Global Talent Retention: Understanding Employee Turnover Around the World
Global Talent Retention: Understanding Employee Turnover Around the World
ISBN: 978-1-83909-294-7, eISBN: 978-1-83909-293-0
Publication date: 30 September 2021
Abstract
The flow of human capital into and out of organizations is a crucial aspect of organizational functioning, yet the bulk of the theory and research adopts a US-centric perspective. The purpose of this edited volume is for scholars embedded in contexts around the world to describe the relevance and implications (or lack thereof) of turnover theories in their particular context. We take a broad view of talent, focusing on the departure of human capital in general without necessarily restricting the analysis to those who disproportionately contribute to organizational success, and the authors focus on institutional contexts and culture because of their role in shaping employee norms and behaviors. We partnered with author teams embedded in countries and regions with a focus on capturing variance in contexts across the GLOBE clusters: Anglo (England), Confucian Asian (China; South Korea), Eastern European (Bulgaria), Germanic European (Germany), Latin American (Mexico), Latin European (Spain), Middle Eastern (Turkey), Nordic European (Denmark), Southern Asian (India), and Sub-Saharan African (South Africa). We provided each author team discretion to express their own voice, while also providing a common set of goals across chapters for consistency of contribution: a description of the institutional, legal, and cultural context as it relates to employee mobility, a review of context-specific research literature leading to a description of how the mechanisms and processes in prominent turnover theories may operate differently in a particular context, and implications for research and practice related to talent turnover and retention. Considering the contributions as a set, we identify important themes and overarching recommendations for scholars interested in studying employee retention and turnover around the globe.
Keywords
Citation
Allen, D.G. and Vardaman, J.M. (2021), "Global Talent Retention: Understanding Employee Turnover Around the World", Allen, D.G. and Vardaman, J.M. (Ed.) Global Talent Retention: Understanding Employee Turnover Around the World (Talent Management), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83909-293-020211001
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited
The flow of human capital into and out of organizations is a crucial aspect of organizational functioning. Although extensive research explores and informs the understanding of why employees decide to leave or remain with organizations, the bulk of the theory and research adopts a US-centric perspective (Allen, Hancock, Vardaman, & Mckee, 2014). For instance, Rubenstein, Eberly, Lee, and Mitchell (2018) noted that the vast majority of studies they reviewed for their turnover meta-analysis were from Western countries, including 51 of the 55 studies on rewards pay and turnover and 35 of the 42 studies on leadership and turnover. Most of the prevailing turnover models that provide theoretical guidance do not account for the effects of national culture or other aspects of an increasingly global workforce. The unfolding model, for example, does not explicitly consider the cultural meaning of shocks (Lee & Mitchell, 1994), and the notion of job embeddedness does not consider varying embedding factors in different countries (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, & Erez, 2001).
A lack of attention to cultural factors is problematic because the context, meaning, and mechanisms for changing jobs vary around the world. Most employees do not work for firms that are US owned or based. Consider that 96% of psychology behavioral science experiment subjects are from Western industrialized countries, which account for just 12% of the world’s population, and individuals raised in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies tend to be outliers in the way they perceive and react to the world (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). In China, for example, the notion of hukou ties state benefits to the location where one is born making some quitting difficult. This raises the specter that what we know about talent retention is also “weird.” Indeed, turnover theory and research similarly risks falling into this same trap, suggesting a need for greater consideration of global and cross-cultural perspectives on retention management (Allen & Vardaman, 2017).
As globalization has increased, the ways in which organizations retain talent internationally has gained interest among management scholars and practitioners alike, highlighting the importance of cultural-level influences and testing extant retention models across varying national contexts. Mobley’s (1977) process model, for example, has underpinned turnover research for nearly five decades, yet cultural differences in how job dissatisfaction may become manifest in the turnover process has yet to be considered. Similarly, the core tenets of the unfolding model (Lee & Mitchell, 1994), job embeddedness (Mitchell et al., 2001), and the two-step model (Vardaman, Taylor, Allen, Gondo, & Amis, 2015) do not consider cultural context. Although these models have clearly provided insight into the broader turnover process, a unified understanding of the ways in which formal and informal institutions in country settings influence each model’s turnover mechanisms is lacking. Thus, the purpose of this edited volume is for scholars embedded in contexts around the world to describe the relevance and implications (or lack thereof) of turnover theories in their particular context. We take a broad view of talent, focusing on the departure of human capital in general without necessarily restricting the analysis to those who disproportionately contribute to organizational success. Within each chapter, some of the work reviewed addresses more specific issues related to who is leaving, such as the departure of high performers or differences between permanent and contract workers. However, the bulk of existing work addresses mobility more broadly; thus, we take an expansive view of talent while recognizing that some exits will be more damaging, some will be more difficult to prevent, and some leavers will be more difficult to replace than others.
