The Turnover Intention–Behaviour Link: A Culture‐Moderated Meta‐Analysis

• Date: 01 September 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12520
• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Author: Kin Fai Ellick Wong,Cecilia Cheng

© 2019 Society for the Adv ancement of Management Stud ies and John Wiley & Son s, Ltd.

The Turnover Intention–Behaviour Link:

A Culture-Moderated Meta-Analysis

Kin Fai Ellick Wonga and Cecilia Chengb

aHong Kong Univers ity of Scien ce and Technology; bThe Uni versity of Hong Kon g

ABST RACT Turnover intention is widely regarded as a d irect antecedent to and proxy for actual

voluntary tur nover behaviour. However, previous studies have found the tu rnover intention-

behaviour lin k to be highly heterogeneous and not necessarily st rong. This study adopt s a

cross-cult ural perspective, exami ning how the link varies as a f unction of Hofstede’s four

work-related cultural d imensions. Data from 152 independent samples were meta-analysed,

representing the test ing of 216,093 employees from 18 nations across 9 geog raphical regions.

The multilevel meta-a nalytic results reveal si gnificantly strong er turnover intention-behaviour

links for countr ies higher in power distance, higher in ind ividualism, and lower in mascul inity.

Keywo rds: cultur e, meta-analy sis, multinational comparis on, turnover intention, voluntary

turnover

INTRODUCTION

Voluntary employee turnover has attracted considerable public and scholarly attention

in recent decades because of its theoretical import ance (Hom, 2011; Hom et al., 2012,

2017) as well as f inancial and practical sign ificance (A llen et al., 2010; Hausknecht and

Holwerda, 2013). Employee turnover is widely construed as a plan ned behaviour (Ajzen,

1991), involving a two-sta ge intention conversion process (Vardaman et al., 2015): An

intention formation stage at Time 1 and a behavioral decision sta ge at Time 2. Turnover

intention has been characterized a s the immediate and d irect precursor of voluntary

turnover behaviour (Hom and Grif feth, 1991, 1995; Mobley, 1977; Mobley et al., 1979).

Myriad studies have demonstrated tu rnover intention to be the best predictor of subse-

quent voluntary turnover behaviour (Grif feth et al., 2000; Hom and Griffeth, 1995), and

thus a sound proxy for turnover behaviour (Griffeth et al., 20 00; Holtom et al., 2008).

Journal of Man agement Studi es 57:6 September 2020

doi:10. 1111/j om s .12 52 0

Address for reprints: Kin Fai Ellick Wong, Department of Management, Hong Kong University of Science and

Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (mnewong@ust.hk).

Cecilia C heng, Department of Psycholog y, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfula m, Hong Kong Special

Administrative Region (ceci-cheng@hku.hk)

The Turnover Intention–Beh aviour L ink 1175

© 2019 Society for the Adv ancement of Management Stud ies and John Wiley & Son s, Ltd.

Although turnover intention and turnover behaviour have a strong linkage in t heory,

empirical f indings show the tur nover intention-behaviour link to be high ly heteroge-

neous and not necessarily strong (Grif feth et al., 2000; Hom and Griffeth, 1995; Steel

and Ovalle, 1984).

Turnover researchers have been eager to understand why, and in what way, the turn-

over intention-behaviour link is so heterogeneous (Allen et al., 2005; Lee and Mitchell,

1994; Vardaman et al., 2015) because the heterogeneity therein suggests that early turn-

over models may have overlooked some important theoretical elements. Mobley’s (1977)

early process model assumes a strong link between turnover intention and behaviour,

positing that employees consider most turnover-related costs before forming a turnover

intention at Time 1. Such factors as values, attitudes, and personality determine the per-

ception of those costs and so the turnover intention, which then precisely lead to turn-

over behaviour at Time 2. However, more recent studies indicate employees are likely to

also consider turnover costs when making their actual quit decision at Time 2 (Rusbult

and Farrell, 1983) presumably because ‘expressing hypothetical intentions is generally

costless, whereas actual behaviour is not...’ (Allen et al., 2005, p. 981). Hence, the inten-

tion-behaviour link becomes weak when employees change their perception from Time

1 to Time 2.1

Such a perception discrepancy occurs because people are presumed to

make less important decisions in a less formal, less deliberative manner than important

decisions (Chaiken, 1980; Fiske, 1988; Fiske and Pavelchak, 1986). As a hypothetical

intention is less important than an actual turnover decision, turnover behaviour at Time

2 may not necessarily follow turnover intention made earlier if there is a discrepancy be-

tween the turnover costs perceived at Time 1 and Time 2. Accordingly, researchers have

called for the adoption of a contingency approach to studying the variation in the turn-

over intention-behaviour link, which suggests that this link may vary across situational

and individual-level factors (Allen et al., 2005; Griffeth et al., 2000; Hom and Griffeth,

1995; Hom et al., 2012).

