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娀 Academy of Management Journal

2009, Vol. 52, No. 3, 545–561.

TURNOVER CONTAGION: HOW COWORKERS’ JOB


EMBEDDEDNESS AND JOB SEARCH BEHAVIORS
INFLUENCE QUITTING
WILL FELPS
Erasmus University

TERENCE R. MITCHELL
University of Washington, Seattle

DAVID R. HEKMAN
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

THOMAS W. LEE
University of Washington, Seattle

BROOKS C. HOLTOM
Georgetown University

WENDY S. HARMAN
Central Washington University

This research developed and tested a model of turnover contagion in which the job
embeddedness and job search behaviors of coworkers influence employees’ decisions
to quit. In a sample of 45 branches of a regional bank and 1,038 departments of a
national hospitality firm, multilevel analysis revealed that coworkers’ job embedded-
ness and job search behaviors explain variance in individual “voluntary turnover”
over and above that explained by other individual and group-level predictors. Broadly
speaking, these results suggest that coworkers’ job embeddedness and job search
behaviors play critical roles in explaining why people quit their jobs. Implications are
discussed.

As the global economy becomes increasingly On the macro side, economic research often looks
knowledge based, organizations that can success- at particular industries or localities to explain how
fully retain their human resources have an advan- market forces such as unemployment rates or job
tage over organizations that cannot. Indeed, a num- supply and demand affect the frequency with
ber of studies have shown that turnover negatively which people leave their jobs (e.g., Banerjee & Gas-
effects performance (e.g., Shaw, Gupta, & Delery, ton, 2004). Sociological research has also looked at
2005). Hatch and Dyer summarized such findings how turnover affects and is affected by institutional
with the observation that “firms with high turnover changes within and across industries (e.g., Have-
significantly under-perform their rivals” (2004: man, 1995), as well as organizational variables such
1155). As such, organizational leaders are inter- as size (Price, 1977).
ested in understanding why people choose to leave The unique contribution of management scholar-
their jobs and insights that might help with em- ship is not only to investigate the individual or
ployee retention (Ulrich & Smallwood, 2006). Ac- institutional level, but also what emanates from the
cordingly, researchers have spent considerable ef- careful exploration of “the space in between”
fort developing and testing models to explain why (Bradbury & Lichtenstein, 2000). For this reason,
people quit. organizational researchers are often encouraged to
To explain the phenomenon of employee turn- do “meso-level” research, in which individuals are
over, the social sciences have offered both psycho- studied in their social contexts (e.g., House, Rous-
logical (i.e., micro) and organizational and eco- seau, & Thomas-Hunt, 1995; Johns, 2006). How-
nomic (i.e., macro) explanations. On the micro ever, there is surprisingly little work on how social
side, job satisfaction and organizational commit- relationships affect turnover. To quote Pfeffer,
ment have captured most of the research interest. “Turnover has most often been examined as the
545
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546 Academy of Management Journal June

consequence of an individual decision process, port, coworker support, and distributive justice
with the individual acting in isolation. . . . Virtu- (Price, 1977; Price & Mueller, 1986). It is important
ally all of the dominant models of turnover concep- to note that in Price and Mueller’s model, as in
tualize it as an individual decision, without con- virtually all other traditional models, various fac-
sidering the effect of social structure” (1991: 795). tors influence turnover through their impact on
Although Pfeffer’s comment overlooks the work of organizational commitment and job satisfaction,
economists and sociologists, he is broadly correct which in turn influence intent to leave, which then
in stating that the bulk of management research on leads to voluntary turnover.
turnover focuses on individual attitudes as the sole The result of subsequent scholarship based on
precursor to leaving. The influence of one’s imme- these ideas is both impressive and troublesome. It
diate coworkers on turnover decisions (what Pfeffer is impressive in that turnover theory and research
describes as social structure) has been largely have proceeded programmatically in such a way
ignored. that researchers can be confident about a pair of
This article investigates the social dimensions of assertions. First, less satisfied and less committed
quitting and offers a model of “turnover contagion” employees think about leaving, look for alternative
in which the decision to stay at or leave a job is jobs, are more likely to quit, and do each of these to
influenced by coworkers. We provide evidence that a greater degree when they believe that desirable
turnover decisions are a domain in which cowork- job alternatives exist. Second, many individual-
ers can influence an actor’s thoughts, judgments, and macro-level variables are related to turnover
feelings, and behaviors (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). through satisfaction and commitment. However,
Two field studies support the predictive validity of the turnover literature is also troublesome in that
our model, offering new insights into the interper- even the most inclusive models leave the vast ma-
sonal precursors of “voluntary turnover” (job leav- jority of variance unexplained (e.g., Griffeth, Hom,
ing). We argue that this type of meso-level research & Gaertner, 2000; Maertz & Campion, 1998; Price &
can widen researchers’ conceptual lenses, increase Mueller, 1986). A number of authors have therefore
our ability to predict turnover, and enhance the suggested that scholars need to expand their con-
utility of turnover research for practitioners. ceptual lenses to better understand employee turn-
over (e.g., Kammeyer-Mueller, Wanberg, Glomb, &
Ahlburg, 2005; Maertz & Campion, 1998; Mitchell
TOWARD A THEORY OF & Lee, 2001; Mossholder, Settoon, & Henagan,
TURNOVER CONTAGION 2005). The framework we describe below, in which
we outline the turnover contagion process, is such
Turnover Research Heritage
an expansionary attempt.
March and Simon’s (1958) seminal book, Orga-
nizations, marks the real beginning of the attempt
The Turnover Contagion Process
to develop an overall theory explaining why people
leave their jobs. According to March and Simon’s The central theoretical claim made here is that
theory, the two factors that determine whether an when an employee’s coworker engages in behaviors
employee will leave his or her job are the perceived antecedent to leaving a job, these activities some-
desirability of leaving the employing organization times spill over onto others in such a way that the
(conceptualized as job satisfaction and organiza- affected others are more likely to leave. Put more
tional commitment) and the perceived ease of leav- precisely, a coworker’s search for job alternatives or
ing the organization (conceptualized as the quality actual quitting can spread, through a process of
of job alternatives). The research focusing on job social contagion, to affect another employee’s quit-
satisfaction and organizational commitment, in ting behavior. Like the contagion of illness, the
particular, has been extensive. Mobley (1977) iden- process involves the transmission of something
tified the sequential and intermediary variables from one individual to another. For us, the “some-
leading from job dissatisfaction to eventual quit- thing” is the tendency to leave a job. Others have
ting. In an exemplar of programmatic turnover re- used the contagion metaphor to understand the
search, Price and Mueller (1986) added to this spread of burnout (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2000), emo-
model by cataloging the antecedents of organiza- tions (Barsade, 2002), and long work hours (Brett &
tional commitment and job satisfaction, including Stroh, 2003).
pay, social integration, instrumental communica- We believe that the primary mechanism in turn-
tion, formal communication, centralization, routi- over contagion is people’s pervasive tendency to
nization, role overload, promotional opportunity, compare themselves to others. Research on social
professionalism, general training, supervisor sup- comparison has documented that this tendency is
2009 Felps, Mitchell, Hekman, Lee, Holtom, and Harman 547

