Shevchuk, Iryna
(2008)
Who stays and who leaves? Social dynamics surrounding employee turnover.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
My dissertation consists of two essays that examine employee turnover as an independent and a dependent variable. In my first essay I examine the relationship between job-related attitudes, such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and employee turnover behavior. In a sample of over 6,000 teachers in 200 public elementary schools, I found significant variability across employee and organizational characteristics in the strength of the relationship between job attitude ratings and turnover. I attribute this variability to two sources: (a) systematic differences in attitude thresholds, i.e. the minimum acceptable level of a job attitude necessary to remain with the organization; and (b) systematic response biases in attitude ratings. I develop a model to determine which characteristics relate to significant differences in attitude thresholds and/or response biasing factors and found that both individual and organizational attributes are distinguishing factors. In my second essay I present findings from three inter-related studies investigating human and social capital as mechanisms that may determine whether and why employee retention is associated with organizational performance. In a sample of public schools I found a linear relationship between employee retention and organizational performance. Further, this positive association is fully mediated by human capital and partially mediated by social capital. In addition, I examined human and social capital at the individual level of employees who remain with the organization versus those who leave. I found that organizational performance suffers most when the employees who leave have high levels of both human and social capital. Finally, I distinguished human and social capital losses based on their specificity: organization-specific versus task-specific. As predicted, the losses of task-specific human and social capital were more deleterious to organizational performance than the losses of organization-specific forms of capital.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
29 September 2008 |
| Date Type: |
Completion |
| Defense Date: |
29 July 2008 |
| Approval Date: |
29 September 2008 |
| Submission Date: |
27 August 2008 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business > Business Administration |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
employee turnover; human capital; job attitudes; social capital |
| Other ID: |
http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-08272008-130405/, etd-08272008-130405 |
| Date Deposited: |
10 Nov 2011 20:01 |
| Last Modified: |
15 Nov 2016 13:49 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/9273 |
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