Personnel Turnover

The Turnover Decision Process

Voluntarily turnover happens when employees are dissatisfied with their work and experience low commitment to their organization. The relationship between satisfaction and commitment on one hand and turnover on the other has been documented in numerous studies. The relationship between turnover and these predictors, however, is not very strong and is mediated by emotional, cognitive, and behavioral processes. One of the early models that has shaped the course of turnover research was provided by Mobley during the late 1970s. The model describes the experience of dissatisfaction with one's work as arousing thoughts about quitting. These thoughts lead to evaluations of the expected utility of searching for another job and the cost of leaving the current job, to intentions to search, and to evaluations of alternatives. Finding an attractive alternative elicits the intention to quit, which in turn is directly associated with quitting. Research provided empirical support for the model, showed that relationships among the variables in the model can be reciprocal, and identified possible moderators that affect the relationships among the model variables. For example, it was found that in times of high unemployment rates, the relationship between satisfaction and the decision to quit was weaker than during times of low unemployment.

Group Predictors of Member Turnover

Groups may affect members' satisfaction with their work, their commitment to the organization, and, as a result, their decisions to remain in or leave their jobs. The analysis of turnover in groups [Page 643]includes topics such as the influence of group members' characteristics and their relative representation in the group (i.e., diversity) on the tendency to leave the group, the effect of group characteristics such as cohesiveness or culture on members' decisions to leave, the effect of the fit between members' characteristics and characteristics of the group on turnover, and the effect of the group's supervisor on members' decisions to quit.

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