Introduction The aim of this study was to investigate the association between managers’ commitment and their employees’ turnover intent and perception of quality of care in welfare and health organisations in Spain and Sweden.

Methods A questionnaire on commitment (ICI with its subscales cohesion, pride, categorization, general, need, exchange, affection, and value), turnover intent, and quality of care was administered to 530 employees (nSpain = 353; nSweden = 177). Forty-six Spanish and 9 Swedish managers were included and each employee was assigned with their respective manager’s mean ICI. Pearson’s r was computed between assigned manager’s ICI and employees’ turnover intent and perception of quality of care.

Results All the ICI subscales correlated negatively (r = −0.14 — −0.24; p < 0.01) with turnover intent in the Spanish cohort. However, the same correlations were positive (r = 0.27 — 0.28; p < 0.001) in the Swedish cohort. The ICI subscales cohesion, pride, categorization, exchange, affection, and value correlated positively (r = 0.23 — 0.25; p < 0.01 — 0.001) whereas ICI general and need correlated negatively (r = −0.23 — −0.24; p < 0.001) with quality of care in the Spanish cohort. No significant correlations were found in this respect in the Swedish one.

Conclusion The more commitment the Spanish managers reported, the less turnover intent was reported by their employees. However, the more manager commitment the more turnover intent was reported by the Swedish employees. The more feelings of cohesion, pride, sense of belonging (categorization), organisational success (exchange), and shared values the Spanish managers reported, the more quality of care was reported by their employees. High organisational return (exchange), and organisational recommendation (need) from the managers were associated with a perception of less quality of care by the employees though. In Sweden no such associations were found. The different results can presumably partly be explained by cultural differences.