The Role of Shocks in Employee Turnover*
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2004.00423.x |
| Published date | 01 December 2004 |
| Author | Kevin Morrell,Adrian Wilkinson,John Loan‐Clarke |
| Date | 01 December 2004 |
The Role of Shocks in Employee Turnover*
Kevin Morrell
w
, John Loan-Clarke
z
and Adrian Wilkinson
z
The Local Government Centre, Warwick Business School, The University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL,
UK and
z
The Business School, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK.
w
Corresponding author email: kevin.morrell@wbs.ac.uk
This paper reports the findings from a recent study of nurse leavers at eight large
hospitals in the National Health Service (NHS) of England and Wales. The study
develops and extends an influential theory of employee turnover by describing how for
some leavers a single, jarring event or shock triggers the decision to quit. By elaborating
on the nature ofshocks for this sample of 352 nurse leavers, the paper allowsfor improved
understanding of nursing turnover and thus offers an example of relevant management
research. The analysis of shock illustrates how conventional research methodologies can
lead to a distorted picture of turnover. This has wider implications, both for any
organization wishing to manage turnover effectively and for future research. The paper
adds to the limitedbody of empirical analysis on actualleavers, thereby contributingto an
ongoing methodological debate concerning the use of proxy variables. By highlighting
flaws in the dominantmethodology used to study turnover, the paper offers anexample of
management research that is also rigorous, and thus ‘pragmatic’.
Introduction
Staff turnover matters because it has important
consequences. The total financial impact is
difficult to assess since it is hard to measure the
effect on culture, employee morale, social capital
or organizational memory (Dess and Shaw,
2001). However, it often involves tangible cost
in the following: recruitment, selection, induc-
tion, training, transfer, relocation, learning costs,
product and/or service quality, management
time, cost of being short-staffed, costs of agency
workers/temporary staff. Even these costs are
difficult to estimate (Cheng and Brown, 1998;
Hom, 1992) and they will differ depending on
who leaves. Some turnover may be beneficial, or
functional (Williams, 1999). In addition of
course, though leavers can benefit, many incur a
variety of costs (Becker, 1960), or stresses
(Mobley, 1982, pp. 28–9) and other losses (Hom
and Griffeth, 1995, p. 32). Choosing to leave
means choosing to end a contractual relationship
with the organization, but it also means making a
break with existing social networks (Zedeck and
Mosier, 1990). For many people, the decision to
leave will not just be a cause of anxiety and
uncertainty, it will also be a consequence of stress
and dissatisfaction (Kemery, Bedeian, Mossholder
and Touliatos, 1985, p. 372). Where increased
understanding of turnovercan mitigate both kinds
of cost, it is of immediate and direct relevance.
A second reason for wanting to learn more
about turnover is that there is theoretical
justification for further study. Current explana-
tions of employee turnover have been rightly
criticized for failing to offer either predictive or
explanatory power (Aquino, Griffeth, Allen and
Hom, 1997). There have been over 1500 studies
on the subject, (Shaw, Delery, Jenkins and
Gupta, 1998, p. 511) and a recent meta-analysis
(Hom and Griffeth, 1995) reviewed over 800 such
studies (Iverson, 1999). However, there is no
universally accepted account for why people
*
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the
63rd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management,
Seattle, Washington, USA, August 2003. We thank
John Arnold for his comments on an earlier version of
this paper, and Kevin Morrell gratefully acknowledges
the support of the ESRC, grant number T06271314.
British Journal of Management, Vol. 15, 335–349 (2004)
r2004 British Academy of Management
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