Research purpose: This paper seeks to explore and describe psychological ownership, distinguish it from other work-related attitudes and clarify the role that psychological ownership can play in retaining talent.

Motivation for the study: Previous studies of human resource practices and organisational characteristics that affect organisational commitment and the retention of talent have reported that absent variables could be responsible for varied results. Psychological ownership could be one of them.

Research design, approach and method: Based on a systematic review of the literature published over the last 20 years, the authors synthesised various research perspectives into a framework of psychological ownership and its links to retaining talent.

Main findings: The authors found that psychological ownership was a comprehensive multidimensional construct. It is distinct from other work-related attitudes and seems capable of enabling organisations to retain the talents of skilled employees.

Practical/managerial implications: Organisations can benefit from psychological ownership because it leads employees to feel responsible towards targets (like organisations) and to show stewardship. It can help organisations to retain talent and influence the intentions of skilled employees to remain with their organisations.

Contribution/value-add: Psychological ownership, as an integrated multidimensional construct, has expanded the existing theory about the organisational commitment and work-related attitudes that organisations need to retain talent in the 21st century.

The present study aims, firstly, to explore the literature and describe psychological ownership and its defining elements, because the phenomenon has links with positive behavioural and social-psychological consequences. Secondly, it aims to examine how psychological ownership is distinct from other related constructs. Thirdly, it aims to explore the role that psychological ownership can play in retaining the talents of skilled employees.

In 2002, the Hay Group conducted a survey amongst employees who worked in 330 companies in 50 countries. One third of them reported that they intended to resign from their jobs within the next two years (Hay, 2002). Many of the world’s most admired companies acknowledge that they will lose half their senior executives in the next five years.

Human Capital at Deloitte conducted research amongst a wide range of companies across all industry sectors in South Africa and published it in The South African guide to executive remuneration and reward. It showed that South African businesses lose up to 50% of their executives every four to five years (Rich stay comfortably rich, 2008). More than a third (35%) of executives gave better employment opportunities as their reason for leaving their present organisations (Rich stay comfortably rich, 2008). Therefore, organisations have to face the major challenge of retaining their best and most talented staff. Employee turnover, especially in difficult economic times, can drain the intellectual capital of organisations badly. Furthermore, increasing job mobility in the global knowledge economy, where employees average six employers in a career (O’Neal, 2005), exacerbate the retention challenge.

In their development of a model of employee ownership, Pierce, Rubenfeld and Morgan (1991) posit that employee ownership leads to social-psychological and behavioural outcomes. However, in her study of the employee attitudes of 37 Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) companies, Klein (1987) found no significant relationship between the percentage of stock that the ESOP employees owned and their levels of job satisfaction or commitment. Pendleton, Wilson and Wright (1998) found that most ESOP shareholders did not seem to have a strong sense of ownership and most believed that nothing had changed in the organisation because of employee ownership. In a longitudinal study, Dunn, Richardson and Dewe (1991) found little difference between the attitudes of owners and those of non-owners. In one of the two firms in his case study, Kruse (1984) actually found evidence of lower levels of commitment over time. Long (1982) found a significant decrease in employee satisfaction following a conversion to employee ownership.

These findings suggest that, if actual ownership remains unchanged between the two points of investigation, some mediating and/or extraneous variable other than ownership must be driving attitudinal change. Pierce et al. (1991) have identified an intervening variable, ‘psychological ownership’, which could play a role in the interface between share ownership and employee commitment.

In later work, Pierce, Kostova and Dirks (2001, 2003) drew on studies in sociology, philosophy, human development and psychology to introduce a theory of psychological ownership in organisations. It defined psychological ownership as a construct that is separate and distinct from the legal or equity ownership of an organisation. Mattila and Ikävalko (2003) argue that ownership connects to the relationships between human beings and the things and objects with which they surround themselves. This shows that ownership is a much broader concept than a particular legal regime and the status that follows it. Pierce et al. (1991) suggest that ownership is multidimensional and that it functions as a formal (objective) and as a psychologically experienced phenomenon.

