Does work commitment mediates the effect of Islamic work ethic on performance and turnover intention?

Islam is a comprehensive religion that covers not only the ritual worship aspect but also ethics and acts of business. The field of Islamic work ethics has been studied by many researchers in different study settings. However, the important role of Islamic work ethics has been underexplored in work commitment studies. Therefore, this study aims to examine the direct and indirect effect of Islamic work ethics in affecting employees work performance and turnover intention through work commitment. This study used the quantitative method as their main research design. Purposive sampling was applied as a sampling technique with a five-point Likert scale of the structured questionnaire as a measurement scale and data gathering method. The bootstrap method used to test the proposed hypotheses. This study concluded that Islamic work ethic positively affects work commitment, thus work commitment positively affects work performance. This study also found that there was an insignificant effect of Islamic work ethic on work performance and turnover intention, and work commitment on turnover intention. Fundamentally, the mediation role of work commitment failed to prove in this study as there were only significant indirect effects between Islamic work ethic and work performance. In other words, the higher individual beliefs on Islamic value, the more committed employee to do their job. Thus, the more committed and enthusiastic employees on their job, the higher their work performance will be.


Introduction
Islam is a comprehensive religion that covers not only the ritual worship aspect but also ethics and acts of business. Despite the negativity of Islamophobia stigma and massive prejudice that claimed Islam as an inferior also violent-prone religion, the awareness and desire in implementing Islamic values in each aspect of life is getting bigger and stronger among Muslims around the world. Zahrah et al. (2016) added that it is an obligation to Muslims to be proactive (not being lazy or being such a parasite) in providing positive contribution (good deeds) to humanity. Islam always inspires its believers to behave ethically anywhere at any time. Furthermore, compared to other work ethic endorsements like Protestant and Judaism work ethics, Islamic perspectives are considered more suitable in explaining ethics because of its comprehensiveness, moderate, and realism (Al-Aidaros & Mohd Shamsudin, 2013;bin Salahudin et al., 2016).
Islamic work ethics is a set of moral principles that differentiates what is right from wrong that actualized as part of worship and the fulfillment of religious obligation as Muslim.
Islamic work ethics has become a topic of interest of researchers in recent decades. The field of Islamic work ethics has been studied by many researchers in different study settings.
Studies on Islamic work ethic were first carried out by Ali (1988) who constructed the initial scale of Islamic work ethic. Beekun (1997) broaden the study of Islamic work ethic by linking that within an organizational context. Yousef (2001) continues to explore the study by extending the role of Islamic work ethic as a moderator relationship of organizational commitment on job satisfaction. Thus, Ali & Al-Kazemi (2007) and Khalil & Abu-Saad (2009) strengthen the concept by adding loyalty and individualism as expected outcome behavior from Islamic work ethic. Furthermore, the studies of Islamic work ethic focus on the relationship that variable between organizational behavior like organizational citizenship and collaboration (Murtaza et al., 2016;Tufail, et al. 2017), organizational justice (Fesharaki & Sehhat, 2018), job outcomes or performance (Hayati & Caniago, 2012;Mohammad et al., 2018;Rawwas et al., 2018;Taufail et al., 2018;Douri et al., 2020), leadership (De Clercq et al., 2018;Patel et al., 2019) and individual behavior like innovation (Mahfoudh et al., 2016;Javed et al., 2017), motivation (Gheitani et al., 2019), professionalism (Kamarudin & Kassim, 2020), job stress (ud Din & Farooq, 2017), and turnover intention (Caniago & Mustoko, 2020). However, the important role of Islamic work ethics (or ethics in general) has been underexplored in work commitment studies. Work commitment is different from organizational commitment. While work commitment is known as psychological and emotional linkages between employee and their job (Ramamurthi et al., 2016), organizational commitment is an employee strong beliefs toward specific organization goals and values so that they will give the best effort to maintain their membership in an organization (Al Zefeiti & Mohamad, 2017). This study aims to fill the gap in the scholarly literature by using Islamic work ethic and work commitment as an initial and mediation construct as few studies focus on the mediation role of work commitment in affecting the relationship of Islamic work ethics on work performance and turnover intention. Therefore, for instance, it can be concluded that the objective of this study was to examine the direct and indirect effect of Islamic work ethics in affecting employees' work performance and turnover intention through work commitment.