among the most robust and ubiquitous of psycho- was related to individual employee absenteeism.
logical phenomena (Kruglanski & Mayseless, 1990). And Eder and Eisenberger (2008) demonstrated
“The notion that people rely on others to help that the average tardiness of work group members
define reality in ambiguous circumstances has long is related to individual tardiness. They also
been a core tenet in social psychology” (Degoey, showed, in a second study, that withdrawal behav-
2000: 58). Salancik and Pfeffer (1978) extended iors carried out at the group level, such as taking
Festinger’s (1954) original work on social compar- undeserved work breaks or engaging in idle conver-
ison to organizational behavior and job attitudes, sation, influence the probability that individuals
and Bandura (1977) applied these insights to learn- do the same. Thus, the idea that withdrawal behav-
ing theory. Social comparisons are especially likely iors of group members can influence an individu-
to be made in novel, risky, or ambiguous situations al’s likelihood of engaging in those behaviors
(Festinger, 1954; Tesser, Campbell, & Mickler, clearly has some precedent. Importantly, we do not
1983; Wooten & Reed, 1998). When comparisons presume here that either job satisfaction or organi-
reveal differences with a relevant other’s thoughts, zational commitment plays a key role in the pro-
feelings, or behaviors, an individual’s propensity to cess. The turnover contagion model highlights the
change his or her understanding of a situation so role that simply observing others plays and sug-
that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors become con- gests that a key determinant of whether quitting is
sistent with those of the relevant other increases a viable option at any given point in time is
(Festinger, 1954). Chartrand and Bargh stated this: whether coworkers are leaving.
“Throughout the history of psychology, many have
argued that the act of perceiving another person’s
From Theory to Hypotheses
behavior creates a tendency to behave similarly
oneself” (1999: 813). Above we have presented a theory of turnover
The application to turnover theory is straightfor- contagion whereby the tendency to quit spreads
ward. Given that high levels of risk and uncertainty throughout a work group. We now offer two spe-
often characterize job transition (Steel, 2002), we cific hypotheses about factors that are central to the
expect employees to look to others in evaluating turnover contagion process. First, we hypothesize
whether to seek alternative employment. When a that turnover contagion is most likely to occur
number of coworkers are looking for other jobs, it when the coworkers around a focal employee are
may increase the salience and perceived viability of not “embedded” in their jobs. We choose to focus
leaving for a focal employee, especially since im- on job embeddedness, as opposed to job satisfac-
mediate coworkers are likely targets for social com- tion or organizational commitment, because it is a
parison (Kulik & Ambrose, 1992). Conversely, if broader construct that captures a greater range of
few coworkers are looking for other jobs, it is likely factors that provoke leaving. In Mitchell, Holtom,
that a focal employee will be less inclined to initi- Lee, Sablynski, and Erez’s (2001) original formula-
ate the turnover process. In either case, social com- tion, the job embeddedness construct addressed
parison helps to answer the question, “Should I how well people fit in their jobs (e.g., personal
consider leaving?” We posit that the chance that skills are well suited to the work assigned) and
the answer will be yes increases when many co- community (e.g., they like the amenities a commu-
workers are looking for jobs. In this way, the trans- nity provides); the interpersonal links they have on
mission of a tendency to leave occurs as employees and off the job (e.g., their number of ties to people
watch and converse with their coworkers. The focal and groups); and what they would have to give up
person may observe such job search behaviors in a or sacrifice in leaving their place of employment or
dyadic interaction (e.g., “I am going on a job inter- community (e.g., what opportunities they would
view this week”) or in a group interaction (e.g., forego). In sum, job embeddedness includes several
“You all should probably know that I have a job individual-level factors that enmesh employees in
interview this week”). Moreover, there are a variety their jobs, and numerous studies have shown it to
of leaving behaviors that can be observed; the em- be a good predictor of an employee’s tendency to
ployee might see a coworker update a résumé, quit (Allen, 2006; Crossley, Bennett, Jex, & Burn-
search classified ads, or schedule interviews. In field, 2007; Holtom, Mitchell, & Lee, 2006; Holtom
short, a range of behaviors may indicate that one or & O’Neill, 2004; Lee, Mitchell, Sablynski, Burton, &
multiple coworkers are in the process of leaving. Holtom, 2004; Mitchell et al., 2001; Van Dijk &
Some research has addressed the topic of with- Kirk-Brown, 2003; Zatzick & Iverson 2006). In
drawal caused by group-level variables. Mathieu many of these studies, job embeddedness has gone
and Kohler (1990), for example, found that the fre- beyond job satisfaction and organizational commit-
quency of absenteeism among work group members ment in predicting variance in individual turnover.
548 Academy of Management Journal June

When coworkers’ job embeddedness is low, we better understand the turnover process. A qualita-
believe that the resultant social context will make tive analysis of the behaviors discussed by the fo-
individuals more likely to entertain the possibility cus group members provides some information
of changing jobs. When coworkers are not tethered about how employees may be influenced by their
to— embedded in—a job, they are likely to be open coworkers’ comments about leaving. In Study 2, we
to the possibility of leaving. It is this willingness to sought to specifically measure coworkers’ searches
leave that transfers from low-embeddedness co- for alternative employment using the Job Search
workers to a focal employee in their work unit. Behavior Index (Kopelman, Rovenpor, & Millsap,
Thus, we expect the average job embeddedness of 1992). These authors reported that this measure
coworkers to predict focal employee turnover. Fur- (aggregated to the group level) did an excellent job
ther, since job embeddedness is a broad construct of predicting leaving and internal transfer and went
that includes nonaffective elements such as the over and above eight affective, perceptional, attitu-
number of links to important others and family ties, dinal, and intention measures (e.g., organizational
we would expect this effect to be observed even commitment, intent to stay, and general job satis-
when a focal employee is satisfied with the work faction) in such prediction. For our purposes, the
itself or committed to his/her organization. argument is simple. When an employee sees and
Let us briefly take some examples from the hears about coworkers looking for other jobs, leav-
Mitchell et al. (2001) job embeddedness measure to ing becomes a more salient option for her/him,
provide a more grounded understanding of how which leads to a greater propensity to quit. Figure 1
turnover contagion might operate. Imagine a work- presents a summary of these ideas. It should be
place where most people strongly agree with the noted that although both of the studies described
following statements: “I feel like I am a good match below measured coworkers’ job embeddedness,
for my organization,” “I really love the place I live,” only the second study assessed coworker job search
“I would sacrifice a lot if I left this job,” “My family behavior using the Kopelman et al. (1992) measure.
roots are in this community,” and “I work closely Thus, Hypothesis 2 is only empirically tested in
with my coworkers.” Interactions among employ- Study 2.
ees who feel this way are likely to mutually rein-
force each other’s perceptions that “I belong here, I Hypothesis 2. Coworkers’ job search behaviors
should be here, and I must remain here.” In such a mediate the negative relationship between co-
setting, people are unlikely to be looking at want workers’ job embeddedness and focal em-
ads, talking about available jobs elsewhere, or say- ployee turnover.
ing things that indicate they want to leave. Contrast
this situation with a workplace populated by those
From Hypotheses to Analytics
who are less embedded in their jobs and commu-
nities (e.g., people who feel they don’t fit in their Although undisputedly important, pursuing
work group or community, or people who have meso-level research can be challenging (House et
little to sacrifice in renegotiating their relationships al., 1995). When one defines meso-level research as
to their jobs). In this sort of environment, even if research that includes activities and processes that
they like their jobs, employees have little to lose by take place between the micro and macro, this chal-
voicing ideas about leaving or about alternative lenge comes into stark relief. “Micro” and “macro”
avenues of employment (Bartunek, Huang, & are defined relative to each other, and there are a
Walsh, 2008). Frequent discussions about leaving number of potentially relevant “levels” for both
are likely to prime other employees, possibly even predictors and criteria, including individuals, dy-
those who are fairly embedded, to consider quit- ads, small groups, organizations, industries, and
ting. Thus, we hypothesize the following: societies. The number of possible combinations is
extensive; comments by Klein and Kozlowski
Hypothesis 1. Coworkers’ job embeddedness is
(2000) were helpful for our definitional analysis.
negatively related to voluntary turnover.
We are particularly interested in how the behaviors
The next question naturally follows: How does a that occur in dyads or existing groups (our inde-
willingness to quit engendered by low job embed- pendent variable) influence individual members to
dedness influence others? As noted previously, we quit (our dependent variable). Rousseau (1985) de-
hypothesize that the transmission of this leaving scribed such an influence process as a cross-level
tendency occurs as employees watch and converse phenomenon. In our case, the phenomenon of in-
with coworkers searching for alternative employ- terest is turnover contagion. More specifically, each
ment. In Study 1 (see below), we gathered data person’s job embeddedness reflects an overall
through a series of focus groups designed to help us “stuckness” in the job (the inverse of which is a
2009 Felps, Mitchell, Hekman, Lee, Holtom, and Harman 549