Pierce et al. (1991) suggest that, regardless of the type of ownership (social ownership, worker-producer cooperatives, direct ownership and ESOPs), psychological ownership will lead to the integration of the employee-owner with the organisation and the ownership experience. O’Reilly (2002) notes that:

when managers talk about ownership, what they typically want to instil is not financial ownership but psychological ownership – a feeling on the part of the employees that they have a responsibility to make decisions that are in the long-term interest of the company. (p. 19)

Therefore, Pierce et al. (2001) suggest that, if ESOP employees feel a greater sense of ownership, their commitment to their organisations is likely to increase. Conversely, if they do not experience psychological ownership, their level of organisational commitment is likely to remain unchanged, whatever their level of share ownership.

Therefore, it is important to have a closer look at the mediating and/or extraneous variable of psychological ownership because it is associated with positive behavioural and social-psychological consequences.

• to explore and describe psychological ownership and its defining elements because it has associations with positive behavioural and social-psychological consequences
• to distinguish psychological ownership from other work-related attitudes (like organisational commitment, organisational identification, internalisation, psychological empowerment and job involvement)
• to explore the role that psychological ownership could play in retaining skilled talent.

Review processes generally consist of three parts: data collection, data analysis and synthesis. In this study, the authors conducted a critical analysis of the work of seminal authors in order to explore and describe psychological ownership and its defining elements, to distinguish psychological ownership from other work-related attitudes and to explore the role that psychological ownership can play in retaining talent.

They chose 1991 as the starting date because the first scientific article that they could find that referred to the concept of ‘psychological ownership’ appeared in that year.

The original search identified more than 67 scientific papers, unpublished conference papers and reviews of the literature. However, the authors chose only published scholarly journals that defined psychological ownership and examined psychological ownership in an organisational context. This resulted in 12 articles.

In order to distinguish psychological ownership from other work-related attitudes, the authors used these keywords: commitment, empowerment, identification, internalisation and job involvement. It is important to note that the search for commitment alone identified more than one million papers, commentaries and literature reviews. However, the focus of the study was to conceptualise psychological ownership and to distinguish it from related concepts. Therefore, the authors chose only the articles, published between 1987 and 2010, that enabled them to define the core of the concepts (commitment, empowerment, identification, internalisation and job involvement), that gave the motivational basis of the concepts, that discuss the psychological state of the concepts and indicate the consequences of particular concepts. The search on work-related attitudes resulted in 13 papers.

To explore the role that psychological ownership can play in retaining talent, the authors initially used these keywords in their literature search: talent, retaining talent, talent retention, retention to stay and employee retention. They conducted this search to define the concept of talent and to highlight the importance of retaining talent for organisations. Of the 14 scientific articles that were relevant to this study and were written between 2000 and 2010, eight remained. The authors eliminated five articles because they were not relevant to the purpose of the study. The authors then used combinations of the key words talent, retaining talent, talent retention, retention to stay and employee retention with the key words psychological ownership. This search resulted in only one published paper for more detailed scrutiny from 10 citations. However, this one article did not focus specifically on retaining talent, but on psychological ownership as a predictor of intentions to leave.

Table 1 contains the list of all the journals from which the authors sampled the 34 articles in this study.

The authors evaluated the articles in terms of:

• the purposes of the studies
• whether they were qualitative or quantitative
• their methods of collecting data
• their key findings.

Tables 2, Table 3 and Table 5 summarise the key features of the papers the authors used for this study.

• the feeling of ownership is innately human
• employees develop feelings of ownership of both tangible and intangible objects
• ownership has important emotional, behavioural and attitudinal consequences for those who experience it.

Many researchers and scholars have recognised and commented on the relationship between a sense of possession on the one hand and work and organisational contexts on the other. Brown (1989) suggests that psychological ownership may be a key to organisational competitiveness in the 21st century, whereas Kubzansky and Druskat (1993, cited in Pierce et al., 2003), propose that psychological senses of ownership may be integral parts of employees’ relationships with their organisations. What is psychological ownership and how can one define it?

Pierce et al. (2003, p. 86) link feelings of possession with a sense of ownership. They define psychological ownership as ‘that state where an individual feels as though the target of ownership or a piece of that target is “theirs”’. In their discussion of the construct, they highlight a number of distinguishing features.

According to the framework the authors used here, salient needs, followed by salient values and then by salient goals, trigger employees’ actions. Emotional (affective) and cognitive content influence these actions. Satisfying salient needs will lead to particular levels of psychological ownership that can result in either positive or negative behaviours. These behaviours then lead to particular outcomes for organisations.

Figure 1 illustrates the proposed multidimensional framework of psychological ownership.

