Blackwell Reference Online

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Employee turnover labels the termination of an individual's formal membership in an organization. Among scholars and managers of human resource management (HRM), the most common meaning for turnover refers to the employee's initiation of leaving the organization; such voluntary turnover implies an employee's volitional quitting. A second meaning for turnover, though slightly less common, refers to the firm's initiation of the employee's leaving the organization. Such involuntary turnover implies the employee's nonvolitional termination. Other terms for involuntary turnover include firing, layoff, downsizing , and rightsizing ( see employment‐at‐will ; strategic outsourcing ; strategic staffing ). Knowledge about voluntary turnover is paradigmatically based. That is, research has been theory‐driven, empirical results are cumulative, and available information continues to evolve systematically. Currently distinguishable traditional and alternative approaches to understanding voluntary turnover exist. Traditionally, voluntary turnover has been most often characterized as an intentionally rational psychological process ( Simon, 1945 ). Employees are seen as estimating and comparing the relative desirability and ease of quitting ( March and Simon, 1958 ). If judged desirable and easy, voluntary turnover occurs; if judged less desirable or harder to quit, voluntary turnover does not ... log in or subscribe to read full text