Retaining Talented Employees in Small and Medium Enterprises in Oman: Examining the Role of Leader Mindfulness, Employee Voice, Leader-Member Exchange Quality, and Perceived Organizational Value.

As part of the Oman Vision 2040, the Sultanate of Oman is attaching high priority to the goal of Omanization across the board, especially in middle to senior level strategic and operational roles. In order to meet this coveted goal, a new generation of Omani citizens, are expected to replace a majority of the ex-patriate workers to create a self-reliant and sustainable economy. However, there appears to be a trend among the well-educated and skilled individuals entering the workforce to seek employment with either the government organizations or large companies in Oman. Most of these individuals rarely consider SMEs as a place to work in. Considering the fact that the SME sector is one of the largest source of new employment in Oman and also a key focus in the National Development Plan, it is deemed necessary to investigate how SMEs can attract and retain highly skilled and talented employees. The human resource management literature on organizational attractiveness, employee retention and turnover, indicates the renewed focus on organizational behavior themes such as leader mindfulness, leader-member exchange quality, perceived organizational value, employee voice, etc. as some of the phenomena that are driving high performance work cultures in many of the advanced economies. However, there appears to be a dearth of empirical studies in the context of Oman in terms of how such phenomena influence employee perceptions about working in SMEs. Therefore, it is deemed necessary to empirically investigate whether similar concepts will also have significant influence on Omani employees working in small and medium enterprises in Oman.