It is important to note that psychological ownership has psychological theories of possession as its basis. In addition, according to Avey, Avolio, Crossley and Luthans (2009), one may associate psychological ownership with Positive Organisational Behaviour (POB). Luthans (2002, p. 59) defines POB ‘as the study and application of positively oriented human resource strengths and psychological orientated practices that can be measured, developed, and effectively managed for performance improvement in today’s workplace’.

According to Avey et al. (2009), psychological ownership has much in common with more widely recognised POB constructs and approaches like psychological capital (Luthans, Youssef & Avolio, 2007), psychological well-being (Quick & Quick, 2004; Wright, 2005), positive organisational scholarship (Cameron, Dutton & Quinn, 2003) as well as character strengths and virtues (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). All have positive orientations towards organisations and associations with accomplishment and success. Psychological ownership also meets the specific POB criteria that Luthans (2002) and Luthans et al. (2007) suggested because its basis is theory and research, one can measure it, it is open to change and development and affects the performance of organisations.

The authors discuss Roodt’s (2004) proposed adapted model, which the authors used in their framework (see Figure 1) below.

The authors discuss each of the three motives for psychological ownership in detail.

FIGURE 1: Multidimensional framework of psychological ownership.

Employees experience pleasure and find comfort in their interactions with objects. Therefore, they internalise the socially shared meaning they ascribe to those objects and they become part of their self-identities (McCracken, 1986).

Dittmar (1992, p. 86) concludes that it is through our interactions with our possessions, coupled with reflections about their meaning, that ‘our sense of identity, our self-definition, are established, maintained, reproduced and transformed’.

Rousseau (1998) notes that employees establish, maintain, reproduce and transform their self-identities by interacting with intangibles like organisations, missions or purposes. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all employees have well-defined goals and that they know exactly what their organisations expect of them.

Having a home or a place in which to live is a fundamental human need that goes beyond physical concerns and satisfies a pressing psychological need to belong (Porteous, 1976). One can best understand belongingness, in terms of psychological ownership in organisations, as feelings that employees belong in their organisations. According to Avey et al. (2009), when employees feel that they own their organisations, their ‘having a place’ meets their needs for belonging because it meets their social and socio-emotional needs. However, how can employees come to feel this ownership?

• controlling the targets (objects)
• getting to know the targets intimately
• investing in the targets.

Therefore, when employees exercise greater control, get to know the targets (organisations) intimately, and invest themselves in the targets of ownership, a sense of responsibility takes root and possessive feelings develop. Although the authors examined these routes separately, they could be interrelated.

The authors discuss these ‘routes’ to psychological ownership in more detail below.

According to Pierce et al. (2001), organisations can provide their members with numerous opportunities to exercise varying degrees of control over a number of factors, each of which is a potential target of psychological ownership. For example, job design is such a factor (Hackman & Oldham, 1980; Kanungo, 1992). More complex tasks and jobs, which provide greater autonomy, imply higher levels of control and increase the likelihood that feelings of ownership of targets will emerge (Pierce et al., 2009). Conversely, some organisational factors, like centralisation and formalisation, decrease the possibility that employees can exert control. Therefore, these factors may impede the development of psychological ownership. In these situations, employees learn that nothing is ‘theirs’, because power vests in the structures and they have limited control over their organisations or any part of them (Pierce et al., 2001).

Researchers, like O’Driscoll and Beehr (2000), as well as Parker (1998), found that the extent to which employees believe that they have control is a key determinant of their effective responses like job satisfaction, work involvement and organisational commitment. Empirical evidence supports the relationship between autonomy and control, control and psychological ownership, as well as autonomy and psychological ownership (Pierce, O’Driscoll & Coghlan, 2004; Tanaka & Yamauchi, 2000; Yamauchi, Kumagai & Kawasaki, 1999).

Pierce et al. (2001) propose that, by various processes of association, organisations can provide their members with a number of opportunities for getting to know potential targets of ownership like work, jobs, projects and teams. For example, when members of organisations receive information about possible organisational targets of ownership (like the missions of their organisations, their goals and performance), they tend to feel that they know their organisations better and may develop senses of psychological ownership of them. However, information alone may not be enough to create senses of ownership. The intensity of the associations, like the number of interactions between employees and their targets, also influences outcomes. Longer associations with targets (like long tenures) are more likely to lead to perceptions of knowing targets better and, as a result, to senses of ownership. Making information more accessible and less costly to acquire can also promote intimate knowledge.