FIGURE 1
The Turnover Contagion Model

Coworkers’ Job Embeddedness


Coworkers’ Job Search
(average job embeddedness
Behavior (qualitative and
score of employees in
quantitative)
department or branch)

Level 2 Variables

Level 1 Variables

Links–Organization

Links–Community

Fit–Organization Individual
Individual Job
Voluntary
Embeddedness
Fit–Community Turnover

Sacrifice–Organization

Sacrifice–Community

willingness to leave), which can be contagiously embeddedness or job search behavior in any mul-
transferred through modeling or direct interaction tilevel statistical test (Klein & Kozlowski, 2000). All
with coworkers. In actual work situations, individ- subsequent analyses do this. Second, this measure-
uals may work at various times with just one other ment process does not depend on employees com-
individual (i.e., dyadically) or, as is increasingly ing to some sort of socially agreed upon consensus
common, in project teams, departments, and inde- about job embeddedness or about job search behav-
pendent branches (i.e., in a small group). In a small iors. For example, one popular type of meso-level
group, any given individual is likely to send turn- research links group-level consensus about some-
over contagion stimuli to a number of others as well thing (e.g., norms, mood, etc.) to individual behav-
as receive this sort of leaving stimuli from a number ior. Chan described these as “direct consensus
of others. models” (1998). Our theoretical model is not one of
If a researcher wants to capture the cumulative direct consensus. As such, the methodological
influence of coworkers on a focal actor’s turnover standards used to verify direct consensus effects
decision, it is necessary to somehow combine the (i.e., high degrees of agreement as assessed by in-
contagious effects of multiple group members traclass correlations, or Rwg statistics) would be
(Klein & Kozlowski, 2000). The simplest way to do meaningless for our analysis. Instead, coworkers’
this is to aggregate the scores of coworkers who are job embeddedness represents what Chan (1998)
known to work closely with an individual on those called an “additive index model” that does not
variables that have been theorized to be associated hinge upon agreement, but is instead about
with the turnover contagion process—in short, job whether relevant social comparisons prompt look-
embeddedness and job search behaviors. Thus, we ing for a different job.
propose to test whether the average of coworkers’
job embeddedness scores for a natural group influ-
ences individual employee turnover and, if so, STUDY 1
whether the coworkers’ average level of job search
Methods
behaviors mediates this relationship.
It is important to point out two statistical issues Sample. Our first research site was a large recre-
related to this conceptualization. First, given that a ation and hospitality organization, hereafter re-
focal individual is nested in a group, it is important ferred to as Funcorp. This organization operates
to control for a focal individual’s own level of job roughly 200 golf courses, country clubs, private
550 Academy of Management Journal June

business and sports clubs, and resorts. Funcorp used to measure job embeddedness. This measure
provides services to about 200,000 member fami- was developed using data collected from 769 cor-
lies throughout the United States. Our initial sam- rections officers. Given the fact that the short-form
ple consisted of 14,981 Funcorp employees who items are also represented in the long form, we
serve its members. Nine thousand seventy-nine em- would expect this correlation to be very high. More
ployees completed our survey, for a response rate importantly, after job satisfaction was controlled
of 60.6 percent. Missing values reduced the number for, the long-form measure of individual job embed-
of usable observations to 8,663, or 57.8 percent of dedness significantly predicted voluntary turnover
the initial sample. Within our usable sample were (p ⬍ .001), as did the short-form measure (p ⬍
1,037 club departments. Overall, 39.3 percent of .001), which provides evidence of predictive valid-
the respondents were women; the average age was ity for this shorter measure. Further, there was no
39.0 years; the average tenure with the organization difference in the amount of variance in turnover
was 6.2 years; and 32.6 percent were nonwhites. explained by the two forms of the instrument.
The average department size was 14.4, and the In both samples, the respondents indicated on a
average number of survey respondents per depart- five-point scale the extent to which they agreed
ment was 8.35. The firm provided demographic with 18 of the 21 items. The other 3 items involved
data for all employees, allowing us to statistically yes or no answers. We standardized and averaged
compare respondents and nonrespondents. These each individual’s scores for each item to create an
comparisons yielded no significant differences in individual-level job embeddedness score. These in-
gender, age, tenure, race, or turnover rate, provid- dividual job embeddedness scores were then aver-
ing some confidence that nonresponse bias was not aged across employees in each department to create
a concern. an aggregate of departmental job embeddedness
Measures. Voluntary turnover was measured in (i.e., departmental coworkers’ job embeddedness).
Study 1 as whether an employee voluntarily left the The Appendix reports the survey’s items. Because
organization in the 18 months immediately follow- individual job embeddedness is a formative (or in-
ing the survey. An 18-month period was reasonable dicator) construct, high internal consistency (e.g.,
because it allowed enough time for the indepen- as measured by coefficient alpha) and unidimen-
dent variables to influence employees’ turnover de- sionality (e.g., as shown by one-factor-model supe-
cisions and provided us with a large enough sam- riority) are not the standards by which construct
ple to reliably run statistical tests. Specifically, validity should be judged (Diamantopoulos & Win-
2,001 of the employees surveyed choose to leave klhofer, 2001). However, for descriptive purposes,
Funcorp. This number corresponds to an 18-month we note that coefficient alpha was high (␣ ⫽ .88).
voluntary turnover rate of 23.1 percent (or 15.4 Control variables. Given that we wanted to test
percent annually). coworkers’ job embeddedness as a predictor of fo-
In prior studies of job embeddedness, researchers cal employee turnover, we sought to control for
have relied on a 40-item measure to capture the six other variables that might provide alternative ex-
subdimensions that were then aggregated to create planations. These control variables included both
composite measures (e.g., Mitchell et al., 2001). In the individual (level 1) factors of job embedded-
defining the construct, Mitchell et al. (2001) char- ness, job satisfaction, organizational commitment,
acterized job embeddedness as a formative indica- part-time versus full-time status, age, gender, race,
tor construct, in that multiple variables are asso- and tenure, as well as the group (level 2) factors of
ciated with the embeddedness construct and coworkers’ job satisfaction, coworkers’ organization-
predictive validity represents the major mechanism al commitment, department size, and local unem-
for validation of its conceptual meaning (Edwards, ployment rate. Job satisfaction assessed the degree
2001). In other words, job embeddedness captures a to which employees expressed satisfaction with ten
large set of things that enmesh people in their jobs dimensions of their jobs (e.g., pay, coworkers, pro-
and that predict voluntary turnover. motion, etc.) using a shortened version of Spector’s
In the present study, we assessed the degree to (1985) job satisfaction measure. Spector’s original
which an employee’s coworkers were enmeshed in scale includes 36 items, but because of survey
the organization and community (coworkers’ job length constraints our shortened measure included
embeddedness) using a 21-item measure of job em- only the 2 best-loading items for each subscale (as
beddedness developed and validated by Holtom, based on Spector [1985]). Thus, the respondents
Mitchell, Lee, and Tidd (2006). In their measure indicated on a five-point scale the extent to which
development study, the product-moment correla- they agreed with 20 items assessing satisfaction
tion showed a strong relationship between the orig- with various aspects of their jobs. Coefficient alpha
inal long form and the revised short form (r ⫽ .92) for job satisfaction was .93. We measured organi-
2009 Felps, Mitchell, Hekman, Lee, Holtom, and Harman 551

