The turnover contagion process: An integrative review of theoretical and empirical research

• Date: 01 February 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2483
• Published date: 01 February 2021

THE JOB ANNUAL REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL

DEVELOPMENT ISSUE

The turnover contagion process: An integrative review of

theoretical and empirical research

Caitlin M. Porter

1

| James R. Rigby

2

1

Department of Management, University of

Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, USA

2

Department of Psychology, University of

Houston, Houston, Texas, USA

Correspondence

Caitlin M. Porter, Assistant Professor,

Department of Management, University of

Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA.

Email: caitlin.porter@memphis.edu

Summary

Employee turnover has long been considered a prominent concern for managers

because it is associated with expenses, such as loss of productivity and replacement

costs. Moreover, employee turnover is also detrimental to an organization because it

may stimulate additional incidents of turnover within the workplace. That is,

employee turnover can be “contagious”in that employees tend to imitate the

turnover‐related attitudes and behaviors of their coworkers. To date, the “turnover

contagion”phenomenon has been investigated from multiple perspectives, splinter-

ing this research into several, seemingly distinct topics. Because of such diverse

approaches to studying the spread of turnover, we lack a clear perspective on what

turnover contagion is, how the turnover contagion process unfolds, and how to man-

age it. To resolve the ambiguities surrounding the turnover contagion process, we

review 42 research papers relevant to the turnover contagion process. Based on our

review, we present an integrated perspective on “turnover contagion”that clearly

delineates this phenomenon, describes what the extant research says about how

coworker turnover processes impact employees' propensities to leave, and offers

future research directions with the potential to deepen our understanding and man-

agement of turnover contagion.

KEYWORDS

employee turnover, social comparison theory, turnover contagion, turnover culture

1|INTRODUCTION

Employee turnover is a prominent concern for management scholars

and practitioners because it is associated with direct and indirect

expenses, such as loss of productivity and employee replacement

costs (Allen, Bryant, & Vardaman, 2010). Not only this, but employee

turnover is also “contagious”in that coworkers tend to imitate the

withdraw behaviors they perceive in others (e.g., Felps et al., 2009).

Indeed, abundant evidence demonstrates that turnover begets more

turnover (e.g., Krackhardt & Porter, 1986). This spread of employee

turnover through a work group or workplace results in costs that

exceed a single instance of turnover, such as decreased firm

performance and customer service quality (e.g., Heavey, Holwerda, &

Hausknecht, 2013). In light of these consequences, “turnover conta-

gion”has been identified as a leading concern for management

scholars and practitioners (Lee, Hom, Eberly, Li, & Mitchell, 2017). Yet

extant research offers neither a clear definition of the turnover conta-

gion phenomenon nor a clear understanding of the social and psycho-

logical processes through which turnover spreads in a work group,

which makes identifying and managing turnover contagion nearly

impossible. Indeed, research relevant to the turnover contagion pro-

cess is dispersed across several research perspectives that draw from

different theories and methodologies and that assign different terms

to this phenomenon.

Received: 20 January 2019 Revised: 27 July 2020 Accepted: 4 September 2020

DOI: 10.1002/job.2483

212 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J Organ Behav. 2021;42:212–228.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job

The purpose of this paper is to advance turnover contagion

research and practice by integrating this disparate literature into a

coherent account of turnover contagion. We draw directly from theo-

ries of behavioral contagion (Wheeler, 1966) and turnover (March &

Simon, 1958) to present the most comprehensive and thorough

definition of turnover contagion to date. Furthermore, we explicate the

turnover contagion process: drawing from theoretical perspectives

espoused in this literature (Festinger, 1954; Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978),

we explainhow coworkers communicate information (or cues) indicative

of their impending turnover and how employees use this information as

a basis for initiating theirown turnover processes. In doing so, weclarify

how the various research perspectives inherent in this literature inform

one another. Furthermore, our review also uncovers insights into the

precipitating signs of turnover contagion, shedding light on key targets

for managers to intervene to inhibit the spread of employee turnover.

Finally, we discuss the implications of turnover contagion forremaining

employees, work groups, and organizations, as well as implications for

future research, including multilevel theoretical extensions. This review

is an example of how to integrate social contagion concepts and pro-

cesses with an existing area of research (in our case, employee turn-

over), in order to present a richer picture of contagion phenomena that

yields insights for practiceand future theoreticaland empirical research.