An Institution-based View of Turnover
We focus on institutional contexts and culture because of their noted role in shaping employee norms and behaviors (Hofstede, 1991; Triandis, 1995). Institutional environments affecting individual job mobility include legal and regulatory environments, labor–management relationships, labor market characteristics, and social safety nets. Institutions are the “rules of the game” which govern the thoughts and behavior of economic actors within specific nation-states, typically firms and their employees (North, 1990). Examples include formal rules, such as laws and regulations, and more tacit informal rules, such as values and norms. The former are formally codified rules, enforced by actors with an officially sanctioned capacity to coerce (e.g., governments enforce legal institutions, organizations enforce company policies, etc.). The latter are emergent, socially shared rules that are typically self-enforcing (e.g., unwritten cultural norms, customs, taboos, and conventions whose conformation depends upon an actor’s desire to be perceived as legitimate by peers). In this way, institutions guide and direct the conduct of actors embedded within a social system.
Given their importance in other parts of organizational life, the formal and informal institutions in a national context should play a major role in turnover decisions. Consider the potential effects of governmental provision of retraining, job placement services, and replacement of a separated employee’s wages on decisions to stay or leave or a cultural norm of job hopping on the decision process of potential quitters. Such examples demonstrate how formal and informal institutions enable or conversely stifle turnover. Yet, institutional perspectives are uncommon in the turnover domain and prevailing turnover models rarely consider country-level institutional effects (Allen & Vardaman, 2017; Holtom, Mitchell, Lee, & Eberly, 2008; Rubenstein et al., 2018).
We focus on culture in terms of scripts and schema, collective programming, and societal memory that shape how people think, act, and behave, and that is rooted in common experiences transmitted across generations (Hofstede, 1991; House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004; Triandis, 1995). Culture is not isomorphic within nation or country, although it is often intertwined with national identities and institutions; nor is culture monolithic within countries. Nevertheless, most research in this domain operationalizes culture at the country level; therefore, we too focus on cross-cultural retention in terms of differences across countries, while recognizing the limitations of doing so. We organize our contributions by sampling the perspective of scholars embedded in the global cultural clusters identified in the GLOBE studies. GLOBE researchers divided the data from 62 countries into regional clusters. Table 1 identifies the 10 clusters, lists the countries classified in each cluster, and provides a brief description of the characteristics associated with each cluster (Chhokar, Brodbeck, & House, 2007). The GLOBE clusters provide a lens for analyzing similarities and differences between cultural groups, make meaningful generalizations about culture and leadership, offer a convenient way to consider the effects of context on the study of retention.
GLOBE Clusters: Countries and Characteristics.
| Cluster | Countries | Characteristics |
|---|---|---|
| Anglo | Australia; Canada; England; Ireland; New Zealand; South Africa (white sample); USA |
|
| Confucian Asia | China; Hong Kong; Japan; Singapore; South Korea; Taiwan |
|
| Eastern Europe | Albania; Bulgaria; Georgia; Greece; Hungary; Poland; Russia; Slovenia |
|
| Germanic Europe | Austria; Germany; Netherlands; Switzerland (Swiss German-speaking sample) |
|
| Latin America | Argentina; Bolivia; Brazil; Columbia; Costa Rica; Ecuador; El Salvador; Guatemala; Mexico; Venezuela |
|
| Latin Europe | France; Israel; Italy; Spain; Portugal; Switzerland (French-speaking sample) |
|
| Middle East | Egypt; Kuwait; Morocco; Qatar; Turkey |
|
| Nordic Europe | Denmark; Finland; Sweden |
|
| Southern Asia | Indonesia; India; Iran; Philippines; Malaysia; Thailand |
|
| Sub-Saharan Africa | Namibia; Nigeria; South Africa (black sample); Zambia; Zimbabwe |
|
Source: Author’s own creation.