Islamic Work Ethic, Work Commitment, Work Performance, and Turnover Intention
In Islam, the term of ethics often refers to akhlaq which is considered as the outcome of individual beliefs about several religious values that is reflected in all spheres of life (Sehhat et al., 2015). The religious value in the Islamic perspective can be divided into several aspects including al-khayr (goodness), al-birr (righteousness), al-qist (equity), al-'adl (justice), al-haq (truth), al-ma'ruf (known), and at-taqwa (piety). On the other hand, the word of work in Islam has a noble and sincere meaning (Pardiman, 2018). Ibrahim & Kamri (2013) stated that Muslims often view their work activity as an integral part of worship. They envision his work not only for material and physical pleasure purposes but also for engagement (at-ta'awun), worship (al-ibadah), humanity (al-ihsan), responsibilities (alamanah), self-dignity (hifz al-muru'ah), and as part of reliance towards God (at-tawakal) purpose. Work is a necessary ingredient for serving self and society (Abbasi, 2015). Ali (1988) stressed that the value of work in the Islam perspective is derived from the accompanying intentions rather than from the result of works. The Quran dictates that "Say,

Undoubtedly my prayers, my sacrifice, my living, and my dying are all for Allah, the Lord of
The Creation (6:162)." Although the intention is fundamental, Islam also encourages individuals to give their best effort and highly praises those who strive to live (Yousef, 2001).
The Messenger of Allah, The Prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him, said that "Don't be persistent in begging. By Allah, if one of you asks me for something and I give it to him unwillingly, then there is no blessing in what I have given him (Shahih Muslim: 1038)." He also encourages The Believers to give their best effort in everything they do, working hard then reliance on God on the result of their work. "If you were to rely upon Allah  (Shahih Muslim: 2999)." Therefore, it can be concluded that the higher individual beliefs on Islamic values, the more grateful and patient they will be. Thus, the less likely they intend to leave their job or organization.

H2:
There is a positive relationship between Islamic work ethic and work performance.

H3:
There is a negative relationship between Islamic work ethic and turnover intention.

Work Commitment, Work Performance, and Turnover Intention
Work commitment is known as psychological and emotional linkages between employee and their job (Ramamurthi et al., 2016). Van Steenbergen & Ellemers (2009)  There is a five universal construct of Morrow (1993) that is generally used by researchers to gain a better understanding of work commitment which is work ethic endorsement, career commitment, continuance organizational commitment, affective organizational commitment, and job involvement. While Kim et al. (2020) and Poulose & Dhal (2020) define career commitment by the degree of motivation and psychological attachment to execute a series of the task toward one's profession, job involvement known as the degree to which a person identifies psychologically with his work (Purba et al., 2020). For instance, Tang & Vandenberghe (2020) also describe continuance and affective organizational commitment by the need to remain as an organization member due to the cost associated with leaving and employees' emotional attachment to participate within the organization.
On the other hand, work performance defined by Al-Hawary & Alajmi (2017)  (2020) shows that there was a positive relationship between work commitment and work performance (which means that the more commitment and enthusiast employee when executing their task, the higher the work performance will be).

H4:
Work commitment has a positive relationship with work performance.
Turnover intention is an employees' likelihood (thought or plan) to leave the existing job or organization (Fong & Mahfar, 2013). Numerous previous studies that focus on the effect of work commitment and turnover intention show that there was a clear negative correlation between these variables. The more committed employee on their job, the less likely they intend to leave their job or organization.

H5:
Work commitment has a negative relationship with turnover intention.

The Mediation Role of Work Commitment
Few studies focus on the role of work commitment as a mediation construct in affecting the relationship of Islamic work ethics on work performance and turnover intention. An initial indication of these relationships was proposed by Harinoto et al. (2017) study which has found that work commitment effectively mediates the effect of Islamic work ethics on employee performance. Nasution & Rafiki (2019) added that one of the work commitment constructs which is organizational commitment proves significantly mediate the relationship between Islamic work ethic and job satisfaction. Thus, the higher level of satisfaction of the employee, the higher the degree of an employee to stay with their existing job will be. Azeez et al. (2016) strengthen that work commitment also proved to have a direct effect on turnover intention even without the mediation role of job satisfaction. Therefore, the sixth and seventh hypotheses of this study can be described as follows.

H6:
The effect of Islamic work ethic on work performance is affected by work commitment.

H7:
The effect of Islamic work ethic on turnover intention is affected by work commitment.

Methods
This study used the quantitative method as their main research design. Purposive the process of recruitment, and the promotional career has already follow Islamic values. The criteria sample of this study consist of employee that has more than a year of service period.
The total respondent that classified to be processed in this study is 108 respondents. The detailed abstraction of the relationship between variables can be seen in Figure 1. In this study, the Islamic work ethic was measure by Yousef (2001) Table 1 show that all instruments used in this study were valid and reliable. The demographic profile (Table 2) shows that the majority of the respondent in this study were male who can be classified as Y generation (born 1980-2001) and having high school degree as the last educational background. The characteristics of the majority Does work commitment mediates the effect of Islamic work ethic on performance and turnover intention? by Miswanto, Rois Arifin, Dwi Murniyati respondent in this study that can be categorized as Millennials (Y generation) indicates that they are adaptive, confidence, high self-esteem, assertiveness, achievement-focused, techsavvy, high expectations for advancements opportunities within their careers, and dedicated (Smith & Nichols, 2015). Therefore, Millennials characteristics and the level of education of the majority of the respondent in this study that only holds senior high school degree may affect the relationship between variables in this study.   employees on their job, the higher their work performance will be.

