Abstract
This study assesses how employees who are victims of workplace gaslighting respond when they intend to leave, but are unable to, due to two main factors, the availability of job alternatives and job search behaviours. The study posits that employees who are victims of gaslighting are more likely to develop intentions to leave their job. Workplace gaslighting may indirectly shape counter productive work behaviours, mediated by turnover intentions. Further, the availability of job alternatives and job search behaviours are postulated as moderators between turnover intentions and counter-productive work behaviours. Data were collected from 301 frontline employees across the retail sector within the small island developing state of Trinidad. A path-analysis approach was used to evaluate the proposed hypotheses, based on a two-wave research design. The findings support the assertion that workplace gaslighting positively shapes turnover intentions, and that such intentions significantly mediate the relationships between gaslighting and counter-productive work behaviours. Finally, job alternatives moderated the turnover intention- counter-productive work behaviour relationships, while job search behaviours did not. This study addresses specific research gaps as no study has examined how employees who are victims of workplace gaslighting respond when they want to leave but are unable to.