We partnered with author teams embedded in countries and regions with a focus on capturing variance in contexts across the GLOBE clusters: Anglo (England), Confucian Asian (China; South Korea), Eastern European (Bulgaria), Germanic European (Germany), Latin American (Mexico), Latin European (Spain), Middle Eastern (Turkey), Nordic European (Denmark), Southern Asian (India), and Sub-Saharan African (South Africa). We asked authors to focus primarily on a specific cultural context, largely at the national level, while also grounding their discussion in the larger theoretical cluster where applicable. We provided each author team discretion to express their own voice. At the same time, we provided a common set of goals across chapters for consistency of contribution: a description of the institutional, legal, and cultural context as it relates to employee mobility, a review of context-specific research literature leading to a description of how the mechanisms and processes in prominent turnover theories may operate differently in a particular context, and implications for research and practice related to employee turnover and retention.
In our 2017 entry in the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, we presented a framework in which culture is likely to influence employee turnover in at least three broad ways: through the adoption and implementation of turnover-related human resource management (HRM) practices by firms and by managers; through the interpretation of and reactions to conditions, cues, and experiences by employees; and through differences in the strength of cultural norms and expectations. Our review found that the majority of the work was rooted in establishing differences due to dimensions of national culture such as individualism, collectivism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance. These studies have examined turnover directly by, for example, exploring the role of cultural dynamics in the turnover process. They have also examined cultural dimensions as a moderator of relationships between established turnover drivers and turnover behavior. In so doing, the literature has identified cultural contexts that strengthen and weaken these linkages.
Our Annual Review contribution also identified a significant body of studies that suggest turnover models generalize across many contexts, indicating that caution should be taken when considering culture’s role. Although the research shows that cultural context often plays a role, assuming that culture has direct impact on the turnover process can lead to false conclusions. For instance, our review found evidence that individual attitudes can in some cases supersede cultural factors, giving credence to the generalizability of attitudinal models such as Mobley’s (1977) intermediate linkages model (or at least aspects of those models). However, our review also suggests that turnover models relying on social dynamics may be more susceptible to the effects of culture. Frameworks such as Aquino, Griffeth, Allen, and Hom’s (1997) referent cognitions model and Vardaman et al.’s (2015) two-step model are likely sensitive to cultural influence. As another example, subsequent meta-analysis has demonstrated the role of national culture in the translation of turnover intentions to turnover (Wong & Cheng, 2020).
Fig. 1 summarizes the results of our review. As the figure suggests, culture influences turnover via HRM systems, as culture influences the frequency and speed of practice adoption in organizations, as well as criteria used to assess current employees. Although this influence is indirect, it is easy to see how it might influence the turnover process. Culture directly influences employee expectations regarding working conditions and psychological contracts, as well as social relations. This influence has direct implications for the turnover process and the generalizability of extant turnover models. Culture strength also plays a role, as stronger and more novel cultures are, as one would expect, more impactful than weaker and more sanitized cultures. Finally, our review suggests that the cross-cultural study of turnover requires greater methodological diversity. Increased integration of extant turnover frameworks is needed, as is an examination of behavioral outcomes. Cross-cultural research has demonstrated an overreliance on turnover intentions as the outcome of interest rather turnover behavior, which is problematic because the translation of intentions to turnover is often attenuated (Allen et al., 2005; Rubenstein et al., 2018; Vardaman, Allen, Renn, & Moffitt, 2008). A lack of cross-cultural comparison is also present, suggesting studies that directly compare contexts are needed.
Contributions in this Volume
This book’s contributions in many ways reflect the findings from Fig. 1. The chapters broadly suggest the role of labor market conditions, cultural institutions, and various existing turnover models dominate the scholarly landscape across GLOBE clusters. These contributions are summarized alphabetically by the GLOBE cluster each contribution represents.
Shipton, Whysall, and Abe (this volume) highlight the cultural and institutional factors that drive turnover in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom represents the Anglo GLOBE cluster. The authors structure their chapter around Allen, Bryant, and Vardaman’s (2010) turnover model and build upon it by adding specific factors from the UK context. The chapter specifically explains the ways in which UK employment law drives turnover. For example, laws providing protection from unfair dismissal have played a role in the understanding of turnover in the UK context. A recurring theme in the chapter is also the role of Brexit, the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union (EU). The authors discuss how Brexit could upend laws and have effects on employee mobility. The chapter also explicitly considers the role of dimensions of the United Kingdom’s national culture in the turnover process. The authors discuss how a preference for low uncertainty avoidance in the United Kingdom suggests that Human Resource systems reward creativity and flexibility, with the implications being that such practices may reduce voluntary turnover. The authors further suggest that factors in the UK context may have implications for the effect of shocks, such that shocks may have stronger effects in the United Kingdom due to the low uncertainty avoidance in the institutional context. The authors suggest future research would benefit from studying institutional factors that might trigger the decision to leave.