zational commitment using four items from Meyer, TABLE 1


Allen, and Smith’s measure of affective organiza- Study 1 Means, Standard Deviations, and
tional commitment. Respondents indicated on a Correlations of Level 2 Variablesa
five-point scale the extent to which they agreed Variables Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4
with the items. Coefficient alpha for this measure
was .85. The employees’ full or part-time work sta- 1. Group size 8.35 1.50
tus was determined from organizational records at 2. Local unemployment rate 4.55 1.01 ⫺.08
the time the employee completed the survey (0 ⫽ 3. Coworkers’ organizational 4.04 0.48 ⫺.13 .01
commitment
“full time,” 1 ⫽ “part time”). Part-time employees 4. Coworkers’ job satisfaction 3.90 0.42 ⫺.02 .04 .63
worked a maximum of 32 hours per week and did 5. Coworkers’ job 3.79 0.31 ⫺.09 .00 .64 .59
not receive benefits, whereas full-time employees embeddedness
were expected to work at least 40 hours per week
and received benefits. We obtained the demo-
a
k ⫽ 1,037 departments; all correlations greater than .03 are
significant at p ⬍ .01.
graphic variables age, gender, race, and tenure from
the organizations’ records and entered them as con-
trols. We included these employee demographic tic regression software called hierarchical general-
variables in the model because we wanted to have ized linear modeling (HGLM; Guo & Zhao, 2000).
confidence that effects were not based on employ- The main difference between hierarchical linear
ee’s life experiences, social categories, or career modeling (HLM) and HGLM is that the latter allows
position. for binary outcome variables (e.g., stay/quit).
In addition, the analysis contained several group HGLM was ideal for our tests because it is designed
(level 2) controls because they could also constitute to account for nonindependence between group-
potential alternative explanations. These include level predictor variables. Given that HGLM is sim-
coworkers’ job satisfaction and coworkers’ organi- ply a type of multilevel logistic regression analysis,
zational commitment, which are the individual- normally distributed outcome variables and error
level variables of job satisfaction and organization- terms are not necessary. It has been used to study
al commitment averaged over department. We multilevel predictors of a wide range of binary out-
should reiterate that we were adding group-level comes, including whether a person drops out of
job satisfaction and group-level organizational high school, completes college, marries, divorces,
commitment simply as conservative controls. Since or goes bankrupt (see Guo and Zhao, 2000). HGLM
they are major predictors of turnover at the indi- helps one to disentangle individual-level effects
vidual level, they may also control variance in turn- from social effects by statistically disaggregating
over when assessed at the group level. However, individual (level 1) and group (level 2) effects. In
we are not postulating that they necessarily op- sum, we used this form of analysis because it pro-
erate through a contagion process similar to co- vided the least biased and most informative
workers’ job embeddedness (although they method of hypothesis testing in this context.
could). Department size was assessed as the num-
ber of employees in each branch or department.
Results
Local unemployment rate was obtained from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics for each zip code Tables 1 and 2 report the means, standard devi-
where a club was located. ations, and correlation coefficients between the de-
pendent, independent, and control variables for the
level 1 and level 2 variables. Table 3 presents the
Analysis
results of the HGLM analysis.
Employees who share a department have the Hypothesis 1 posited a negative relationship be-
same coworkers’ satisfaction, coworkers’ commit- tween coworkers’ job embeddedness and voluntary
ment, and coworkers’ embeddedness scores. To ig- turnover. Table 3 (model 1) shows a negative and
nore this dependence by using normal logistic re- significant relationship between coworkers’ job
gression would violate a core assumption of embeddedness and individual voluntary turnover
regression analysis. Even excluding the focal actor (␤ ⫽ ⫺.19, p ⬍ .001). We further suggested that
from each aggregated score would leave highly in- coworkers’ job embeddedness would predict turn-
terdependent aggregated scores. In fact, aggregated over even when coworkers’ job satisfaction and
scores with the focal actor excluded are almost organizational commitment are controlled. As
identical to aggregated scores with the focal actor shown in Table 3 (model 2), coworkers’ job embed-
included (i.e., the average correlation is .95). There- dedness remains significantly predictive of turn-
fore, the data were analyzed with multilevel logis- over (␤ ⫽ ⫺.16, p ⬍ .001), and neither coworkers’
552 Academy of Management Journal June

TABLE 2
Study 1 Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of Level 1 Variablesa

Variables Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Voluntary turnover 0.23 0.42


2. Age 39.98 14.45 ⫺.21
3. Tenure 7.20 6.79 ⫺.17 .41
4. Gender 0.39 0.49 .01 ⫺.07 ⫺.03
5. Race 0.33 0.47 ⫺.08 ⫺.04 .05 ⫺.12
6. Work status 0.26 0.44 .07 ⫺.05 ⫺.24 .05 ⫺.17
7. Organizational commitment 3.97 0.87 ⫺.19 .21 .14 ⫺.06 .12 ⫺.13
8. Job satisfaction 3.89 0.72 ⫺.08 .00 ⫺.02 ⫺.06 .12 .04 .62
9. Job embeddedness 3.76 0.55 ⫺.17 .20 .15 ⫺.01 .06 ⫺.01 .63 .57

a
n ⫽ 8,663 individuals; all correlations greater than .02 are significant at p ⬍ .01.

