Surveying the forest: A meta‐analysis, moderator investigation, and future‐oriented discussion of the antecedents of voluntary employee turnover
verifiedrich profile · Personnel Psychology · 2017
Rubenstein, Alex L.; Eberly, Marion B.; Lee, Thomas W.; Mitchell, Terence R.
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.
job satisfaction → voluntary turnover
person organization fit → voluntary turnover
overall job performance → voluntary turnover
job satisfaction → voluntary turnover
perceived organizational support → voluntary turnover
role ambiguity → voluntary turnover
emotional exhaustion → voluntary turnover
job embeddedness → voluntary turnover
job search → voluntary turnover
turnover intention → voluntary turnover
met expectations → voluntary turnover
organizational commitment → voluntary turnover
job involvement → voluntary turnover
role conflict → voluntary turnover
psychological contract breach → voluntary turnover
perceived job alternatives → voluntary turnover
work family conflict → voluntary turnover
compensation → voluntary turnover
organizational justice → voluntary turnover
job search → voluntary turnover
Models this article informs
The meta-analytic priors this article contributes evidence to — its place in the broader synthesis.
compensation predicts voluntary turnover
emotional exhaustion predicts voluntary turnover
job embeddedness predicts voluntary turnover
job involvement predicts voluntary turnover
job satisfaction predicts voluntary turnover
job search predicts voluntary turnover
met expectations predicts voluntary turnover
organizational commitment predicts voluntary turnover
organizational justice predicts voluntary turnover
overall job performance predicts voluntary turnover
perceived job alternatives predicts voluntary turnover
perceived organizational support predicts voluntary turnover
person organization fit predicts voluntary turnover
psychological contract breach predicts voluntary turnover
role ambiguity predicts voluntary turnover
role conflict predicts voluntary turnover
turnover intention predicts voluntary turnover
work engagement predicts voluntary turnover
work family conflict predicts voluntary turnover
In the authors’ words
The article’s own abstract.
Abstract Recent narrative reviews (e.g., Hom, Mitchell, Lee, and Griffeth, 2012; Hom, Lee, Shaw, and Hausknecht, 2017) advise that it is timely to assess the progress made in research on voluntary employee turnover so as to guide future work. To provide this assessment, we employed a three‐step approach. First, we conducted a comprehensive meta‐analysis of turnover predictors, updating existing effect sizes and examining multiple new antecedents. Second, guided by theory, we developed and tested a set of substantive moderators, considering factors that might exacerbate or mitigate zero‐order meta‐analytic effects. Third, we examined the holistic pattern of results in order to highlight the most pressing needs for future turnover research. The results of Step 1 reveal multiple newer predictors and updated effect sizes of more traditional predictors, which have received substantially greater study. The results of Step 2 provide insight into the context‐dependent nature of many antecedent–turnover relationships. In Step 3, our discussion takes a bird's‐eye view of the turnover “forest” and considers the theoretical and practical implications of the results. We offer several research recommendations that break from the traditional turnover paradigm, as a means of guiding future study.
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 “Although numerous studies connect ER practices and job satisfaction, affective commitment and turnover intention (Lee et al., 2018; Rubenstein et al., 2015, 2017), multivariate studies on the simultaneous relationships between multiple ER practices and these attitudinal antecedents of voluntary…”
supports “Moreover, employees’ turnover intentions are known to represent the main predictor of voluntary turnover for a variety of organizations (Heavey et al., 2013; Rubenstein et al., 2018), an association that is particularly important in the military (Griffeth et al., 2000; Lytell and Drasgow, 2009).”
supports “…literature suggests that employee turnover intention, job satisfaction and affective commitment are important proximal antecedents to voluntary turnover and also significant descendants of more distal ER factors (Duarte, Gomes, & Neves, 2015; Lee et al., 2018; Rubenstein et al., 2015, 2017).”
supports “While links between job satisfaction and retention in physiotherapy have been mixed, a meta-analysis suggests that satisfaction may mediate an individual’s reaction to stressful situations and impact voluntary turnover intentions (Rubenstein, Eberly, Lee, and Mitchell, 2018).”
supports “Job satisfaction is one of the most prevalent explanations for employee turnover [9], as individuals who do not like their jobs tend to leave them, as indicated by the recently published meta-analysis on both general turnover and voluntary turnover [13].”
disputes “…that many people who intend to leave actually stay in their organizations (Griffeth et al., 2000; Hom & Griffeth, 1995), and scholars have cautioned against using turnover intentions as proxies for turnover behavior (i.e., voluntary turnover) (e.g., Allen et al., 2005; Rubenstein et al., 2018).”
supports “…literature suggests that employee turnover intention, job satisfaction and affective commitment are important proximal antecedents to voluntary turnover and also significant descendants of more distal ER factors (Duarte, Gomes, & Neves, 2015; Lee et al., 2018; Rubenstein et al., 2015, 2017).”
Ancillary research
Neighbouring works in the citation graph around this article.
- 10.4102/sajhrm.v18i0.1358
- 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.596206
- 10.1016/j.tate.2022.103781
- 10.1080/09593985.2023.2233100
- 10.21203/rs.3.rs-51206/v1
- 10.1002/job.2728
- 10.1002/job.778
Assembled from Principia’s registry — bibliographic record, extracted effect sizes, the models they inform, and open-access citing literature.