Collective turnover: An expanded meta-analytic exploration and comparison

Discharges, Poor-Performer Quits, and Layoffs as Valued Exits: Is It Really Addition by Subtraction?

We contend that a variety of types of employee exits from the firm are presumed to be a net positive and are thus valued by management, resulting in a potentially important new way to think about these leavers. For each of three valued exit (VE) types (discharges, poor-performer quits, and layoffs) we examine incidence, construct similarities and differences, and antecedents. We also summarize and critique the literature on VE consequences for the organization. In doing so we discuss how an underlying tension must accompany the analysis of VEs. Specifically, the intuitive notion of addition by subtraction must be considered relative to important contextual considerations and to evidence that the operational disruption created by VE departures may at times mitigate or even outweigh the VE benefits. Underlying our analysis is the stipulation that the formal consideration of VEs is in its infancy and is thus laden with conceptual and methodological challenges that scholars must address if we are to benefit from this new approach to employee exits from the firm.

Time to take corporate innovation initiatives

Purpose

A bad safety accident at a manufacturing company usually results in casualties and economic losses. The company affected by such an accident must deal with pressure from multiple stakeholder groups. Employees, in particular, play a key role in pushing the affected company to develop strategies to improve occupational safety and health. The purpose of this paper is to seek answers to two questions: does a safety accident affect employee behavior in terms of giving up prospects to develop a career at the affected company? If yes, could innovation initiatives adopted by the company help moderate the negative consequences from a safety accident?

Design/methodology/approach

By investigating 120 safety accidents reported by publicly listed Chinese manufacturing companies between 2009 and 2016, the authors conduct an empirical study using regression-based statistical hypotheses testing to describe the companies’ responses and prospects for their employees.

Findings

The results show that the magnitude of the accident and the accident being caused by an employee error positively affect the turnover of employees. Furthermore, technical innovation initiatives, such as spending on R&D, by the accident-affected companies increase the positive effect of the accident magnitude on employee turnover. On the contrary, management innovation initiatives, such as corporate social responsibility activities, weaken the impact of the accident magnitude and employee error on employee turnover.

Originality/value

This study contributes to knowledge development by adding a crisis perspective in human resource management research. It helps to better understand the impact of safety accidents on employee behavior and the response taken by companies through innovation initiatives.

Força de Clima: Seu Papel Moderador na Relação Entre Clima e Turnover

Resumo Na literatura, o efeito da qualidade do clima, definido como as percepções positivas sobre o ambiente de trabalho, nos resultados organizacionais já é relativamente bem conhecido e estudado. No entanto, nos últimos anos, a literatura de clima tem prestado atenção crescente em um novo construto: força de clima, que se refere ao grau de consenso entre as pessoas sobre o clima dentro da unidade de trabalho ou organização. Para avançar na investigação do papel de clima nos resultados organizacionais, o presente trabalho examina o efeito de força de clima no turnover em nível organizacional. Para isso, usou-se uma amostra composta de 25.288 indivíduos de 150 empresas de médio e grande porte de diversos setores em que se testou o efeito direto e o moderador de força de clima em cinco dimensões de clima no nível de turnover coletivo. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que, após controlar a qualidade do clima organizacional, a força de clima modera a relação entre qualidade de clima e turnover coletivo em três das cinco facetas de clima estudadas, de forma que, quando a força de clima é alta, a influência do clima organizacional no turnover é potencializada, enquanto que, quando a força de clima é baixa, essa influência se enfraquece. Porém, não há efeito direto entre força de clima e turnover coletivo.

Testing horizontal and vertical alignment of HR practices designed to achieve strategic organizational goals

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to measure the effect of aligning HR practices horizontally and vertically to support organizational strategic goals.

Design/methodology/approach

Hypotheses were tested using 85,840 employees’ responses collected from a single, large public organization’s annual employee survey. Factor analysis with principal axis factoring and varimax rotation was used to confirm the variables being studied. The relationships were analyzed using ordered logistic regression.

Findings

Results suggest that compensation practices, workforce planning, and work/life balance-focused HR practices can be used to predict job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Additionally, when the combined effects of the three HR practice types are considered together, an increased reduction in turnover intention is indicated.

Practical implications

To achieve optimal performance organizations should be diligent in their efforts to align their functional area HRM strategies and practices with each other and with the overall strategic goals and objectives guiding the organization.

Originality/value

While the positive effect of alignment has been proposed by many scholars, empirical examinations of the binary approach are rare. This paper contributes to the field by providing a unique empirical examination of an organization’s implementation of HR practices designed to achieve stated strategic objectives through a large scale study.

#Trending topics in careers: a review and future research agenda

Purpose

Virtually all contemporary scientific papers studying careers emphasize its changing nature. Indeed, careers have been changing during recent decades, for example becoming more complex and unpredictable. Furthermore, hallmarks of the new career – such as individual agency – are clearly increasing in importance in today’s labor market. This led the authors to ask the question of whether these changes are actually visible in the topics that career scholars research. In other words, the purpose of this paper is to discover the trending topics in careers.

Design/methodology/approach

To achieve this goal, the authors analyzed all published papers from four core career journals (i.e. Career Development International, Career Development Quarterly, Journal of Career Assessment, and Journal of Career Development) between 2012 and 2016. Using a five-step procedure involving three researchers, the authors formulated the 16 most trending topics.

Findings

Some traditional career topics are still quite popular today (e.g. career success as the #1 trending topic), whereas other topics have emerged during recent years (e.g. employability as the #3 trending topic). In addition, some topics that are closely related to career research – such as unemployment and job search – surprisingly turned out not to be a trending topic.

Originality/value

In reviewing all published papers in CDI, CDQ, JCA, and JCD between 2012 and 2016, the authors provide a unique overview of currently trending topics, and the authors compare this to the overall discourse on careers. In addition, the authors formulate key questions for future research.

Collective Turnover

This review builds from the last major narrative review of collective turnover ( Hausknecht & Trevor 2011 ) to identify theoretical and empirical advancements in understanding the causes and consequences of turnover rates at the team, group, work unit, and organizational levels. I discuss important developments in collective-level theorizing [including context-emergent turnover (CET) and turnover capacity theory], meta-analytic summaries, longitudinal investigations, and more. The review concludes with recommendations for future collective turnover research.