job satisfaction nor coworkers’ organizational com- cant, negative predictors of voluntary turnover
mitment remains as a significant predictor of turn- (model 2: satisfaction, ␤ ⫽ ⫺.07, p ⬍ .05; commit-
over in this “competitive test” model. Thus, Hy- ment, ␤ ⫽ ⫺.16, p ⬍ .01; embeddedness, ␤ ⫽ ⫺.09,
pothesis 1 is supported. Although replication was p ⬍ .01).
not the focus of this research, Table 3 does show
results that replicate prior research. Specifically,
Supplementary Qualitative Analysis
individual-level job satisfaction, organizational
commitment, and job embeddedness are signifi- Our model suggests that aggregate job embedded-
ness influences individual turnover through conta-
TABLE 3 gion of job search behaviors. In Study 1, we did not
Study 1 HGLM Logistic Regression Results Predicting quantitatively measure job search behaviors. In-
Individual Voluntary Turnovera stead, we conducted content analyses of a deduc-
tive nature based on 11 focus groups at both of our
Individual Turnover research sites. To get a wide variety of responses,
we selected Funcorp and Cashcorp1 sites where
Variables Model 1 Model 2 employee turnover from prior years was high (six
Level 2
focus groups) and other sites where turnover was
Group size ⫺.01 ⫺.01 low (five focus groups). Eisenhardt and Graebner
Local unemployment rate ⫺.03 ⫺.03 (2007) called this method “contrasting polar
Coworkers’ job embeddedness ⫺.19*** ⫺.16*** types.” Focus groups were conducted before the
Coworkers’ organizational ⫺.06 survey was sent out in both samples. We asked
commitment
Coworkers’ job satisfaction .01
focus group participants to tell us about their jobs
and why people stayed or left. The focus groups
Level 1 lasted 90 –120 minutes each and were attended by
Age ⫺.47*** ⫺.48*** an average of eight employees each. All interviews
Tenure ⫺.62*** ⫺.61***
Gender ⫺.05* ⫺.05*
were audiotaped and later transcribed verbatim.
Race ⫺.14*** ⫺.15*** One of the leading measures of job search behav-
Work status .09** .09** ior (Kopelman et al., 1992) asks respondents to note
Job embeddedness ⫺.10** ⫺.09** which, if any, of ten different search behaviors they
Organizational commitment ⫺.17*** ⫺.16*** have engaged in during the prior year. The behav-
Job satisfaction ⫺.05* ⫺.07*
iors include revising one’s résumé, going on a job
interview, and talking with coworkers about getting
Log-likelihood ⫺794.45 ⫺802.81 a new job. In the focus groups, we were careful not
⫺2[L(␤reduced) ⫺ L(␤full)]b 16.72***
to put any of the participants under pressure by
a
To enhance ease of interpretation, we report standardized asking questions about revising résumés or going
coefficients. n ⫽ 8,663 individuals; k ⫽ 1,037 departments. on job interviews. However, when we asked about
b
The significant change in log-likelihood indicates that the reasons why people stay, we noted that many
model 2 is significantly worse at predicting turnover than model
1. The loss of two degrees of freedom may be the cause.
* p ⬍ .05
1
** p ⬍ .01 This is our pseudonym for the bank providing Study
*** p ⬍ .001 2 data.
2009 Felps, Mitchell, Hekman, Lee, Holtom, and Harman 553

spontaneous comments about leaving emerged. ses about what causes people to search and leave.
Moreover, it seemed to be much more acceptable to The group’s average levels of satisfaction (r ⫽ ⫺.10,
discuss leaving in the high-turnover locations. n.s.) and commitment (r ⫽ ⫺.27, n.s.) were not
Consequently, we asked two of the authors who significantly correlated with the number of com-
were not involved with conducting the focus ments about leaving. However, and consistently
groups to use Atlas.ti qualitative software (a quali- with the turnover contagion model, the group’s
tative analysis tool that helps users organize, lo- level of job embeddedness was significantly, nega-
cate, code, and annotate findings from large vol- tively correlated with the number of comments
umes of qualitative documents) to independently about leaving (r ⫽ ⫺.64, p ⬍ .05). This qualitative
count the comments about leaving (e.g., reasons for finding regarding coworkers’ job embeddedness is
leaving, alternative job options, people who had considerably more speculative than our subsequent
left or were considering leaving). To ensure the quantitative findings reported for Study 2. As men-
coding process was blind, all focus-group-identify- tioned by Lee (1999), qualitative research is not
ing information was removed from the transcripts. suited to discussions of prevalence, generalizabil-
Before coding, the two judges discussed how they ity, or calibration. Qualitative research, however, is
would count leaving reasons. For example, they well suited to discussions of description, interpre-
agreed that when a single focus group participant tation, and explanation. Thus, these findings in-
listed several leaving reasons, they would count creased our confidence in our conceptual under-
each reason as unique. One coder counted 158 leav- standing and encouraged us to further test whether
ing reasons in the 11 focus groups, and the other coworker job search mediates the relationship be-
coder counted 163 leaving reasons. Together, the tween coworkers’ job embeddedness and focal em-
two judges identified 168 leaving reasons, of which ployee turnover.
156 were the same, for 93 percent agreement. All
disagreements were resolved in a discussion be-
tween the two judges, and the judges ultimately STUDY 2
agreed on a final count of 158 leaving reasons. Hypotheses
To assess spontaneous discussions about leaving,
the coders counted the number of reasons for leav- In Study 2, we sought not only to replicate the
ing that employees publicly stated in each group. results of Study 1 but also to gain greater under-
Employees mentioned that their coworkers left to standing of the coworker behaviors that explain the
obtain more pay, better opportunities or benefits, effect of coworkers’ job embeddedness on individ-
and less physically demanding jobs, or to go back to ual employee turnover. Recall that Hypothesis 2
school. For example, one Cashcorp employee at a holds that coworkers’ job search behavior mediates
branch where the coworkers’ job embeddedness the effect of coworkers’ job embeddedness on indi-
score was low made the comment, “Did you know vidual turnover. As described in the theory devel-
that at [alternative company], the pay starts at $9 or opment section, contagion is a process by which
$10 and they reimburse 100% of tuition? If I saw turnover propensity spreads from coworkers to a
that they were hiring, I could see myself leaving.” focal actor. This process is hypothesized to occur
After conducting the focus groups, we surveyed the when employees model each other’s leaving-re-
employees as part of the broader quantitative por- lated behaviors (i.e. resume revision, reading the
tion of our study, as we describe in the Methods classifieds, going on job interviews, etc.). However,
sections pertaining to Studies 1 and 2. From each in Study 1 we did not directly measure job search
focus group participant’s individual job embedded- behavior. In Study 2 we attempted to assess di-
ness, commitment, and satisfaction scores, we cal- rectly if job search behavior was more common
culated each focus group’s average level of job em- where employees were not embedded and if co-
beddedness, commitment, and satisfaction. We workers’ search behavior mediated the relationship
imputed the organizational average score to each of between coworkers’ job embeddedness and focal
the 5 focus group participants (out of 88) who did employee turnover.
not fill out a survey. The survey data gathered from
focus group participants were also included in the
Methods
broader HGLM analysis. The number of coded com-
ments about leaving (a proxy for job search behav- Sample. Our second site was a retail bank in the
ior) was then correlated with the group’s average U.S. Midwest. Cashcorp owns and operates 45
level of job embeddedness, commitment, and branch offices in two states and has roughly two
satisfaction. billion dollars in assets. We sent a survey to all 486
Our findings were consistent with our hypothe- employees. Three-hundred and twenty employees
554 Academy of Management Journal June

TABLE 4
Study 2 Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of Level 2 Variablesa, b

Variables Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Group size 5.20 6.07


2. Local unemployment rate 4.08 2.46 ⫺.08
3. Coworkers’ job alternatives 3.34 0.41 .08 ⫺.14
4. Coworkers’ organizational commitment 2.97 0.35 .04 .03 ⫺.53
5. Coworkers’ job satisfaction 3.27 0.31 .01 ⫺.09 ⫺.52 .66
6. Coworkers’ job embeddedness 2.36 0.27 .19 ⫺.02 ⫺.19 .52 .46
7. Coworkers’ search behavior 0.45 0.19 ⫺.12 .13 .38 ⫺.60 ⫺.55 ⫺.60