Such an approach may be applied to other research areas to better

understandsocial contagion processes underlying other organizationally

relevant behaviors, especially those that disrupt organizational norms,

such as counterproductivebehaviors and safety or ethicalviolations.

2|REVIEW METHOD AND STRUCTURE

Given that “turnover contagion”has been investigated from various

perspectives, we collected relevant research using an iterative

process. We conducted a literature search using the PsycINFO and

Business Source Complete databases using the following key terms:

“coworker withdrawal,”“withdrawal culture,”“withdrawal norms,”

“turnover norms,”“coworker exit,”“coworker departure,”“withdrawal

contagion,”and “turnover contagion.”Then, using Google Scholar, we

searched for articles that cited seminal papers in this area

(i.e., Abelson, 1993; Felps et al., 2009; Krackhardt & Porter, 1986).

Finally, we reviewed reference sections to identify any additional rele-

vant papers. This process yielded 42 journal articles, book chapters,

conference papers, and unpublished dissertations that address how

coworkers' turnover‐related attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors influ-

ence employees' propensities to turnover. Of these papers, six

address leader and mentor departure, and six address turnover

culture.

1

We drew four boundary conditions around the research

reviewed. First, we excluded research that investigated how the pres-

ence of work colleagues or resources received from work colleagues

influence employees' propensity to turnover, such as research

assessing social network structures, constituent attachments, or

coworker support. These literatures do not address how coworkers'

turnover processes influence focal employees' propensities to turnover.

Second, we excluded research investigating personal relationships

(i.e., family) and employee turnover because our focus is on how turn-

over spreads within a workplace or work group. Third, we did not

review the collective turnover literature, as it is typically concerned

with the consequences of collective turnover rather than the anteced-

ent processes. However, we draw from research on collective turn-

over processes (i.e., Bartunek, Huang, & Walsh, 2008) to inform our

understanding of how turnover spreads within a work group.

Although features of collective turnover and turnover contagion are

based in similar social‐psychological processes, they operate at differ-

ent levels of analysis; additional research is needed to reconcile these

two perspectives, and we offer suggestions for integration in the

implications section.

Finally, we excluded research examining how coworkers' behav-

ioral withdrawal (i.e., absenteeism and tardiness) relates to focal

employees' turnover. Although research illustrates that coworkers'

(aggregate) absenteeism behaviors (i.e., absenteeism norms) predict

focal employees' absenteeism (e.g., Gellatly, 1995), we found no evi-

dence illustrating that coworkers' withdrawal predicts focal employee

turnover. Multiple theoretical models have documented that how and

why people leave their employers is distinct from how and why peo-

ple are late or absent from work (e.g., Hom, Mitchell, Lee, &

Griffeth, 2012; Johns, 2001), providing some evidence that these

behaviors are preceded by distinct considerations.

In sum, we accumulated direct evidence of turnover contagion

(i.e., coworker turnover predicting employee turnover), as well as

indirect evidence that coworkers' turnover related‐attitudes and

behaviors influence employees' propensities to leave. Based on our

review, we present a comprehensive definition of turnover contagion.

Then we draw from social information processing (SIP) theory and

social comparison theory (SCT) to explicate the turnover contagion

process, and we review research evidence to support this explanation.

Finally, we conclude with practical implications and future research

directions stemming from this review.

3|DEFINING TURNOVER CONTAGION

In its simplest form, turnover contagion refers to when “turnover

itself causes more turnover”(p. 50, Krackhardt & Porter, 1986).

This phenomenon has been described using various terms, such as

the “snowball effect”and “exit chains”(Krackhardt & Porter, 1986;

Sgourev, 2011). Furthermore, the term “turnover contagion”has

been applied to multiple, related phenomena (e.g., turnover culture;

Burke & Moore, 2004). To allay confusion around the term “turn-

over contagion”and to advance a coherent stream of research,

turnover scholars must draw finite boundaries around this phenom-

enon. In service of this goal, we extend conceptualizations of

behavioral contagion (Wheeler, 1966) to the domain of turnover;

and we draw from turnover theory (March & Simon, 1958) as a

1

Interested readers may access the supporting information, which presents a summary table

of the 35 empirical articles reviewed that delineates each study's sample and context, key

variables, and relevant propositions.

PORTER AND RIGBY 213