Kim, Price, Mueller, and Watson (1996) examined the variation in career intent among physicians at a medical center located on an Air Force base in Texas. Out of 525 questionnaires administered, 244 were usable, resulting in a response rate of 46%. Intent to stay data were collected through a four-item questionnaire developed by the authors.
The questionnaires also contained items related to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, structural variables such as autonomy, and individual variables such as met expectations. Demographic variables such as education, rank, age, and owed service served as controls, since these variables should not have significantly contributed to intent to stay
A regression analysis was conducted to estimate the effects of the variables on intent to stay. The results from this sample of physicians indicated that organizational commitment had a significant relationship to intent to stay, r = .54,p < .Q. Search behavior or the degree to which an employee was looking for another job had a significant negative relationship to intent to stay, r = -.45, p < .01. Opportunity or the availability of another job in the organization also had a significant negative relationship to intent to stay, r = -.22, p < .01. The total explained variance of these three variables
was 41%. In this sample, the explained variance for intent to stay (41%) was larger than 27% obtained by Fisher, Hinson, and Deets (1994) and 31% obtained by Billingsley and Cross (1992); however, the earlier studies used a different measure of intent to stay. For the present study, the authors’ four-item intent to stay instrument was used.