Nationalism at Work: Introducing the “Nationality-Based Organizational Climate Inventory” and Assessing Its Impact on the Turnover Intention of Foreign Employees

Abstract

Within Europe, and, indeed, globally, it would seem that for many people a renewed significance now attaches to their national identities. Although ongoing tendencies of re-nationalization and national protectionism are observable in many countries worldwide, management research and organization studies have largely overlooked this phenomenon until now. While previous research on origin-based exclusion in the workplace has primarily focused on “culture” and “race”, this article for the first time, centers on the political concept of “nationality”. Broadening the unidimensional understanding of diversity climates, we derive and validate a two-dimensional nationality-based organizational climate inventory (NOCI), consisting of the distinct dimensions “social exclusion” and “job- and career-related exclusion”. While “social exclusion” has a direct positive impact on the foreign employees’ intention to leave, the positive impact of “job confinement” is mediated by the affected individual’s decline in “organizational commitment”.