The correlation between coworkers’ job embeddedness and comments about leaving is ⫺.64, p ⬍ .05. The relationships between
a

coworkers’ job satisfaction and coworkers’ organizational commitment and comments about leaving are not significant.
b
k ⫽ 45 departments; all correlations greater than .19 are significant at p ⬍ .05.

completed the survey, for a response rate of 66 Study 1 only assessed affective commitment, and
percent. Missing values reduced the number of us- Study 2 used a more comprehensive 18-item mea-
able observations to 234 and the final response rate sure of organizational commitment that includes
to 48 percent. In our usable sample, respondents affective, normative, and continuance commitment
were from 45 branches; 77.1 percent were women; (Meyer, Allen, & Smith, 1993). Both studies used
the average age was 37.8 years; the average tenure the same short version of Holtom and colleagues’
with the organization was 6.1 years; and 8.2 per- (2006) job embeddedness scale. Once again, the
cent were nonwhites. The average branch size was reliability scores for these scales were high (␣ ⫽
10.8 (5.2 survey respondents per branch). In the .93, job satisfaction; ␣ ⫽ .89, organizational com-
two years following the survey, 60 employees who mitment; and ␣ ⫽ .82, job embeddedness). Finally,
completed our survey voluntarily left Cashcorp, we used Griffeth and Hom’s (1988) 5-item Index of
which equates to a two-year voluntary turnover rate Perceived Job Alternatives at the individual level to
of 25.7 percent (or 12.9 percent per year). Finally, control for the effect of employee perceptions on
nonresponse bias was unlikely because employees the job alternative–turnover relationship. Finally,
who completed our survey and those who did not as in Study 1, we aggregated five variables (i.e., job
were not significantly different in terms of gender, search, job embeddedness, job satisfaction, organi-
age, tenure, race, or turnover rate. zational commitment, and job alternatives) to the
Measures. The measures and methods were only unit level. Our rationale for aggregating job satis-
slightly different from those for Study 1. The most faction, organizational commitment, and job alter-
important addition was that Study 2 included the natives was the same as for Study 1. They were
ten-item Job Search Behavior Index (Kopelman et seen as conservative controls.
al., 1992; ␣ ⫽ .83). We aggregated this measure Analysis. The analytic technique also remained
to the unit level in order to assess the amount of the same (i.e., HGLM), with the exception that we
job search activity occurring in a particular bank tested mediation using both the traditional Baron
branch. This index seeks to tap the actual behaviors and Kenny (1986) standard and the Sobel test,
involved in looking for a new job and includes which directly assesses the statistical significance
items such as, “[During the past year, have you] of the change in regression coefficients when the
revised your résumé?” “. . . read the classified/ mediator is added to the equation. As Baron and
help wanted advertisements in the newspaper?” Kenny (1986) suggested, the Sobel test offers a con-
“. . . sent copies of your résumé to a prospective firmatory and rigorous test of mediation.
employer?” “. . . talked to coworkers about getting a
new job?” “. . . gone on a job interview?” The re-
Results
sults of Kopelman and colleagues (1992) suggest
that this index may be a better and more behavior- Tables 4 and 5 present the level 1 and level 2
ally grounded predictor of employee turnover than descriptive statistics. Table 6 presents results of
are intention to leave and attitudinal variables. the regression of the job attitude variables on the
Study 2 also employs slightly better measures of mediator (coworkers job search behavior) as well
job satisfaction and organizational commitment. as results of the HGLM analysis for actual quit-
Whereas the first study used a shortened 20-item ting. The main purpose of this study, though, was
version of Spector’s Job Satisfaction Index (1985), to test whether coworkers’ job search behavior
Study 2 used the full 36-item scale. In addition, would mediate the relationship between cowork-
2009 Felps, Mitchell, Hekman, Lee, Holtom, and Harman 555

TABLE 5
Study 2 Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of Level 1 Variablesa

Variables Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. Voluntary turnover 0.26 0.44


2. Age 37.51 12.15 ⫺.37
3. Tenure 5.89 7.05 ⫺.26 .47
4. Gender 0.73 0.45 .10 ⫺.15 ⫺.03
5. Race 0.09 0.28 .20 ⫺.09 ⫺.04 .06
6. Work status 0.13 0.33 .16 ⫺.22 ⫺.13 .13 .09
7. Job alternatives 3.36 0.95 .07 .02 .03 .07 ⫺.13 ⫺.06
8. Organizational commitment 2.97 0.62 ⫺.26 .06 .13 .05 .04 .01 ⫺.33
9. Job satisfaction 3.28 0.53 ⫺.24 .04 ⫺.04 ⫺.07 ⫺.02 ⫺.02 ⫺.34 .55
10. Job embeddedness 2.41 0.47 ⫺.28 .30 .27 ⫺.04 ⫺.14 ⫺.17 ⫺.23 .56 .47
11. Job search behavior index 0.43 0.31 .45 ⫺.37 ⫺.33 .03 .10 .06 .19 ⫺.44 ⫺.37 ⫺.49

a
n ⫽ 234 for all variables; all correlations greater than .13 are significant at p ⬍ .05.

ers’ job embeddedness and focal employee vol- workers’ organizational commitment, coworkers’
untary turnover. Results indicate that coworkers’ job satisfaction, and coworkers’ perceptions of
job embeddedness was significantly and nega- job alternatives. Next, we regressed voluntary
tively related to coworkers’ job search behavior turnover on coworkers’ job embeddedness (mod-
(␤ ⫽ ⫺.41, p ⬍ .001) even after we controlled for els 1 and 2 in Table 6). Replicating our first
bank branch size, local unemployment rate, co- study’s findings, coworkers’ job embeddedness

TABLE 6
Study 2 OLS and HGLM Regression Results Examining the Influence of Coworkers’ Job Embeddednessa

Individual Turnover

Variables Coworker Job Search Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Level 2
Group size ⫺.09 ⫺.04 ⫺.10 ⫺.21* ⫺.19*
Local unemployment rate .20 .20 .16 .06 ⫺.04
Coworkers’ job alternatives .13 .18 ⫺.17 ⫺.26
Coworkers’ organizational commitment ⫺.32* ⫺.24 ⫺.11 ⫺.04
Coworkers’ job satisfaction ⫺.18 ⫺.08 ⫺.27 ⫺.29
Coworkers’ job embeddedness ⫺.41*** ⫺.92*** ⫺.68** ⫺.46
Coworkers’ job search .59**

Level 1
Age ⫺.58** ⫺.52* ⫺.54*
Tenure ⫺.26 ⫺.18 ⫺.18
Gender .08 .16 .15
Race .29 .30 .33
Work status .29 .27 .28
Job embeddedness .12 .10 .12
Organizational commitment ⫺.15 ⫺.15 ⫺.15
Job satisfaction ⫺.10 ⫺.07 ⫺.10
Job alternatives ⫺.10 ⫺.11 ⫺.10
Job search behavior index .87*** .90*** .87***