Pierce et al. (2001) note that organisations provide a wealth of opportunities for their members to invest in different aspects of their organisations, like their jobs, projects, products, assignments or work teams, and therefore to feel ownership of those targets. According to Beaglehole (1932), workers can develop senses of ownership of their work, their machines and the products of their labour. The investment occurs in several forms, including investing employees’ time, skills, ideas as well as their psychological, physical, and intellectual energies. As a result, employees may begin to feel that the target of ownership comes from them. Pierce et al. (2001) suggest that employees’ psychological ownership of targets becomes stronger the more they invest in the targets.

Several activities in organisations may require different levels of self-investment. One can illustrate this by the example that follows. Non-routine technologies and jobs that are more complex allow employees to use their own judgement. They will then probably invest more of their own thoughts, personal styles and distinctive knowledge. Creating objects is one of the most apparent and powerful means through which employees invest in objects (Pierce et al., 2001). Creation involves investing one’s values and identity as well as one’s time and energy. Pierce et al. (2001) illustrate this by the examples that follow. Engineers may feel that they own the goods they design, politicians that they own the bills they write and entrepreneurs that they the organisations they establish. Academics may feel strong ownership of the outcomes of their academic pursuits.

Pierce et al. (2003) illustrate this with the example that follows:

… individuals whose perceptions of self-worth are predicated on intellect, or who are part of cultures that value intellect, may seek to feel ownership over targets that reinforce this attribute (e.g., books, pieces of art). (p. 20)

In contrast, it is possible that employees legally own some objects, yet never claim them as their own. This could be the case when the objects are not sources of efficacy and effectance and have no associations with the employees’ self-identities and/or the places in which they live, even though, according to Pierce et al. (2003, p. 20), they ‘might have been earned with hard cash and is controlled and known’.

Van Dyne and Pierce (2004) suggest that this sense of possession, which allows employees to satisfy their basic needs for efficacy and effectance, self-identity and place, is a key to work-related attitudes, self-concepts, and behaviours. Therefore, psychological ownership has links with positive motivational, attitudinal and behavioural consequences.

Therefore, states of psychological ownership, whilst they could be latent in each employee, do not necessarily always occur and are not equally strong across employees, targets and situations. Complex interactions between a number of intra-individual, object-related and contextual factors determine psychological ownership.

• greater commitment to organisations (VandeWalle, Van Dyne & Kostova, 1995)
• greater accountability (VandeWalle et al., 1995)
• greater job satisfaction (Avey et al., 2009; Buchko, 1993; Mayhew, Ashkanasy, Bramble & Gardner, 2007; Pierce et al., 1991; VandeWalle et al., 1995; Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004)
• better organisational performance (Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004; Wagner, Parker & Christianson, 2003)
• better organisation-based self-esteem (Avey et al., 2009; VandeWalle et al., 1995; Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004)
• more effort from employees to engage in organisational citizenship behaviours (Avey et al., 2009; VandeWalle et al., 1995; Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004)
• increases in extra-role behaviour (VandeWalle et al., 1995): employees with higher levels of psychological ownership are more likely to engage in extra-role behaviours
• intentions to remain with organisations (Avey et al., 2009; Buchko, 1993).

Scholars like Dirks, Cummings and Pierce (1996) and Pierce et al. (2001) have also discussed the causal relationship between psychological ownership and resistance to organisational change, feelings of responsibility, willingness to take personal risks and make personal sacrifices. Unfortunately, psychological ownership could lead to other dysfunctional organisational behaviours. Deviant behaviours are other possible outcomes of psychological ownership that might lead to violations of organisational norms. However, according to Pierce et al. (2003), psychological ownership does not necessarily lead to dysfunctional behaviours, although it might lead to them in particular circumstances.

Three constructs that are particularly interesting, when one considers psychological ownership, are organisational commitment, organisational identification and internalisation.

Organisational commitment refers to feelings and/or beliefs about why employees want to remain with particular organisations (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Mael and Ashforth (1992) and Dutton, Dukerich and Harquil (1994) define organisational identification as a perceived oneness with an organisation and experience that organisation’s successes and failures as one’s own. Internalisation is the incorporation of values and assumptions with the self as guiding principles (Mael & Ashforth, 1992).

