Collective turnover and unit performance: moderation effects of work experience and time clustering of quits
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-02-2021-0074 |
| Published date | 05 May 2022 |
| Date | 05 May 2022 |
| Pages | 1338-1354 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Cristina Simón,Jason D. Shaw,Isabel de Sivatte,Ricardo Olmos Albacete |
Collective turnover and unit
performance: moderation effects of
work experience and time
clustering of quits
Cristina Sim
on
IE Business School-IE University, Madrid, Spain
Jason D. Shaw
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
Isabel de Sivatte
IE Business School-IE University, Madrid, Spain, and
Ricardo Olmos Albacete
Universidad Aut
onoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The authors propose and test these boundary conditions to the relationship between voluntary
collective turnover and unit performance: job and organizational tenure and the time clustering of turnover.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors analyze longitudinal data obtained from 231 units of an
international clothing retailer in Spain assessed during 36 months.
Findings –The authors show that when the remaining workforce has moderate, but not low or high, levels of
job and organizationaltenure, the negative effect of quits on performance is buffered. Furthermore, their results
show that time-clustered voluntary turnover patterns have stronger negative effects on unit performance than
turnover patterns spread over time.
Originality/value –Theauthors extend the collectiveturnover literatureaddressingtwo qualitative properties
ofthe content of voluntaryturnover, theexperience of the workersthat remain in the unitafter the turnoverevents
happen and howthese events are clustered/dispersed over time.
Keywords Voluntary turnover, Panel data, Moderation, Job tenure, Organizational tenure, Time clustering
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Turnover rates are consistently shown to be negatively related with unit and organizational
performance (see meta-analyses: Heavey et al., 2013;Park and Shaw, 2013). The mechanisms
for this negative relationship include human and social capital loss as well as other
operational disruptions (e.g. Dess and Shaw, 2001;Ployhart et al., 2009;Shaw et al., 2005a).
Recent theory advances (context-emergent turnover theory (CET; Nyberg and Ployhart,
2013) and turnover capacity theory (Hausknecht and Holwerda, 2013)) and methods that
account for sources of bias and unit heterogeneity (Call et al., 2015;Reilly et al., 2014), have
advanced the literature further. However, mixed results outlined by several meta-analyses
(Park and Shaw, 2013;Heavey et al., 2013;Hancock et al., 2017) point to the need to consider
the qualitative properties of turnover and to explore boundary conditions that influence the
magnitude of the turnover-performance link.
The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of two contingencies that may affect the
collective turnover-performance link. First, workers who remain in the workforce still retain
experience (Hausknecht et al., 2009;Shaw et al., 2005b). In the present research we examine
two forms of work experience, job and organizational tenure. Based on human capital theory
and on theoretical arguments from the CET and the turnover capacity theory, we predict and
ER
44,6
1338
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 17 February 2021
Revised 2 November 2021
Accepted 19 April 2022
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 44 No. 6, 2022
pp. 1338-1354
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-02-2021-0074
test a curvilinear moderation effect of these two forms of work experience on the relationship
between turnover and unit performance.
Finally, with some exceptions (e.g. Krackhardt and Porter, 1986), researchers have
assumed that turnover patterns are uniform over time. Call et al. (2015) found that turnover
dispersion had a moderating effect over the turnover-performance link, but the measure is
recognized by the authors as sample-dependent and there has been a call in recent reviews
(Hausknecht, 2017) for further operationalization and studies of this phenomenon. Following
the proposition from the turnover capacity theory we argue and test that turnover rates are
more disruptive to unit performance when departures are clustered rather than spread over
time. We test the predictive veracity of the model using a longitudinal database containing
36 months of observations of 231 stores of a large multinational retailer in Spain.
In designing our research, rather than focusing on total turnover or discharge rates, we
followed previousrecommendations (Shaw, 2011)and focused on voluntary turnover rates for
their distinct antecedents and performance consequences (Heavey et al.,2013). The study
makes two contributions to the collectiveturnover literature.First, we respond to ongoing calls
to better address the content of the turnover phenomenon (Shaw, 2011) by addressing a
qualitative property, the experience that remains in the unit after the voluntary departures.
Recent meta-analyses assess theconsideration of the qualitiesof turnover as “imperative to the
understanding of therelationship”(Hancock et al.,2017). With a few exceptions (e.g. Gardner
et al.,2012;Hausknecht et al.,2009), experience effects have been testedalmost exclusively at
individuallevels (Sturman,2003) and we build and test our hypothesesfor unit level experience.
Second, we proposeand test a new approach to measure turnoverdispersion, building on the
only study performed so far to the best of our knowledge (Call et al., 2015) and following its
recommendation to explore further operationalizations of thisconstruct.
Theoretical background and predictions
A long tradition of turnover research has consistently shown that it is detrimental for
performance. A recent but fruitful tradition in the field of collective turnover, defined as “the
aggregate levels of employee departures that occur within groups, work units, or
organizations”(Hausknecht and Trevor, 2011), argues and demonstrates that employees’
departures result into decreases in performance through the loss of human capital (Hancock
et al.,2013), social capital (Shaw et al., 2005a) and an increase in organizational disruption
(Hausknecht et al., 2009). In this study we examine the potential moderating effects of three
dimensions of human capital: job and organizational tenure of remaining members in the
unit and the clustering of the turnover events.
Forms of work experience
Work experience has been conceptualized as a multidimensional concept that includes
different levels of specificity, such as the job, the organization or the work group and different
measurement modes, such as time or amount (Qui~
nones et al., 1995;Tesluk and Jacobs, 1998).
In this research we test if the collective job and organizational tenure of employees who
remain at the store buffers the negative effects that voluntary turnover may have on store
performance. Job tenure reflects the time employees have spent working at their current jobs.
Organizational tenure is the time employees have worked at the company. Thus, employees
with more organizational tenure are more knowledgeable of the company’s culture, context,
policies, procedures and social structure.
Job tenure of remaining employees
When one or several workers leave, the remaining staff must compensate by altering their
routines and processes and switching to other activities. Collectively, employees acquire
Collective
turnover and
unit
performance
1339
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