Zhang and Ma (2021) orient their contribution around the contextualization of employee retention research in China. One of the largest and most dynamic economies in the world, China is representative of the Confucian Asian GLOBE cluster. The authors describe three macro-level forces (the influence of the Communist Party of China (CCP), the transition from centralized planned economy to a more market-oriented system, and the cultural values and norms associated with Confucianism) and six indigenous phenomena (hukou, community, migrant workers, state-owned enterprises, family prioritization, and guanxi) that help contextualize employee turnover and retention. Their review uncovered an emphasis in Chinese turnover research on job embeddedness as a key underlying perspective, perhaps because the holistic and interdependent metaphor of a web of forces at the heart of embeddedness theorizing resonates with Chinese culture. The authors integrate these considerations to propose a set of research propositions for the Chinese context, such as considering the influence of CCP leadership in state-owned enterprises; how employees are embedded in state-owned enterprises (and even how to dis-embed them); and the interplay among community boundaries, hukou, migrant status, and family prioritization to more deeply conceptualize what it means to be embedded.
Choi, Park, and Oh (2021) focus their review of turnover in South Korea first on labor market effects and later on the application of extant turnover models in this context. South Korea is representative of the Confucian Asian GLOBE cluster and has one of the freer market-oriented economies in Asia. The authors detail the dual structure of the labor market, with the primary sector offering job security and good working conditions in larger organizations, and the secondary market offering little security and often poor conditions for workers in small- and medium-sized enterprises. The secondary market constitutes a considerably larger section of workers and retention challenges are much greater. The authors point out that although South Korea’s economy has significant Western influence, the relative strength of turnover drivers differs. Specifically, they note that counter to findings in Western samples, commitment is more important than job satisfaction in the South Korean context, highlighting the unique role of culture in South Korean employment relationships. The authors close by suggesting that although there is an extensive South Korean turnover literature, many studies rely on turnover intentions as the outcome variable. They suggest future research examine turnover behavior as the dependent variable.
Paunova and Blagoev (2021) make the case that the context in Bulgaria, illustrative of the Eastern European GLOBE cluster, suggests that existing turnover theories may not be well suited to understand mobility in the face of large-scale changes associated with globalization. The authors characterize the Bulgarian labor market as experiencing a rapidly aging and shrinking population coupled with significant emigration leading to a shortage of skilled and semi-skilled workers. Indeed, in April 2020, the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce initiated a project specifically targeted at reducing employee turnover. Because of these dynamics, Paunova and Blagoev (2021) recommend a focus on collective turnover at the firm and higher levels of analysis. The authors further note that Bulgaria is an excellent context for considering the dynamics of changing institutions. For example, while the institutional context formally resembles a liberal market economy, the context is still rapidly changing in response to the transition from a planned economy and entry into the EU, resulting in a lack of trust in many institutions. On the informal side, some research suggests certain cultural norms may be evolving, such as a shift from a more collectivist to a more individualistic society. The authors additionally suggest future research on the effects of migration patterns and experiences, industry-level norms, and varieties of forms of capitalism.
Tichy and Weller (2021) consider why turnover research is a “stepchild” in the German context in the sense of being relatively understudied, at least at the level of individual turnover decisions. They contextualize the study of turnover in Germany, exemplar of the Germanic European GLOBE cluster, in terms of the importance of the “Mittlestand” firms whose economic power, relative independence from capital markets, small to medium size, regional significance, and community embeddedness result in stable labor markets and relatively low turnover, despite a shortage of skilled workers. Additional elements of the institutional environment, such as strong codetermination rights in the workplace and strong labor laws, have contributed to a focus on macro-level labor churn as opposed to voluntary separations at the individual or even firm level. Another example of the institutional environment is the widespread apprenticeship model that incentivizes early career focus on a particular profession, occupation, or industry, in effect fostering specific (as opposed to general) human capital that may also lower the prevalence of voluntary turnover. From a theoretical perspective, the combination of the apprenticeship model and Mittlestand firm characteristics suggest an important role for the idea of job embeddedness. The authors suggest some important data and measurement considerations for studying turnover in Germany, as well as promising substantive avenues, such as capitalizing on the emphasis on retaining high performers as an opportunity to explore evolving big data and analytics approaches to identifying flight risks.
