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This research intends to develop a model for predicting employees at a high-risk attrition and identify the most important factors affecting them.

In this study, using the triangulation technique of a mixed research method, the employee attrition problem is investigated by identifying its affecting factors. For that matter, data related to the human resources department of a pharmaceutical company in Iran are used. And to achieve the intended goal, advanced data mining algorithms and interviews with human resource managers are applied.

A model for predicting employees at a high-risk attrition is presented based on the gradient boosting machine algorithm with 89% accuracy. The use of the mixed research approach shows that qualitative and quantitative methods can be more effective in identifying the factors affecting employee churn or loss of staff. The results also contain a new situation arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic and remote working scenarios having impact on employee attrition. Finally, human resource policies are presented based on variables related to each of the identified factors.

The novel contributions of this study include real data related to a leading pharmaceutical company as well as a combination of two quantitative and qualitative methods. The hybrid approach can identify the reasons for attrition and, consequently, retention policies to benefit from the advantage of both approaches. Data mining can be useful to identify the factors, which are usually not mentioned in termination interviews, such as direct managers. On the other hand, the results obtained from termination interviews can also include features that the authors cannot identify through data mining, which are specifically related to the characteristics of the pharmaceutical industry such as building a more professional career path. From a practical perspective, since this company specializes in pharmaceutical marketing in a new way and is primarily comprised graduates, it is important to note that the churn of specialized people disperses organizational and technological know-how. On the other hand, the pharmacist community in Iran is small, and their attrition might adversely affect not only the reputation of an organization but the employer's brand as well. So, this research would help other similar firms in retaining their valuable human capital.

This study explored attrition from a novice health researcher training program. The aim of this paper was to identify factors contributing to attrition from the RRCBP that if understood could decrease attrition from this standalone researcher training program.

Using a capacity building framework, this case-control study compared demographic characteristics and features of 30 withdrawn research trainees to 68 graduated trainees from the Rural Research Capacity Building Program, run by the Health Education and Training Institute of New South Wales, Australia between 2006 and 2010. Data were analysed using Exact Logistic Regression, Chi-square and Fisher's Exact tests.

An attrition rate of 29 per cent was associated with a range of individual, organisational and supra-organisational factors. Withdrawals occurred prior to ethics submission (n=13, 43 per cent), after unsuccessful ethics submission (n=8, 27 per cent), or after receiving ethics approval (n=9, 30 per cent). Clinicians were less likely to withdraw than non-clinical staff (p=0.03). Profession, project ownership, funding sources and type of research were not significant factors in attrition, while the effect of location was mixed indicating a potential impact of peer support networks in areas with high numbers of trainees.

This research demonstrates attrition from a research training program is associated with trainees receiving appropriate and timely support. In the formative stages researchers require support, particularly those working in professional or geographical isolation.

This study is the first of its kind in examining in detail reasons for withdrawal from a standalone research training program and will allow coordinators of similar programs to target support to vulnerable research trainees at critical time points.

Managing attrition is a major challenge for outsourcing vendors. Literature on management control in offshore outsourcing is dominated by the formal approaches to control design, which do not adequately consider the influence of contextual factors. This article aims to adopt the lens of institutional theory, and use empirical data gathered from case studies in both the UK and India to improve the understanding of the institutional logics that shape the control of attrition.

This article draws on in‐depth qualitative research undertaken with directors and senior managers in client and vendor firms engaged in outsourcing relationships that span both corporate and national boundaries. Drawing on empirical data from the UK and India, the interplay between the management control of attrition and contextual factors is analysed, and the practices adopted to manage these contextual factors are also identified and discussed.

The analysis presents relevant aspects of the regulative, normative and cognitive institutions inhabited by vendor firms and the challenges such aspects present for managing attrition. The dynamics of institutions and control are discussed in the area of attrition, and the interplay between institutions and control is outlined. The regulative, normative and cognitive institutions inhabited by vendor firms contrast markedly to that of the client in relation to social and legal rules, norms and practices.

The paper develops a theoretical basis for linking control and context in offshore outsourcing, drawing on the work of Scott in institutional theory, and Friedland and Alford, in institutional logics. This paper offers an alternative conceptualisation of control in attrition based upon rationalistic modelling through institutional logics.

This paper offers key implications for research, in improving the understanding of contextual factors and management control in global outsourcing relationships. Both clients and vendors in offshore outsourcing need to be aware of the influence of contextual factors when managing attrition.

The interplay of institutional logics and implications on the control of attrition provides an interesting approach to understanding how firms manage attrition in offshore outsourcing.