Although commitment, identification and internalisation describe different types of psychological relationships with organisations, they could coexist with psychological ownership, especially when its targets are organisations (Pierce et al., 2001). Commitment, identification and internalisation are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for psychological ownership. However, they are likely to have reciprocal relationships with it (Pierce et al., 2001).

Pierce et al. (2001) theorise that one can distinguish psychological ownership from other constructs on the basis of factors like its conceptual core (possessiveness), its focus, the motive it serves, its development, the type of state, the selected consequences as well as rights and responsibilities (see Table 4).

These notions undoubtedly share a number of similarities. However, the specifics of the different definitions suggest that the conceptual core differs from one concept to the next. Table 4 focuses primarily on the distinctiveness of psychological ownership and the other constructs rather than the similarities and links between them.

There may be overlaps between the observed effects of psychological ownership and those of other constructs. For example, theorists suggest that identification and psychological ownership both produce positive effects (like organisational citizenship behaviour) and negative effects (like deviance). However, the processes through which these effects occur are different. Commitment, identification and internalisation have references to the self in common. However, they differ in their theoretical anchoring. The concept of psychological ownership has its base in psychological theories of possession, whilst social identity theory is the basis of identification and social membership is the basis of commitment (Pierce et al., 2001). From Table 4, point 2, it is clear that the question each of these constructs answers is different.

Therefore, feeling a sense of ownership of an organisation, feeling possessiveness and that the organisation is ‘mine’ or ‘ours’ differs fundamentally from the need, the desire or the obligation to remain with the organisation, that is, organisational commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Ownership differs from:

• using unique and admired characteristics of organisations to define the self or identify with them (Edwards, 2005; Mael & Tetrick, 1992)
• association-based goal equivalence or internalisation (O’Reilly & Chatman, 1986)
• feeling competent and intrinsically motivated at work, or psychological empowerment (Spreitzer, 1995; Stander & Rothmann, 2010)
• being consumed by work and having work as the central life interest (Blau & Boal, 1987; Hackett, Lapierre & Hausdorf, 2001; Lawler & Hall, 1970).

Therefore, Pierce et al. (2001) conclude that it is reasonable to suggest that psychological ownership may predict:

• certain effects that existing theoretical models of other constructs do not explain
• criterion variance that any of the other constructs currently do not explain.

Many studies confirm the existence of a construct like psychological ownership. Mayhew et al. (2007) and Avey et al. (2009) have shown that there is a strong association between affective organisational commitment and psychological ownership. Van Dyne and Pierce (2004) have provided discriminant validity evidence for the distinctiveness of psychological ownership items from the items they used to measure commitment, identification, internalisation, job satisfaction and involvement. Their observation of the unique ability of psychological ownership to predict worker attitudes and behaviours over and above the effects of demographic characteristics, affective organisational commitment, organisational identification, internalisation, job involvement and job satisfaction is important because it demonstrates the unique contribution of the psychology of possession to the understanding of relationships between employees and their organisations.

Olzer, Yilmaz and Ozler (2008) also found that psychological ownership variables account for 50.1% of changes in organisational commitment variables. VandeWalle et al. (1995) report that organisational commitment mediates the effects of psychological ownership on extra-role behaviour. Therefore, psychological ownership makes a difference, because possessive feelings about organisations (psychological ownership) lead to increases in organisational commitment. Committed employees are prepared to engage in extra-role behaviours (constructive work efforts that benefit their organisations and go beyond the required work activities) and extra-role behaviours contribute to higher performance. Therefore, earlier research has shown that there is a relationship between extra-role behaviours and performance. Organisations that value organisational commitment and extra-role behaviours may want to increase the incidence of these behaviours by increasing psychological ownership.

Although some employees may try to sit out a downturn, the best are always employable and can go elsewhere. This creates a ‘war for talent’. Kotzé and Roodt (2005) argue that the demand for, and difficulties in retaining, talent are challenges that are not unique to South African employers. However, they show that three additional factors compound them in South Africa.

