How does turnover spread through network ties? Turnover contagion as resource loss.
An UEBS Department of Management seminar
Management seminar - Prof. Eric Quintane, Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour, ESMT Berlin
| An UEBS Department of Management seminar | |
|---|---|
| Speaker(s) | Prof. Eric Quintane, Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour, ESMT Berlin |
| Date | 17 February 2023 |
| Time | 16:00 to 17:00 |
| Place | XFI Conference Room 2 |
Event details
How does turnover spread through network ties? Turnover contagion as resource loss. Employee voluntary turnover and its contagion are important topics for both academics and practitioners, but there is very little empirical evidence for the existence of turnover contagion or conceptual clarity as to its mechanisms. Previous studies have conceptualized turnover contagion as a social influence process, whereby individuals’ quitting decisions are affected by exposure to other employees quitting behaviour. However, these studies do not observe social ties in the contagion process or consider the possibility of an alternative contagion mechanism: the loss of social resources. We draw on a unique network dataset of 1,432 employees in the Chinese subsidiary of a Dutch multinational, including employees’ date of voluntary departure (271 turnover events), to test the existence of turnover contagion through social ties and the two mechanisms (social influence and resource loss). We propose a model, building on the Relational Event Framework, to trace the spread of departures through social ties over time and account for the effect of each departure on the networks of remaining employees. Our results provide empirical support for turnover contagion and suggest that it operates through a resource loss mechanism, in addition to a social influence mechanism.
Location:
XFI Conference Room 2
