SummaryThis study examines mediated effects of perceived supervisor support (PSS) and perceived organizational support (POS) on turnover cognitions, and their interactive effects on turnover behavior in a sample of 225 social services workers. In this study, we address a seeming contradiction in current findings regarding support and attachments to managers versus attachments to the organization itself. The POS literature suggests fully mediated causal paths to turnover from POS and PSS, through affective commitment. Whereas, the commitment, LMX, and turnover literatures suggest alternative causal paths that imply broader effects for POS and PSS on turnover. Contrary to earlier POS literature, findings showed that PSS had independent effects on turnover cognitions not mediated through POS. Model tests also indicated that POS had significant effects on turnover mediated through normative commitment, as well as affective organizational commitment. Moreover, a new significant interactive relationship was discovered such that low PSS strengthened the negative relationship between POS and turnover, while high PSS weakened it. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

In this study, we synthesize, from the attitude and turnover literatures, a framework of eight (8) distinctive motives, or “Forces”. We then illustrate how the “8 Forces” framework can be utilized by turnover researchers as clarification of reported reasons for turnover, as causal mediators of turnover predictors, and as factors related to the type of turnover decision process. Finally, we discuss further implications of this framework.

Following a justice framework, the present study examined actual candidates taking selection tests to gain full-time employment. The reactions of 144 applicants for an entrylevel accounting job were examined in a real employment testing context at 3 time periods: before testing, after testing but before feedback on whether they passed or failed the test, and after test performance feedback. With controls for pretest perceptions, several of the 5 procedural justice measures (information known about the test, chance to perform, treatment at the test site, consistency of the test administration, and job relatedness) predicted applicant evaluations regarding the organization, perceptions of employment testing, and applicant test-taking self-efficacy. Test outcome favorability (passing or failing the employment test) predicted outcomes beyond initial reactions more consistently than procedural justice perceptions. Procedural justice perceptions explained incremental variance in some analyses after the influence of outcome favorability was controlled. The selection process is a two-way interaction where applicants and organizations gather information about one another and react to this information while making employment decisions. Written employment tests are frequently used to make such decisions. It is estimated that 15-20% of all organizations use written ability tests to help them select applicants (Rowe, Williams, & Day, 1994). Unfortunately, as Schmit and Ryan (1997) pointed out, more than a third of Americans seem to have unfavorable attitudes toward pre-employment testing. This may be because applicants do not believe that paper-and-pencil ability tests capture a person's true ability to do the job

Process models of turnover focus on how people quit; content models focus on why. To integrate these approaches and test whether motives relate systematically to decision processes, we classified 159 leavers using four process types and measured eight content motives for leaving. One key finding was that those who quit with no job alternative had more negative affect than users of other decision types, suggesting affect-driven, impulsive quitting. Results suggest that process-content integration is a fruitful direction for turnover research.