Posthuma, González Brambila, Smith, and Zhang (2021) discuss economic conditions in Mexico and how they influence employee mobility. The authors also draw upon meta-analytic results and compare the results with correlates in Mexico in order to inform the study of turnover there. Mexico represents the Latin American GLOBE cluster. This chapter discusses the labor market in Mexico, and the unique ways that the country’s participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada influences labor dynamics. Specifically, the authors discuss the presence of maquiladoras, which are manufacturing plants near the border. These facilities are mostly near the northern border with the United States but are also present in the south. The authors further note that alternate opportunities are a key driver of turnover in Mexico, as multinational corporations tend to locate operations there due to the low labor costs. Because they often locate in areas with high unemployment, alternative opportunities for employee mobility are low and turnover is stifled. The authors also point to the importance of work/life conflict in driving turnover. Because the family is a central focus in Latin American culture, conflicts between work and life often manifest in tension between work and family. The authors conclude by discussing directions for future research, with a specific area of need being the study of professionals and other samples outside of maquiladoras.
Bonet, Elvira, and Visintin (2021) describe the context of employee turnover research in Spain, illustrative of the Latin European GLOBE cluster. The authors note that research on individual voluntary turnover in Spain is relatively limited, perhaps because of relatively low voluntary exit – at least among permanent employees. They highlight several institutional features affecting these dynamics, such as strong employment protections, a dual labor market with a relatively high proportion of temporary workers, high unemployment, strong unemployment benefits, centralized collective bargaining, heavy reliance on the service sector, and strong in-group collectivism. For example, the combination of strong employment protections for permanent workers and a high proportion of temporary workers generates an “insider–outsider” labor market with stark contrasting conditions for different types of workers. This observation leads to several potential avenues for scholars that focus on relatively understudied types of turnover, for example, involuntary separations, planned turnover through contract expiration, and the blending of workforces with heterogeneous employment relationships. An example of the latter is research showing the impact of the extensive use of temporary workers on the turnover of those on permanent contracts. The importance of alternative employment contracts coupled with strong in-group collectivism also gave rise to recommendations for adapting existing turnover models to the Spanish context, for example, considering different unfolding model paths for temporary workers or immigrants or integrating spouse/partner embeddedness into job embeddedness considerations.
Koseoglu, Wasti, and Terzi (2021) describe a series of economic, legal, and political transformations and ongoing uncertainty in Turkey that influence employment relationships. Examples include political vacillation between closer relationships with the EU or with the Muslim world and significant out-migration or “brain drain.” While Turkey is a diverse country at the crossroads of Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, we include it as a representative of the Middle Eastern GLOBE cluster, and Koseoglu et al. (2021) identify paternalistic leadership, strong organizational commitment, strong traditional gender roles, and significant overlap among professional and personal relationships as important implications of Turkish culture. Their review also identifies several economic and legal institutional characteristics that have been emphasized in studies of turnover intentions in Turkey, including a lack of job security provisions in the labor law, high levels of unemployment, human capital shortages, and societally conferred prestige in certain occupations such as teachers and nurses. They also identify several important avenues for future turnover research, such as incorporating the importance of kinship ties and responsibilities; considering the unfolding model as a theoretical foundation, particularly the idea of family-related shocks and scripts; and the reliance on informal contracts and dominance of family firms in which nepotism and favoritism are part of business culture.
Holck and Paunova (2021) focus their contribution on what they call a Danish turnover paradox: an institutional environment characterized by high union density and institutionalized employee voice coupled with high turnover rates. Considering Denmark as an example of the Nordic European GLOBE cluster, the authors nevertheless focus on several specific institutional characteristics to explain this paradox, namely, a “flexicurity” model that marries a strong welfare state with proactive labor market policies that provide relatively lax labor market regulations providing flexibility with security. They also describe how cultural influences associated with strong norms of equality and collective collaborative structures contribute to our understanding of turnover in the Danish context. For example, research suggests little evidence of gender differences in turnover, consistent with strong gender egalitarian norms and blurred gender roles. Holck and Paunova (2021) suggest future research along these lines, for example, investigating the tension among gender egalitarianism and gender segregation in the workforce as it relates to turnover. Other promising avenues for future research in the Danish context include the effects of very strong norms for expressing voice that nevertheless may not deter exit; important demographic trends such as an aging workforce and growing mobility across borders; and a bifurcating labor market with an influx of immigration.
