Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior - Soltanieh ...

130 MARION B. EBERLY, BROOKS C. HOLTOM, THOMAS W. LEE, AND TERENCE R. MITCHELL
as a senior manager of its e - commerce marketing and $ 10 million in unvested options.
The reason he left: upon hearing a “ really interesting start - up idea from a friend ” (the
shock), he decided in only one day ’s time to pursue his dream (a script) of a net start - up
e - commerce company. Joining Tolia, Ramanathan Guha, 34, left America Online as one
of its senior ranking engineers and $ 4 million in unvested options also to pursue this shared
dream (Bronson, 1999 ). In short, managers need to be prepared for the possibility that some
turnover will be precipitated very quickly. Hence, potential responses need to be considered
in advance for a variety of possible scenarios – especially those involving key employees.
APPROACH 3: WHAT A FOCUS ON STAYING
RATHER THAN LEAVING CAN TELL US
Monitor the reasons for staying in addition
to the reasons for leaving
The concept of job embeddedness. To avoid voluntary turnover, it is at first intuitive for
managers to identify the reasons why employees are leaving and to attempt to eliminate or
minimize the impact of those reasons. The first two approaches to turnover have taken this
perspective. In contrast, a more recent approach focuses on why employees are staying and
what might prevent them from leaving. The concept of job embeddedness is focused on
the broad array of factors that influence a person’s staying in a job. Mitchell, Holtom, Lee,
Sablynski, and Erez ( 2001 ) identified three ways an employee might be embedded within
an organization: links, fit, and sacrifi ce. (Sacrifice refers here to loss of a value or values,
not necessarily to sacrifice to others as in the case of altruism.) Links refer to employees ’
formal and informal connections to other individuals or institutions (e.g. friendship ties to
co - workers). Fit refers to the extent to which employees ’ jobs and communities are compati
ble with their personal values, goals, and plans (e.g. congruence with organizational culture,
satisfaction with local amenities). Research on employee fit has established that it signifi cantly
lowers turnover (e.g. Hoffman and Woehr, 2006 ). Finally, sacrifice captures the perceived
losses that individuals may suffer when leaving their job (e.g. loss of retirement benefi ts, loss
of friendship support). Together, links, fit, and sacrifi ce reflect an employees ’ embeddedness
within a job. The more embedded they are, the less likely they will quit. What is particularly
novel about this approach to turnover is that job embeddedness considers not only links, fi t,
and sacrifi ce on - the - job, but also off- the - job – in employees ’ personal lives within the local
community. For example, an employee with children in middle school and a wife who is
engaged in local charities would have many close links to the community and therefore be
less likely to leave – especially if getting a new job would entail relocation.
In addition to considering an individual employee ’ s level of job embeddedness, recent
research suggests that turnover might be “ contagious ” and that co - workers ’ job embeddedness
may influence an individual ’s decision to leave (Felps, Mitchell, Hekman, Lee, Holtom,
and Harman, in press). The less embedded one ’s immediate co - workers are, the more likely
it is that they engage in job search behaviors. In an environment characterized by low job
embeddedness, it may be more acceptable to discuss leaving or talk about other job opportunities.
Thus, the salience and viability of leaving may increase when observing a number
of co - workers looking for other jobs.