LAUSR

Purpose Facing a new round of global industrial restructuring, it is vital for less-developed yet populous regions to build a happy, engaged workforce to achieve competitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to integrate an indigenous cultural perspective, i.e. Muslim religious belief, with the job embeddedness theory to delve into employee well-being-turnover issues in a large developing country ingrained with Muslim culture. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a questionnaire survey on employees from the media sector in the Muslim country, Pakistan. The data were analysed using moderated hierarchical regression models (investigating three-way interactions), while the significance tests of simple slopes and simple slope differences were also used to support the analysis. Findings The results suggest that all predictors analysed (Muslim religious belief, organisational embeddedness, life satisfaction, and work engagement) were negatively and significantly related to turnover intention. Furthermore, the employee well-being-turnover intention mechanisms are jointly moderated by Muslim religious belief and organisational embeddedness. Practical implications The research considers turnover intention as an outcome of a three-way interaction among employee well-being, Muslim religious belief, and organisation embeddedness, thus proposing insightful implications for other developing country enterprises, particularly those ingrained with Muslim culture. Originality/value The authors propose a novel model which demonstrates the effects of employee work- and life-related well-being on turnover intention from a unique angle by incorporating Muslim religious belief with organisational embeddedness, contributing to the existing body of knowledge. The applicability of western concepts to immature markets is also examined.