed 300 experienced highway transportation drivers as a part of the primary quantitative method. Data has been analysed with the help of SmartPLS. The findings have revealed that apart from social support, every other factor including occupational identity and organizational identity significantly influences the turnover intention of drivers. In the case of the moderating role of organizational commitment as well, it has been found that apart from the relationship between occupational identity and turnover intention of drivers, it fails to moderate the relationship between turnover intention and any other variable. This has proved that despite being committed to their jobs, any stress factor can influence highway transportation drivers to quit. These findings can guide logistics managers to stop pressurizing drivers to work excessively and reduce the turnover rate. However, looking at the limitation of the quantitative research method used here to provide descriptive questions, future researchers are suggested to follow the qualitative method and if possible, base their research on other contexts. Still, with the help of the COR theory, the current research has successfully reached its projected outcome.

Keywords
Highway transportation drivers
Psychological demand
Job control
Social support
Occupational identity
Organizational commitment
Turnover intention
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationship that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
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Journal of Chinese Human Resources Management, Electronic ISSN: 2040-8013 Print ISSN: 2040-8005, Published by Porcelain Publishing