R2 .44 .55
⌬R2 from previous model .11***
Log-likelihood ⫺330.25 ⫺330.55 ⫺326.63
⫺2[L(␤reduced) ⫺ L(␤full)] 7.84**

a
To enhance ease of interpretation, we report standardized coefficients. n ⫽ 234 individuals; k ⫽ 45 branches.
* p ⬍ .05
** p ⬍ .01
*** p ⬍ .001
556 Academy of Management Journal June

significantly predicted turnover (␤ ⫽ ⫺.92, p ⬍ rion, (3) explaining additional variance over and
.001). Then we regressed voluntary turnover si- above that explained by competitive constructs,
multaneously on coworkers’ job search behavior and (4) showing the process by which something
and coworkers’ job embeddedness (model 3 in has an effect (i.e., establishing mediation). It
Table 6). Coworkers’ job embeddedness becomes should be noted that all four of these criteria have
nonsignificant when the mediator is added. been demonstrated for coworkers’ job embedded-
Moreover, the Sobel test shows that the change in ness. In analyses (1) controlled for demographic
the regression coefficient for coworkers’ job em- characteristics (e.g., tenure, age, work status, and
beddedness is itself significant (Sobel t ⫽ ⫺8.6, gender), perceived and objective measures of job
p ⬍ .001). Thus, Hypothesis 2 is supported. Cowork- alternatives, and department size, coworkers’ job
ers’ job search behavior appears to mediate the rela- embeddedness (2) predicts turnover in two dis-
tionship between coworkers’ job embeddedness and tinct samples, (3) exceeds the prediction of sim-
turnover. As in our first study, we found that when ilarly aggregated variables such as coworkers’ job
we included coworkers’ satisfaction and commitment satisfaction and coworkers’ organizational com-
variables in the model, only coworkers’ job embed- mitment, (4) and can plausibly be seen to operate
dedness was still significant. through the observation of coworkers’ job search
The implications of our results are apparent in behaviors. Thus, we can have some confidence
the effect sizes and statistical ramifications that coworkers’ job embeddedness is one impor-
within our sample. On average, using a simple tant driver of turnover contagion.
log-odds transformation, we found that a one But going beyond job embeddedness, we also
standard deviation increase in coworkers’ job em- provide evidence through both qualitative and
beddedness decreased the probability of an indi- quantitative analyses that coworkers’ job search
vidual voluntarily leaving from 15.4 percent per may act as a critical mechanism in the turnover
year to 8.5 percent per year at Funcorp, and from contagion process. These findings are conservative
12.9 percent per year to 4.2 percent per year at in that job search behaviors have more recently
Cashcorp. This equates to a decrease in voluntary evolved to include Internet job search, job clearing-
turnover of 45 percent at Funcorp and 67 percent house websites, and e-mail correspondence about
at Cashcorp, given controls for other variables in positions. The Job Search Behavior Index (Kopel-
the model. We speculate that the Cashcorp re- man et al., 1992) does not account for these new
sults are stronger because the units are smaller ways of searching for a job.
and more exclusive. In the confined space of a A particular strength of the study is the replica-
bank branch, people saw their unit members tion of findings for two large samples in two very
more frequently and were exposed to only their different settings. Cashcorp employees worked in
fellow branch members’ leaving behaviors. self-contained branches with relatively few people.
Across the two samples, a one standard deviation The employees at Funcorp, in contrast, were
decrease in coworkers’ job search behavior de- grouped according to department within a larger
creased the probability of an individual “turning organizational unit (a club). These department
over” by 35 percent. Moreover, in comparing the members were not isolated from other employees
effect sizes of the individual and coworker vari- in different departments. We suspect that this fac-
ables, we found them to be roughly equal predic- tor dilutes the influence of coworkers’ job embed-
tors of focal actor quitting. Thus, the job embed- dedness. As such, finding that coworkers’ job em-
dedness and job search behavior of coworkers beddedness influences voluntary turnover at
had a sizable influence on focal actor turnover Funcorp represents a more rigorous test of our hy-
decisions. potheses. Taking the results of these samples to-
gether enhances our confidence in the robustness
of our inferences.
DISCUSSION
Extending social comparison theory to the do-
Limitations and Future Research
main of turnover, we investigated the role of co-
workers’ attitudes and behaviors on individual We have argued that taking an average of cowork-
employee turnover propensity. In two separate ers’ job embeddedness and coworkers’ job search
samples, we found that aggregated coworkers’ job behaviors makes sense as a way to capture the
embeddedness was a valid predictor of individ- turnover contagion stimuli to which a focal indi-
ual voluntary turnover. There are a variety of vidual is exposed. However, we note that the as-
ways to demonstrate validity: (1) controlling for sessment of turnover contagion was indirect. Nei-
alternative explanations, (2) predicting a crite- ther the more speculative qualitative data gathered
2009 Felps, Mitchell, Hekman, Lee, Holtom, and Harman 557

from the focus groups nor the more rigorous job turnover on the six job embeddedness items to get
search behaviors gathered in Study 2 measured the weights of each of the dimensions. We then
what a focal person actually heard or saw cowork- multiplied each individual’s score on each dimen-
ers do. Such behavioral data are difficult to gather sion by the weight for each dimension and added
but would seem to be a necessary component of the six resulting products together. This created the
future research on this topic. Moreover, there are weighted job embeddedness score. We then aggre-
other variables that might signal how likely it is for gated these weighted individual job embeddedness
contagion to occur—for instance, how close desks scores among the members of each department to
are situated to each other, how often or effectively create our measure of coworkers’ job embedded-
coworkers communicate with each other, friend- ness. The results of this analysis are virtually iden-
ship level, and status similarity. Given that such tical to those obtained from the straight aggregation
data were not available in our samples, the current approach but with slightly improved predictive va-
research employed a simpler (and more conserva- lidity, which we would expect (Edwards, 2001;
tive) measurement of turnover contagion. Future Howell, Breivik, & Wilcox, 2007; Law et al., 1998).
research could productively build on these find- We chose not to report or base our conclusions on
ings to identify alternative operationalizations of the results using these weights for three reasons.
the turnover contagion process, as well as modera- First, such weights capitalize on sample-specific
tors of these effects. variance and error. Second, findings reported in
Further, our research has not included all vari- other studies suggest that the contributions to turn-
ables known to be related to turnover. In partic- over of the dimensions vary by samples (Allen,
ular, a valuable contribution to future research 2006; Lee et al., 2004, Zatzick & Iverson, 2006).
would be to include more macro variables, such Thus, using weights means that the construct is
as organizational support, leadership quality, essentially different with every sample, which
and compensation policies, that might be fruit- makes it difficult to meaningfully compare results
fully integrated as antecedent, moderator, or al- across studies (Howell et al., 2007) and thus re-
ternative mechanisms for the turnover contagion duces generalizability and complicates theory
model developed here. In particular, it is possible building. Third, it was more conservative (e.g., less
that norms about the legitimacy of leaving might likely to capitalize on chance) and in line with
develop and could affect turnover (Abelson, previous research to use the aggregate job embed-
1993). Qualitative work by Bartunek et al. (2008) dedness score. However, we should add that this
and Rumery (2003) has suggested that such col- variation in weights points to the need for future
lective norms can develop and that they may research into the potential moderators of the rela-
affect turnover attitudes and behaviors. Unfortu- tionship between the subdimensions of job embed-
nately, our data cannot speak to this issue. More- dedness and turnover or performance. Better infor-
over, it should be pointed out that if such norms mation is still needed about how and under what
were to exist, they would be predicated on exten- conditions job embeddedness subdimensions in-
sive social comparison (Bartunek et al, 2008) and fluence turnover. Finally, though we did not use
thus would act as a complementary rather than the weights in the research reported here, we rec-
substitute mechanism for turnover contagion. ognize that such sample-specific information may
Thus, although a normative factor could add to be what is most valuable in making prescriptions
the prediction of individual turnover, we do not for any given organization.
believe that effect will replace or be as strong as
the contagion effect captured here. Said differ-
Managerial Implications
ently, we have attempted to control for the vari-
ables most likely to provide alternative explana- Organizations can use the results of this study to
tions for our findings, yet we have not controlled design specific interventions aimed at reducing
for all of them, nor have we included all the voluntary turnover. A primary implication is that,
variables that may be involved in the process. at the group level, job embeddedness is an impor-
The inclusion of these additional variables may tant antecedent to eventual turnover. Beyond just
both clarify and extend the current research. affecting individual decision making, it also influ-
Finally, another potential limitation concerns the ences whether the social environment incites leav-
issue of weights for the subdimensions of job em- ing. Of particular interest in the context of this
beddedness. As a robustness check, we ran all the research is a study by Allen (2006). He found that
analyses using the weighted approach suggested by collective socialization tactics—where newcomers
Law, Wong, and Mobley (1998). Specifically, we experience common learning experiences with a
ran a logistic regression in which we regressed group or cohort—increase embeddedness in an or-
558 Academy of Management Journal June