Firstly, skilled people have emigrated and continue to do so at an astonishing rate. For example, according to Grant Thornton’s 2008 International Business Report (IBR), 32% of respondents, who took part in a survey amongst 300 privately-owned businesses that employed between 100 and 400 members of staff, confirmed that they had seriously considered leaving South Africa permanently (‘Third of workers mull emigration’, 2008). Secondly, there is a relative scarcity of specialist and managerial employees because of an over-supply of unskilled labour and an under-supply of skilled labour. Thirdly, the national drive to address employment equity has fuelled a war for talent amongst employees from designated groups.

Consequently, organisations need to consider how to keep their best employees – particularly given the huge costs they incur when valuable employees depart. Employees, who leave organisations, often take with them valuable knowledge and expertise they have gained through experience. In addition to these indirect costs, organisations may also face many costs that relate directly to turnover. They include exit interview time and administrative requirements, paying unused vacation leave, the cost of employing temporary workers or paying overtime for co-workers, which organisations ask to fill in, and training costs. Replacement costs include advertising, headhunting and selection fees. Training costs, both formal and informal, add to the overall burden (Mitchell, Holtom & Lee, 2001). Losing good employees is also costly because of its effect on morale. The employees who remain often feel demotivated or disheartened. This causes decreased productivity and job satisfaction. If staff members see their colleagues snapping up new job opportunities, they could leave (Hay, 2002).

Kotzé and Roodt (2005) suggest that employers have two options to succeed in the war for talent. The first is to become and remain an ‘employer of choice’. This will attract and retain employees with the profile they require (Cappelli, 2000). The second is to develop, retain and use their existing talent pool efficiently.

The second option is the preferred one in this study. Rossi (2000), who suggests that the best method of filling important vacancies is to ensure that current qualified employees remain, also recommends the second option. Organisations know their current employees. In addition, they are familiar with the internal workings of their organisations. They have already established the formal and informal networks they need to help them remain productive in their organisations and their organisations have trained them to use many of their methods and systems.

In the effort to win the war for talent, organisations have shifted their attention to determining the intrinsic and extrinsic reward variables that help them to retain talent. Previous studies, like those of Bernthal and Wellins (2001) as well as Cappelli (2000), have identified several intrinsic and extrinsic factors.

Different studies attach differing levels of importance to these factors. A study by Towers Perrin (HR Focus, 2003), for example, emphasises extrinsic rewards like performance-based pay. However, Kaye and Jordan-Evans (2002) report that, despite the importance of extrinsic variables, like compensation, for retaining talent, intrinsic factors, like having good supervisors, significant and challenging work and opportunities to develop are more important.

In a study on 745 employee responses to a retention survey that Bernthal and Wellins (2001) conducted, employees rated the retention factors that follow as very important:

• the quality of their relationships with supervisors or managers
• the ability to balance work and home life
• the level of cooperation with co-workers
• a clear understanding of work objectives
• the level of challenging work and autonomy – the freedom to direct work.

Jamrog (2004) explains:

The best people are not motivated by and do not stay for the money alone. They stay because they are engaged and challenged by work that makes them better at what they do. They want to work for more than just the pay check. (p. 11)

In his article ‘Hunting for black executives’, Bruce Whitfield (2007) observed that many South African companies struggle to retain upwardly-mobile black talent, even though companies under pressure to transform are prepared to pay large salaries to attract the right skills. However, although human resource directors acknowledge the importance of competitive salaries when it comes to attracting and retaining talented staff, they realise that ‘it’s not all about the money’.

Meyer and Allen (1991) observed that organisations that focus on intrinsically important variables benefit by eliciting greater affective commitment from their talented employees. Behaviours and attitudes, like strong beliefs in, and acceptance of, the values and goals of their organisations, the willingness to work hard to benefit their organisations and the desire to remain with their organisations, illustrate this. Birt, Wallis and Winternitz (2004) have found that organisations with high levels of employee commitment outperform those with low levels by 200%. Rankin (2000) advises that focusing on intrinsic variables in order to increase commitment amongst talented employees seems to make good business sense.

Buchko (1993) found that ownership could influence employee behaviours, mainly through its effect on the intentions of employees to remain with their organisations. This effect is both direct and indirect. It operates through increased organisational commitment to tie employees to their organisations and decrease the effects of turnover. Consistent with much of the previous research on turnover (like that of Mobley, 1982), Buchko (1993) found that the intention to leave mediates the effects of commitment on turnover.