Result and Discussion
The result of this study also was not able to confirm H2 and H3 which stated that there is a positive relationship of Islamic work ethic on work performance and turnover intention as the value of t-tested was 0.705 and -1.436 (which is lower than the value of t-statistics 1.984) with significant value of 0.483 and 0.155 (which is higher than significances criteria of 0.05).
By definition, an Islamic work ethic can be described as individual beliefs/views about several religious values. While work performances were complex employees' behaviors to successfully perform tasks and meet managerial expectations. Therefore, it is understandable that there is no correlation between Islamic work ethic and work performances as there's a big difference between simply believing, having faith, and taking real action. Individually don't always behave like their beliefs. The big differences between the score of Islamic work ethic means (4.382) compared to the score of work performance means (2.965) in this study proved that arguments. Also, the natures of the majority of the respondent in this study that only hold senior high school degree affected the level of their job performance as the lower the level of education the more likely an individual is to have a poor level of knowledge, competencies, and skills (Tammaru & Leetmaa, 2007;Nilsagård & Lohse, 2010;van Deursen et al., 2015;Mikolajczak & Van Bellegem, 2017;Jafari-Sadeghi et al., 2019;Cincera et al., 2020).
Employees might believe that they always give their best effort in executing every task as an expression of their gratitude to God's blessings but still they often make many mistakes so that their work result is below expectation. They also might see that work is the actualization of the worship but still they were unable to overcome any obstacle that happens in their work.
It has therefore been suggested employees need to enhance their commitment to Islamic values by improving their competencies and skills to meet that job demand. He mentions in the Quran in Chapter 58, Verse 11, "Allah will raise those who believe among you and those who were given knowledge, by many degrees. And Allah is All-Aware of what you do." Also, The Prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him, said that "Seeking knowledge is an obligation upon every Muslim (Sunan Ibn Majah: 224)." Regarding the relationship of Islamic work ethics on turnover intention, the majority of the respondent in this study that categorized as the Millenials was considered as the main reason for the insignificant effect between variables. Ivanovic & Ivancevic (2019) stated that compared to the previous generation, the level of the turnover intention of the Millenials was the largest. Siahaan & Gatari (2020) even mentioned that the highest turnover in companies is found in the Millennials generation. The result of this study also provides an insight of the overall Muslim behavior in the workplace that although there were employees' who are having higher belief in Islamic values, whenever there are any offers that provide better salaries and facilities, challenge, and personality fits, they will rationally consider it. This study also failed to prove the conclusion of Azeez et al. (2016) andHardaningtyas (2020) studies that stated work commitment has a negative relationship on turnover intention.
The value of t-tested between variables was lower than the value of t-statistics (-1.064 < 1.984) with a significant value of 0.290, which is higher than significances criteria of 0.05, thus, H5 was rejected. Also, the low mean score of work commitment (2.509) compared to the score of turnover intention means (1.305) caused the insignificancy relationship between variables. Cincera et al. (2020) added that the lower the level of educational background, the higher the willingness to move to a new profession or organization.  (2015) Hayes (2018) stated that when the upper and lower bounds of the 95% confidence interval do not contain zero, it means that the indirect effect between variables was existed or significant. Wong (2015) added that the mediation effect has failed to prove whenever the direct effect between variables is not significant. Although this study successfully proves the significant effect of Islamic work ethic on work commitment, and work commitment on work performance, the mediation testing result as presented in Table 4 show that there was no significant proof of the mediation role of work commitment in affecting the relationship between Islamic work ethic and work performance as the value of BootLLCI (-0.278) and BootULCI (0.901) of H6 contain zero. Therefore, this finding only revealed that there was an indirect effect between Islamic work ethic and work performance. On the other hand, although the value of BootLLCI (0.136) and BootULCI (0.572) of H7 doesn't contain zero, the hypotheses decision was still rejected because there were no significant prove on the direct relationship between Islamic work ethic and work commitment, also work commitment and turnover intention.

Conclusion and Suggestion
This study aims to examine the direct and indirect effect of Islamic work ethics in affecting employees' work performance and turnover intention through work commitment.
This study found that Islamic work ethic positively affects work commitment, thus work commitment has a positive effect on work performance. In other words, the higher individual beliefs on Islamic values, the more committed and enthusiastic employees on their job that ended in the higher work performance result. Unlike the previous study which concluded that there is a positive relationship between Islamic work ethic on work performance and turnover intention, and work commitment negatively affects turnover intention, this study concluded the opposite. The natures of the majority of the respondent in this study that only hold senior high school degree and categorized as the Y generation (Millenials) was considered as the main reason of the insignificant effect between variables. Finally, the mediation role of work commitment failed to prove in this study. This study only found that there was an indirect effect between Islamic work ethic and work performance. Future studies should extend their theoretical scope and sample characteristics in a broader way to gain a better perspective. The usage of organizational behavior issues (like organizational citizenship and collaboration, organizational justice, job outcomes, leadership) and individual issues (like innovation, motivation, professionalism) may be considered as the extension construct of future study.