Kumar, Mishra, and Budhwar (2021) focus on the role of the legal environment in India in employment mobility and identify themes in the Indian turnover literature. India represents the Southern Asian GLOBE cluster. The authors discuss the country’s postcolonial historical context and how it has influenced the employer–employee relationship. A byproduct of the historical context has been a proliferation of labor laws that are restrictive for large employers and provide high levels of protection for workers. These laws have influenced the size of organizations in India; companies with 100 or more employees are subject to these laws, those employing less than 100 are not. Thus, enterprises are induced to remain under the 100-employee threshold. The authors also point to the role of cultural institutions, noting that employee mobility is low because of a secure web of jati-based community support networks that mitigate employee risk. The risk of losing such networks often make turnover difficult. This is also a factor in most individuals remaining near their geographic birthplace when seeking employment. The authors note that due to cultural conditions, interpersonal factors often outweigh productivity concerns. This theme is present throughout the four eras of turnover research identified by the author team.
Wöcke and Barnard (2021) shed light on the ways the history of South Africa has influenced labor market effects on turnover and offer insights into retention management in the South African context. South Africa lies within the Sub-Saharan African GLOBE cluster. Tracing the history of the nation since the Apartheid era, the authors identify four eras that have had different effects on labor market conditions in general and specifically on employee mobility. The authors describe staffing difficulties as the progression from Apartheid began with unmet demand for skilled labor, coupled with policies that sought to redress the past inequities, which begat a war for talent. They go on to describe the effects of a pronounced economic downturn – specifically an out-migration of talent – and that this 25-year progression has resulted in some progress, but a fragile state of labor market affairs. The authors highlight that job dissatisfaction models have good predictive validity when South Africa’s labor markets are tight but less so during periods of downturn. They also discuss the interplay of Lee and Mitchell’s (1994) unfolding model and Mitchell et al.’s (2001) theory of job embeddedness, suggesting that embeddedness is a shock absorber that keeps employees in the fold in the South African context – even when the employees are in high demand. The authors point to a specific type of shock, corruption scandals in organizations, as a point of interest for future studies.
Conclusion
Considering the contributions as a set, we identified five important themes for scholars interested in studying employee retention and turnover around the globe, with overarching recommendations summarized in Table 2. One is to incorporate the role of formal as well as informal institutions. Much of the existing literature emphasizes informal institutions, particularly cultural differences such as individualism and collectivism. Yet, our authors focused a great deal of attention on how structural elements associated with formal institutions such as economic systems, political ideologies, labor market regulations, and industry practices shape mobility. It is incumbent on researchers to consider how these institutional forces could modify theoretical models and predictions, influencing organizational practices as well as individual responses. A second and related theme is the role of historical context and associated institutional change. Although institutions may be slow to change, they are not immutable, and our contributors raised several important examples where such transformations affect the mobility landscape. Examples include the transition from a planned to a more market-oriented political and economic system in Bulgaria, the transition to a postcolonial India, or the post-Apartheid era in South Africa. These changes can be quite sudden in historical terms, such as the current Brexit transition in the United Kingdom, presenting opportunities to study the effects on employee turnover.
A third theme is to identify context-specific opportunities for theoretical fit and nuance. An example is the possibility that job embeddedness theory resonates with turnover scholars in China because its holistic and relational foundations are consistent prevailing values and culture. Similarly, several chapter authors suggest revising theoretical perspectives to be consistent with context, such as incorporating family-related shocks and scripts into the unfolding model in cultures where family identity is particularly central and salient, such as Turkey or Mexico. We also see significant opportunities to capitalize on unique concepts that may not easily translate across settings, from idiosyncratic constructs (e.g., hukou in China; kurzarbeit in Germany; salario emocional in Mexico; and in-mac in South Korea) to context-specific elements of the workforce landscape (e.g., the flexicurity model in Denmark; the importance of Mittlestand firms in Germany; the role of “survival values” in postcommunist countries like Bulgaria; and maquiladoras in Mexico).