ganization. Such socialization tactics provide a Job search behavior may also have managerial
common message about the organization, roles, and implications, and these are potentially more con-
appropriate responses. This common message may troversial. Specifically, managers could prohibit
shape how groups of people interpret organization- gossiping about people who are looking for other
al events such as the loss of a respected coworker or jobs, especially “on company time.” Such a prohi-
a large number of coworkers simultaneously. In bition might inhibit the spread of contagious infor-
short, organizations could actively manage the con- mation, but bald attempts at concertive control may
tent of collective socialization experiences as well provoke reactance, ill-will, and even sabotage. Per-
as attend to influential individuals in social net- haps a more realistic alternative is for managers to
works (Bartunek et al., 2008; Mossholder et al., track job embeddedness and turnover at the team
2005). level. Where embeddedness is low and/or turnover
Second, individual-level factors that increase in- is high, they might actively try to raise embedded-
dividual job embeddedness should also be consid- ness scores or reconstitute a group with some peo-
ered (Mitchell et al., 2001). Prior research has iden- ple who have high embeddedness. Such changes
tified a number of antecedents to on-the-job might reduce the job search behaviors demon-
embeddedness. For example, personality variables strated by group members.
such as conscientiousness, extraversion, and agree-
ableness have demonstrated a strong, positive rela-
tionship with on-the-job embeddedness (Giosan, Concluding Thoughts
Holtom, & Watson, 2005). Thus, reducing voluntary Tackling turnover theory at the meso level is not
turnover through selection is one clearly actionable new; it has been advocated at the organization cul-
approach (Barrick & Zimmerman, 2005). Further, ture level (Abelson, 1993) and even empirically
both perceived supervisor support and perceived examined on occasion (cf. Feeley & Burnett, 1997.
organizational support have been demonstrated to However, it is our belief that these approaches have
positively predict levels of on-the-job embedded- not focused enough on social factors—specifically,
ness (Giosan et al., 2005) and reduced voluntary the attitudes, characteristics, and behaviors of focal
turnover (Maertz, Griffeth, Campbell, & Allen, employees’ coworkers. Although researchers per-
2007). Other suggestions include developing haps do not naturally think of quitting as a social
schedules that fit employee needs (Holtom, Lee, & phenomenon, our research suggests that it is and
Tidd, 2002), providing creative benefit alternatives that additional research regarding the social predic-
or cafeteria plans, tailoring benefits to meet indi- tors of turnover is warranted.
vidual needs and enhance work-life balance, allow-
ing employees input into designing work environ-
ments, and providing incentives or perks based on REFERENCES
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2009 Felps, Mitchell, Hekman, Lee, Holtom, and Harman 561

Psychology of Relationships Interest Group, 3rd An-


nual Conference, Deakin University, Melbourne.
Wooten, D. B., & Reed, A. 1998. Informational influence Will Felps (wfelps@rsm.nl) is an assistant professor at the
and the ambiguity of product experience: Order ef- Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.
fects on the weighting of evidence. Journal of Con- He received his Ph.D. in management from the Univer-
sumer Research, 7(1): 79 –99. sity of Washington, Seattle. His diverse topics of interests
Zatzick, C. D., & Iverson, R. D. 2006. Job embeddedness, are linked together by a desire to create more effective
gender, and voluntary turnover: Further exten- and humane organizations through more valid and co-
sions of a new construct. Paper presented at the herent theories.
annual meeting of the Academy of Management, At- Terence Mitchell (trm@u.washington.edu) is a professor
lanta. of management and organization and of psychology at
the Foster School of Business at the University of Wash-
ington, Seattle. He received his Ph.D. from the University
APPENDIX of Illinois. His current research interests are organization-
Job Embeddedness Scale, Short Forma al attachment, motivation, and leadership.

1. My job utilizes my skills and talents well. David R. Hekman (hekman@u.washington.edu) is an as-
2. I feel like I am a good match for my organization. sistant professor of health care management at the Lubar
3. If I stay with my organization, I will be able to achieve School of Business, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
most of my goals. He earned his Ph.D. in management from the University
4. I really love the place where I live. of Washington, Seattle. His research interests include
5. The place where I live is a good match for me. employee attachment to the organization, courageous
6. The area where I live offers the leisure activities that I like employee actions, subtle discrimination, and under-
(sports, outdoor activities, cultural events & arts). standing why organizations fail.
7. I have a lot of freedom on this job to pursue my goals.
8. I would sacrifice a lot if I left this job. Thomas W. Lee (orcas@u.washington.edu) is the Hughes
9. I believe the prospects for continuing employment with M. Blake Professor of Management and associate dean for
my organization are excellent. academic and faculty affairs at the Foster School of Busi-
10. Leaving the community where I live would be very hard. ness, University of Washington, Seattle. He earned his
11. If I were to leave the community, I would miss my non-
Ph.D. in management from the University of Oregon. His
work friends.
12. If I were to leave the area where I live, I would miss my
primary research interests include employee loyalty, re-
neighborhood. tention and turnover, and work motivation.
13. I am a member of an effective work group. Brooks C. Holtom (bch6@msb.edu) is an assistant profes-
14. I work closely with my coworkers.
sor of management in the McDonough School of Business
15. On the job, I interact frequently with my work group
members.
at Georgetown University. He received his Ph.D. in man-
16. My family roots are in this community. agement from the University of Washington, Seattle. His
17. I am active in one or more community organizations (e.g., research interests include the attraction, development,
churches, sports teams, schools, etc.). and retention of human and social capital.
18. I participate in cultural and recreational activities in my
local area.
Wendy S. Harman (wendysue@u.washington.edu) is vis-
19. Are you currently married? iting assistant professor of business administration at Cen-
20. If you are currently married, does your spouse work tral Washington University. She received her Ph.D. in man-
outside the home? agement from the University of Washington Business
21. Do you own a home (with or without a mortgage)? School. Her primary research interest focuses on using var-
ious methods of inquiry to positively impact work life.
a
Source: Holtom et al., 2006.

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