This paper aims to focus on the experience of monitoring of first year student attrition in a large metropolitan multi‐campus university during 2004‐2010. The paper seeks to discuss the trends in student attrition which have been found and identify key issues which have been and need to be addressed by the university in order to increase retention.

A specially designed survey was repeated across the years and completed over the period by 2,085 undergraduate students who left the university before the end of their first year of study.

The most important of issues which need to be addressed by the university are sufficient, correct and clear information provided to prospective students about the course before they enrol and high‐quality course advice about subject choices after enrolment.

Sufficient, correct and clear information provided to prospective students about the course remains an area in need of improvement. Therefore, in marketing the university both locally and internationally, a particular focus needs to be on direct contact by knowledgeable staff with prospective students.

Marketing of courses with support of academic staff, course advisers and program heads should give particular focus to the clear management of student expectations. Targeted marketing at the school/course level is needed in order to ensure clear and specific expectations management. This approach, if adopted, should help reduce attrition among those students for whom “the course wasn't what they expected”.

Improving university student retention is one of the high‐priority government targets in developed countries such as Australia, the UK and the USA. At the same time, higher education providers in these countries try to increase the participation of students from traditionally underrepresented groups of population in order to meet the aspirations of governments. The changes in policies and performance‐based funding require universities to align the growth of numbers of students from underrepresented groups with a range of academic and general support services to support student transition, retention and completion. An important aspect for universities is to ensure that low entry standards do not compromise graduate exit standards.

Evaluating attrition trends through systematic feedback from withdrawing students can help universities identify key issues which need to be addressed in order to increase retention. Further, it may help narrow down the list of such issues to one or two most persistent over a number of years. For example, for the university described in this study, the steadiest factor behind student attrition is quantity and quality of information provided to prospective students about the course before they enrol. If this issue is appropriately addressed, and provided all other important attrition factors are closely monitored, the university can significantly increase the likelihood of student retention and success.

With talent management becoming an area of growing concern in the literature, the purpose of this paper is to investigate talent management and its relationship to levels of employee engagement using a mixed method research design.

The first phase was a survey on a sample of 272 BPO/ITES employees, using Gallup q¹² or Gallup Workplace Audit. Focus group interview discussion was based on reasons for attrition and the unique problems of employee engagement. In the second phase, one of the BPO organizations from the phase I sample was chosen at random and exit interview data was analyzed using factor analysis and content analysis.

The results were in the expected direction and fulfilled the research aims of the current study. In the first phase low factor loadings indicated low engagement scores at the beginning of the career and at completion of 16 months with the organization. High factor loadings at intermediate stages of employment were indicative of high engagement levels, but the interview data reflected that this may mean high loyalty, but only for a limited time. In the second phase factor loadings indicated three distinct factors of organizational culture, career planning along with incentives and organizational support. The first two were indicative of high attrition.

A limitation of the research design was a sample size of 272 respondents. Some of the Cronbach's alpha scores of the subscales of Gallup q¹² were low. The strength of the study lies in data triangulation, which was obtained through a mixed method approach, a survey and unstructured focus group interviews. There are theoretical implications for the construct of employee engagement. There seems to be a construct contamination from the fields of employee satisfaction, employee commitment and employee involvement, which is beyond the scope of this paper. Future studies in India may look into this area and construct an independent scale of employee engagement, focusing on the antecedent variables and testing them for theoretical underpinnings.

The present study indicated that a good level of engagement may lead to high retention, but only for a limited time in the ITES sector. The need for a more rigorous employee engagement construct is indicated by the study. Practical implications for retention in the BPO/ITES sector are referred to.

This paper aims to use a data-driven approach to identify the factors and metrics that provide the best indicators of academic attrition in the Korean language program at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center.

This research develops logistic regression models to aid in the identification of at-risk students in the Defense Language Institute’s Korean language school.

The results from this research demonstrates that this methodology can detect significant factors and metrics that identify students at-risk. Additionally, this research shows that school policy changes can be detected using logistic regression models and stepwise regression.

This research represents a real-world application of logistic regression modeling methods applied to the problem of identifying at-risk students for the purpose of academic intervention or other negative outcomes. By using logistic regression, the authors are able to gain a greater understanding of the problem and identify statistically significant predictors of student attrition that they believe can be converted into meaningful policy change.

This paper aims to focus on the issue of high employee turnover in the Indian tech industry. An integrative review is conducted to analyse the past and current state of literature, as well as prepare a research agenda for future studies.

A pool of 72 articles published between 2010 and 2022 is reviewed with a special focus on Indian tech employees. This study elucidates the extent and impact of employee retention strategies through content analysis.

