MECHANISMS LINKING REALISTIC JOB PREVIEWS WITH TURNOVER: A META‐ANALYTIC PATH ANALYSIS
verifiedrich profile · Personnel Psychology · 2011
EARNEST, DAVID R.; ALLEN, DAVID G.; LANDIS, RONALD S.
How this was studied
A meta-analytic synthesis — it pools many primary studies rather than running a single design, so there is no single-study diagram.
What this article reports
The findings we extracted from this work, normalized into Principia’s relationship form (X → Y). Each feeds the synthesized models below.
realistic job preview → role clarity
realistic job preview → met expectations
realistic job preview → perceived organizational honesty
realistic job preview → new hire retention
realistic job preview → early turnover
realistic job preview → voluntary turnover
Models this article informs
The meta-analytic priors this article contributes evidence to — its place in the broader synthesis.
realistic job preview correlates met expectations
realistic job preview predicts early turnover
realistic job preview predicts met expectations
realistic job preview predicts new hire retention
realistic job preview predicts perceived organizational honesty
realistic job preview predicts role clarity
realistic job preview predicts voluntary turnover
In the authors’ words
The article’s own abstract.
A meta‐analytic path analysis with k = 52 studies and sample size of roughly 17,000 showed that enhanced perceptions of organizational honesty is the primary mechanism by which realistic job previews (RJPs) influence voluntary turnover. This suggests revisions to RJP theory to incorporate social exchange and the way RJPs lead individuals to feel about the organization. Results assessing several new potential moderators of relationships between RJPs and turnover found that the most effective RJP design may be an oral or written RJP delivered posthire and designed to signal organizational honesty. We discuss several key theoretical and practical implications of the results based on a novel signaling theory perspective on RJPs.
What the literature says about it
Attributed, open-access quotes from other works that cite this article, plus the citation-graph verdict tally. Corroborations and disputes, in one place — the honest-broker view.
supports “In this vein, realistic job previews are an effective means to lower initial expectations [38].”
supports “, set transparent expectations) to reduce initial expectations (Phillips, 1998; Premack & Wanous, 1985), provide posthire realistic job previews to increase perceptions that the firm is honest (Earnest et al., 2011), or hire from within the organization when possible and hire using employee referrals because they are more likely to have received a realistic preview of the work environment (e.”
supports “A realistic representation is critical for engineering as denying the agentic traits of the field would be an inaccurate representation of it—which would likely have negative consequences on retention (Earnest et al., 2011).”
Ancillary research
Neighbouring works in the citation graph around this article.
- 10.1371/journal.pone.0243234
- 10.1007/s11187-022-00629-2
- 10.1186/s40594-024-00476-5
- 10.1080/10530789.2023.2220526
Assembled from Principia’s registry — bibliographic record, extracted effect sizes, the models they inform, and open-access citing literature.