A fourth theme is to go beyond thinking about institutions in isolation to considering the role of unique bundles of institutional forces. An example is the unique context of China that has economic systems rapidly transitioning to many features of market-based economies while retaining a political system in which the CCP has significant influence and control over firms and economic actors. The Danish flexicurity model is another example that emphasizes the importance of considering systems or bundles of institutions – Denmark and Germany both have strong unions and employee protections, yet the former experiences consistently higher employee mobility than the latter because of interactions with other aspects of the institutional environment. These effects may be indirect. For instance, research might consider whether cultural norms that encourage family-owned businesses stifle turnover by pushing individuals to embed themselves in businesses owned by clan members (Vardaman, Allen, & Rogers, 2018). A related opportunity is in the prevalence of dual labor market structures in many environments (e.g., China, Denmark, South Africa, South Korea, and Spain) that have arisen as a function of interactions among institutional forces such as labor laws, historical transitions, and immigration policies.
Finally, the set of contributions identified methodological opportunities. A primary one is simply the need for additional study of individual voluntary turnover decisions. There are several contexts where the bulk of the research is focused at the industry or economy level (e.g., Germany and Spain), and others where existing work primarily only captures turnover intentions instead of behavior (e.g., India, South Korea, and Turkey). These observations lead to suggestions to carefully consider the desired level of analysis (i.e., there are some contexts in need of individual-level turnover research and others in need of more collective-level work), to endeavor to identify research opportunities that would enable the collection of turnover behavior data, to take advantage of publicly available data repositories, and to focus efforts where the variance is, that is, in higher turnover contexts like Bulgaria and China. The authors also identify areas of opportunity in studying other perspectives about turnover, such as involuntary separations, turnover from fixed term contracts (very prevalent in several of the dual labor market settings), migrant turnover, and context where firms might actually want to foster some voluntary turnover. Taken as a whole, we hope the contributions in this volume inspire creative scholarship on employee turnover and human capital flows that integrates existing knowledge and frameworks with appreciation for the important institutional forces and nuances in contexts and settings around the world. We also hope these global perspectives can inform North American-focused research in ways to foster more comprehensive and holistic views of employee mobility.
Summary Recommendations for Scholars of Global Employee Turnover.
| Emphasize the role of formal as well as informal institutions |
| Appreciate the historical context in which firms and individuals operate |
| Recognize the implications of institutional transitions |
| Consider the fit between theoretical perspectives and institutional context |
| Adapt existing theoretical frameworks for local conditions |
| Capitalize on idiosyncratic local concepts |
| Theorize about bundles or systems of institutional forces |
| Study dual labor market structures |
| Collect data on individual turnover behaviors |
| Carefully match levels of analysis with research goals |
| Investigate alternative types of turnover (e.g., involuntary; fixed contract) |
| Use global perspectives to adapt and modify existing dominant research paradigms |
Source: Author’s own creation.
In conclusion, the collective efforts of our 11 author teams constitute both a comprehensive collection of perspectives on turnover across the globe and a platform for future research. While this volume features teams with differing frames of reference and viewpoints, we are optimistic that the variety of perspectives present in the following chapters set the stage for comprehensive theorizing and research. This volume demonstrates that although there is a considerable literature on turnover across the globe, the domain is in a nascent state and numerous opportunities for theoretical development remain. The clarity that this volume provides spans institutional approaches, theoretical lenses, and methodological approaches. In this way, it serves as a starting point for increased theoretical and practical development in what is an understudied area of retention research. Turnover has a long and storied history as a scholarly field (Allen et al., 2010). As this collection will demonstrate, much is known about the ways in which national and cultural context influence the turnover process. Yet, much also remains unknown. Scholars using this volume as a jumping off point may gain significant theoretical purchase in pursuing that missing knowledge.
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- Prelims
- Global Talent Retention: Understanding Employee Turnover Around the World
- Turnover and Retention in the United Kingdom: Change, Uncertainty and Opportunity
- The Contextualization of Employee Retention Research in China
- Culture, Labor Market, and Employee Turnover in South Korea: Taking Stock and Moving Forward
- Globalization and Employee Turnover: The Case of Bulgaria
- Voluntary Employee Turnover: The Stepchild of German HR and Organizational Psychology Research
- Employee Turnover and Retention in Mexico and Latin America
- Voluntary Turnover in the Spanish Cultural and Institutional Context
- Employee Turnover in Turkey
- Turnover in Denmark: Between “Flexicurity” and Collective Voice
- Employee Turnover in India: Insights from the Public–Private Debate
- Turnover in South Africa: The Effect of History
- Index