Feel the Pressure? Normative Pressures as a Unifying Mechanism for Relational Antecedents of Employee Turnover

Abstract

Relational perspectives on turnover antecedents have gained momentum in recent years, highlighting three distinct relational forces underlying employees' turnover decisions—notably, job embeddedness, social capital, and turnover contagion. However, these distinct perspectives are typically examined independent of one another, with little theoretical integration or holistic understanding of the shared mechanisms through which these relational antecedents operate on turnover intentions and behavior. We propose a conceptual model integrating the three types of relational antecedents (specifying their unique effects), while positing normative pressures from work and nonwork relationships as a fundamental consideration underlying quit decisions that translates their effects on leaving. Our model tests find support for this common mediator, even when controlling for traditional mediating mechanisms (i.e., job attitudes and perceived alternatives). Our tests also include important cultural considerations, allowing for comparisons between national cultures in our sample of nearly 700 surveyed employees and their subsequent quit intentions and behaviors, spanning the USA, Hong Kong, and China. Our tests revealed that on- and off-the-job embeddedness reduces quit propensity while prospective colleague turnover boosts that propensity. Path analyses further determined that normative pressures predict quit propensity (beyond attitudes and alternatives), and that such pressures mediate how job embeddedness and prospective coworker turnover influence quit propensity. We tease apart these effects across national cultures and discuss theoretical and practical implications of our findings.