Theoretically, a category of factors that renders cost perceptions at Time 2 different

from those at Time 1 (i.e., a differential or discrepant perception) will lead to turnover

behaviours that are inconsistent with the intention formed earlier. Previous research has

found factors in this category, which include personality (Allen et al., 2005) and net-

work position (Vardaman et al., 2015), to moderate the turnover intention-behaviour

link. These studies reinforce the contention that a complete understanding of tur nover

requires closer examination of the role these factors play in the intention-behaviour

conversion process. However, previous research has overlooked what is probably one of

the most important factors in this category, namely, cultural values (e.g., collectivism vs.

individualism). Values refer to enduring beliefs about what is important in life for guid-

ing, selecting, perceiving, and evaluating behaviours (Parks-Leduc et al., 2015; Rokeach,

1973; Schwartz, 1992). Cultural values are a value subset that pertains to the collective

values of the people within a given nation or cultural region (Hofstede, 1980a). Because

values are enduring, the influence of cultural values is in effect at all times, including

the moment of making actual turnover decision at Time 2. Thus, cultural value varia-

tions likely lead to differential perceptions after Time 1, converting turnover intention to

turnover behaviour to differing extents. The robust and enduring influence of cultural

1176 K. F. E. Wong and C. Cheng

© 2019 Society for the Adv ancement of Management Stud ies and John Wiley & Son s, Ltd.

values offers a strong theoretical justification for the proposition that the strength of the

turnover intention-behaviour link differs among employees with different cultural values.

Despite the theoretical justification for considering cross-cultural variations, turnover

researchers have paid insufficient attention to the issue. In a recent review of the recruit-

ment and retention literature, Allen and Vardaman (2017) pointed out that the effects

of various predictors on turnover may differ depending on the cultural context because

culture influences employees’ perceptions and interpretations of construct meanings.

Accordingly, the scholars further commented that the extant body of tur nover research

has not yet put current turnover models under cultural contexts. In particular, they made

a call for more studies on cross-cultural variations in turnover conversion. That call is

consistent with two future directions highlighted in the turnover literature, namely, the

formulation of contextualizing models that incorporate national or cultural differences

(Lee et al., 2017; Holtom et al., 2008; Ramesh and Gelfand, 2010) and an examination

of turnover from a multilevel perspective (Rubenstein et al., 2018). These suggested di-

rections, in conjunction with the aforementioned call for the adoption of a contingency

approach, convergingly suggest that there are strong theoretical needs for examining the

role of culture, which is at the society-level, in shaping the turnover intention-behaviour

link, which is at the individual-level.

To address this need, we propose that cultural values moderate the turnover inten-

tion-behaviour conversion because cultural differences come from variations in the collec-

tive values of individuals (Hofstede, 1980a, 2001). Accordingly, we adopt a cross-cultural

perspective in meta-analyzing the variation in the turnover intention-behaviour link

across countries. According to Hofstede (1980a, 2001), cross-cultural differences stem

from variations in collective values along four dimensions, namely, individualism, power

distance, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance. Therefore, employees from countries

with diverse cultural values are likely to behave differently after intention formation at

Time 1 and assign different costs and different meanings to the same factor (i.e., have

different values concerning the same factor) pertaining to turnover behaviour at Time 2.

The meta-analytic approach is particularly suitable for examining cross-cultural infer-

ences because it allows a direct comparison of the strength of the focal effect size (i.e.,

the turnover intention-behaviour link ) among studies from different cultural regions in a

sample much larger than data collected by ordinary methods such as surveys and exper-

iments (Cheng et al., 2013, 2014).

To sum up, the aim of this research was to contribute to a fuller understanding of em-

ployee turnover by looking into how cultural values moderate the turnover intention-be-

haviour link. That understanding will add to the growing body of studies explaining

the variation in the turnover intention-behaviour link as the result of factors that alter

turnover perceptions during the turnover conversion process. In the following sections,

we begin by presenting a more detailed literature review on the turnover intention-be-

haviour link. In particular, we highlight the importance of studying cross-cultural com-

parisons to address the emerging need for a cross-cultural and multilevel understanding

of voluntary employee turnover. We then present a short review of cultural values and

a theoretical justification of our adoption of Hofstede’s framework. We next discuss the

hypotheses tested in the meta-analysis and present its results. The paper concludes with