Employee perceptions of management relations as influences on job satisfaction and quit intentions

In this paper we use a relational approach to investigate how employee perceptions of their relationships with three types of managers—senior, line, and human resource managers—are related to employees’ job satisfaction and intention to quit. Based on an employee survey (n = 1,533), and manager network data (n = 140) in ten organizations operating in Australia, we found that the extent of agreement between employees’ perceptions of their relations with senior and line management was positively related to these outcome variables. In addition, we found these relationships were strengthened in organizations where HR and line managers reported high-frequency communication between the two groups. Implications of our findings are briefly canvassed.