Two broad perspectives have been established in the literature: the reasons for quitting and the explanations for staying. By means of a comprehensive review, this paper combines these two aspects of literature and suggests factors under organization’s control to retain competent tech employees.

The study is designed to integrate the two theoretical viewpoints of employee turnover literature by consolidating the reasons behind quitting behaviour and staying intention. Codes combining the two aspects are presented as a valuable resource to retain tech talent.

This paper aims is to present and discuss the personal and educational underpinnings of undergraduate and graduate students’ persistence decision, identify initiatives and strategies academic libraries are adopting which correlates positively with student retention, identify and discuss the main causes leading to attrition and present James White Library’s experience contributing to student retention efforts at Andrews University.

A bibliographic search using databases in the areas of education and library and information science was conducted to review the literature on the relationship between library use and services and university students’ retention.

The main overall factors which contribute to student retention are: user-centered philosophy; involvement and engagement; student identification and sense of belonging; academic success and achievement; and point grade average (GPA) in the context of libraries, the main factors which contribute (or correlate) to student retention are: library instruction; spaces which provide social interaction and learning; and general materials’ use.

This study does not provide results of actual in-person investigations conducted at libraries, rather, identifies presents, and discusses reported studies in the Education and Library & Information Science (LIS) literature.

A summary and structured presentation of the main issues concerning the library’s role in university student’s retention identifies the main personal, including non-academic and academic problems leading to student’s attrition, as well successful efforts and strategies which libraries are adopting to curtail this pressing problem within academic institutions. The paper can be used as general guidelines which academic library managers and library service providers can adopt to contribute to the university’s overall efforts to increase its graduation rate.

Higher education presupposes large expenditures from providers (Universities) and students. Millions of dollars are spent by both parties each year without yielding the expected results, considering that attrition levels can reach more than 40 per cent at any given university during an academic year in the USA. Also, purposeful or intentional expensive recruitment efforts and programs can be greatly curtailed by high attrition rates. However, these can be greatly diminished by successful retention strategies. Also, society is greatly benefited with the talents, skills, and services rendered by a professional with a higher education degree.

This study organizes and systematizes the many study results, ideas, and considerations concerning academic libraries and student retention which are dispersed in the literature of the field, allowing the reader and practitioner to better understand the theoretical and practical issues concerning this subject. It provides the reader with practical experiences and data which will enhance one’s decision-making process in developing retention policies and strategies at the library level.

This paper outlines a variety of the research on student attrition and recognises some of the sensitivities that may be involved for some students in dealing with dropping out of university. This paper claims that because of these sensibilities, some student’s responses to direct questions about the reasons for attrition may be biased by social desirability. The purpose of this paper is to get beyond social desirability bias to examine a fuller range of reasons for student retention and attrition.

In an exploratory investigation, this research study uses a projective technique which helps to circumvent the conscious defences of respondents. The projective technique is based on the “thematic apperception test” and uses a “bubble drawing” to elicit emotional and more socially undesirable responses.

All first-year students appear to consider leaving university, and emotional considerations involving loneliness and homesickness are much more prominent than most quantitative studies acknowledge. For example, in this research, social concerns are twice as prominent as financial concerns, whereas in past survey research, financial concerns have been identified as most prominent.

To retain students, universities need to provide new students with real care and support, especially in their first few weeks at university. To study retention comprehensively, researchers need to go beyond the confines of positivist research.

This is the first study that uses a projective technique to investigate student retention and attrition. By going beyond a merely positivist approach to research, a fuller, deeper and more complete understanding of the wide extent and profound nature of the emotional issues involved in student attrition and retention is gained.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the success factors and challenges for students studying in an open and distance learning (ODL) mode and recommend strategies for student persistence based on the findings.

Three groups of ODL students with various levels of study performance – nine high-level, nine mid-level and eight low-level students – were invited to participate in three focus group interviews. They were asked about their motivation, success factors and challenges in their studies.

The different groups of participants showed observable variations in their response. The mid-level students believed that word-by-word rote memorisation was their best strategy in preparing for examinations. The low-level students believed that they needed to master multitasking to learn well in tight schedules. All these weak student participants considered quitting at some points, but no high-level student did so. To improve student persistence, the authors focus on meeting the needs of weak students and recommend the following actions for student persistence: add a time management and study skills component to existing courses for students to practise; appoint advisors to distance learning students to help them create an appropriate study plan and acquire a sense of belonging; make learning videos short and engaging; consider adopting student leaders or peer tutors that have been used successfully in full-time study; and conduct focus periodically with students to hear their views.

This study revealed the factors contributing to student persistence in ODL for the students of various levels of study performance. The results help in formulating measures to meet the diverse needs of ODL students for persistence in their studies.