Review and conceptual analysis of the employee turnover process.

Abstract

Research on employee turnover since the Porter and Steers analysis of the literature reveals that age, tenure, overall satisfaction, job content, intentions to remain on the job, and commitment are consistently and negatively related to turnover. Generally, however, less than 20% of the variance in turnover is explained. Lack of a clear conceptual model, failure to consider available job alternatives, insufficient multivariate research, and infrequent longitudinal studies are identified as factors precluding a better understanding of the psychology of the employee turnover process. A conceptual model is presented that suggests a need to distinguish between satisfaction (present oriented) and attraction/expected utility (future oriented) for both the present role and alternative roles, a need to consider nonwork values and nonwork consequences of turnover behavior as well as contractual constraints, and a potential mechanism for integrating aggregate-level research findings into an individual-level model of the turnover process.Employee withdrawal, in the form of turnover, has sustained the interest of personnel researchers, behavioral scientists, and management practitioners. At the macro level, economists and personnel researchers have demonstrated the relationship between turnover rates and the aggregate level of economic activity, employment levels, and vacancy levels (see, e.g.

Creating a more quit-friendly national workforce? Individual layoff history and voluntary turnover.

“…Employer size Number of individuals employed at current job location (in 100s). Controls for individual differences in turnover propensity resulting from visibility or internal transfer (e.g., March & Simon, 1956;Mobley et al, 1979). Because a job offer, whether unsolicited or solicited, affords the individual complete ease of movement out of one job and into another, we evaluate Hypotheses 6 and 7 by assessing the influence of a layoff history on these turnover pathways both separately (Models 1 and 2) and combined (Model 3 …”

“…With greater awareness of alternatives, it is increasingly likely that a prospective employer offering utility that exceeds that associated with the current employer will be discovered. This imbalance then results in a greater tendency to quit (March & Simon, 1958;Mobley, Griffeth, Hand, & Meglino, 1979;Trevor, 2001).Job insecurity in post-layoff jobs. The lay business press has long proclaimed the existence of the layoff-based psychological spillover and untethering that we adopt as our general conceptual frame.…”

Dynamic Job Satisfaction Shifts: Implications for Manager Behavior and Crossover to Employees

“…In this dissertation, I focus on voluntary turnover because it more closely aligns with a worker's thoughts of leaving the organization (i.e., turnover intentions). As evidenced by prior research and theory (e.g., Mobley, 1977;Mobley, Griffeth, Hand, & Meglino, 1979), turnover intentions constitute one of the most prominent and proximal antecedents of voluntary turnover.…”

“…In this dissertation, I focus on voluntary turnover because it more closely aligns with a worker's thoughts of leaving the organization (i.e., turnover intentions). As evidenced by prior research and theory (e.g., Mobley, 1977;Mobley, Griffeth, Hand, & Meglino, 1979), turnover intentions constitute one of the most prominent and proximal antecedents of voluntary turnover.With respect to turnover theory, two general perspectives on voluntary turnover have emerged over the years: (a) theories that address why people turnover (i.e., content models), and (b) theories that address how people turnover (i.e., process models) (Maertz & Campion, 2004). Empirical research and theory development surrounding both perspectives have elucidated various aspects of turnover decisions, particularly the roles of job satisfaction and turnover intentions.…”

“…Like job satisfaction, employee turnover intentions (e.g., intentions to quit) also represent a prominent attitudinal construct in the organizational sciences. As a presumed outcome of job satisfaction in this dissertation, below, I briefly review job satisfaction as an antecedent of turnover intentions (see Appendix D for a review of the nomological network of turnover intentions).Prior literature has posited a link between job satisfaction and turnover intentions, and this relation has been framed as a means of understanding enacted turnover behavior.From a process-model perspective, the relation between job satisfaction and turnover DYNAMIC JOB SATISFACTION SHIFTS 32 intentions has been most notably framed as part of a larger turnover unfolding process, whereby low job satisfaction leads to thoughts of leaving the organization, which lead to searching for alternative jobs, which leads to turnover intentions, and which ultimately lead to enacted turnover behavior (Mobley, 1977;Mobley et al, 1979;Mobley et al, 1978). From a content-model perspective, job satisfaction represents an affective force that influences decision making surrounding turnover, which implies the inherent role of turnover intentions.…”