DETERMINANTS OF EARLY RETIREMENT INTENTIONS: EMPIRICAL STUDY OF EMPLOYEES IN THE INDUSTRIAL SECTOR IN SAUDI ARABIA

Abstract

The present research attempted to examine the key factors that influence early retirement intentions among Saudi employees in the industrial sector in Saudi Arabia. In addition, the research also attempted to examine the moderating influence of organizational culture and the age factor on the relationships between the key factors and early retirement intentions. The motivation behind the study is that many Saudi employees who work in the industrial sector have been reported to retire early which would in turn pose a challenge to the Saudi government and the national budget. Therefore, the study aims at understanding the factors that lead to early retirement eventually could help the Saudi government to direct their policies in line with the study’s findings.384 employees working in a number of Saudi industrial companies took part in the research. The study employed a quantitative research design in which a questionnaire constituted the instrument used to collect the data. The questionnaire was adapted from well-established measures and scales in the field of organisational behaviour. SPSS version 21 was used for purpose of running the descriptive statistics and cleaning data while Smart PLS was used to examine the relationships between the variables in in turn determine the results of the proposed hypotheses. The findings of the study revealed that there is a relationship between the two sets of independent variables of personal factors and work-related factors and the dependent variable of early retirement intentions. In addition, the findings also revealed that the two moderating variables of organizational culture and age partially moderate the relationships between the independent variables and early retirement intentions. Discussions to support such findings were provided in the last chapter of this study together with recommendations for the Saudi industrial sector and also others for future research.