According to him, the direct and indirect effects of ownership are significant. In fact, previous research (French & Rosenstein, 1984; Klein, 1987; Long, 1982) has suggested that the effects of attitudinal variables on ownership are strong enough to influence turnover independently of their effects on intentions to leave. In their study, Jeswani and Dave (2011) proposed a conceptual framework of psychological ownership as a predictor of intentions to leave. Avey et al. (2009) and Olckers (2011) found a positive relationship between psychological ownership and employees’ intentions to remain with their organisations.

It seems clear that psychological ownership could affect the intentions of employees to remain with their organisations. Therefore, it can probably play a role in retaining talent.

Psychological ownership is ‘that state where an individual feels as though the target of ownership or a piece of that target is “theirs”’ (Pierce et al., 2003, p. 86). According to Pierce et al. (2001), employees can direct psychological ownership at several objects (including organisations, jobs or work projects). It is a sense of possessing objects where the objects become extensions of themselves and link closely to employees’ identities (Pierce et al., 2001).

Therefore, this study determined that psychological ownership provides an answer to the question ‘What do I feel is mine?’

Organisations can benefit from managing psychological ownership because, according to Pierce et al. (1991) and Mayhew et al. (2007), psychological ownership can motivate employees to perform at high levels and even inspire them to engage in extra-role behaviours. Beaglehole (1932) and Furby (1978) theorise that feelings of possession create a sense of responsibility that influences behaviour.

According to Hall (1966), feelings of responsibility include a responsibility to invest time and energy to advance the cause of organisations by being protective, caring and nurturing. When employees identify closely with their organisations, the desire to maintain, improve and protect that identity results in an improved sense of responsibility for work outputs (Kubzansky & Druskat, 1993, cited in Pierce et al., 2003). According to Pierce et al. (2001), one can see several organisational effects, including stewardship, as responsibilities and as the products of psychological ownership. According to Rogers and Freundlich (1998), employees who feel that they own their organisations believe that they have the right to influence the directions of their organisations and that they have a ‘deeper responsibility’ than those who do not feel ownership.

According to Pierce et al. (2001), it is possible to facilitate the development of psychological ownership in organisations because organisations can satisfy the motives of psychological ownership (self-efficacy and effectance, self-identity and having a place), although managers cannot control these motives. However, managers can work on the so-called ‘routes’ to psychological ownership by organising work so that employees become more psychologically tied to the targets (like organisations) and the targets become extensions of themselves.

The authors finally achieved their first study objective by introducing a multidimensional framework of psychological ownership that distinguishes the antecedents from the consequences of psychological ownership because it links with positive behavioural and social-psychological consequences.

It is important to pay attention to psychological ownership because it is conceptually distinct from organisational commitment, identification, internalisation, psychological empowerment and job involvement. It describes a unique aspect of the human experience in organisations. The particular ability of psychological ownership to predict worker attitudes and behaviours, over and above the effects of demographic characteristics, affective organisational commitment, organisational identification, internalisation, job involvement and job satisfaction, is important. It shows the unique contribution of the psychology of possession to understanding the individual-organisation relationship (Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004).

Table 4 makes it clear that one can distinguish psychological ownership from other work-related constructs. These factors are its conceptual core (namely possessiveness), its focus, its motive, its development, its type of state, its selected consequences as well as rights and responsibilities.

It is clear from the literature that it is a challenge for organisations to retain their most talented and skilled staff. Therefore, the managers in organisations are responsible for creating work environments that engage and retain employees. If organisations can develop and foster a sense of psychological ownership amongst employees by addressing the factors in the framework, they could become better workplaces where sustainable performance and retaining talent is not a problem but a competitive differentiator. Organisations can benefit from psychological ownership because it leads employees to feel responsible towards targets (like organisations) and to show stewardship. It can help organisations to retain talent and influence the intentions of skilled employees to remain with their organisations.

Therefore, it is clear that psychological ownership, which is a multidimensional construct, could help organisations to retain the talents of skilled employees.

The current environment calls for the development of a survey instrument that organisations can use to understand whether, and how, employees interpret their psychological ownership of their organisations and to help organisations to retain their most valuable employees.

Such an instrument should determine the extent to which employees (especially given their diversity) feel that they own their organisations, whether employees feel that they identify with them, have a sense of responsibility towards them and feel that they have some control over their work environments.

Furthermore, a study into the links between psychological ownership and attitudes to work in different generations could also be useful for retaining talent and could reveal possible differentiating factors.

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