Leadership, Organizational Commitment, and Workforce Retention: A Governance-Sensitive Systematic Review of Public Service Organizations

Abstract

Public sector organizations face persistent challenges in workforce retention, particularly in institutionally complex and resource-constrained environments. Although leadership is widely recognized as a key factor, research remains fragmented across the public administration and human resource management literature. This article develops a governance-sensitive framework to explain how leadership influences workforce retention in public service organizations. Drawing on a PRISMA 2020-guided systematic review of 30 studies, it integrates insights to examine the relationships between people-centered leadership, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions. The synthesis suggests that leadership effects are primarily indirect, operating through affective organizational commitment. Administrative burden (red tape) and working conditions emerge as key contextual factors shaping these relationships. The study contributes by offering an integrated framework and identifying implications for managing workforce retention in public healthcare organizations and comparable institutionally dense public service settings. The article proposes an integrated conceptual framework for future empirical research.