IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp16413.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Performance Costs and Benefits of Collective Turnover: A Theory-Driven Measurement Framework and Applications

Author

Listed:
  • Zubanov, Nick

    (University of Konstanz)

  • Shakina, Elena

    (University of Vigo)

Abstract

Building on job matching theory, we model the effect of collective turnover on workplace performance as the total of its costs from operational disruptions and benefits from better job-worker match quality, each component varying with turnover level. The resulting theoretical turnover-performance relationship is generally curvilinear, nesting all the hitherto known patterns – linear, "U-shape" and "inverted U-shape" – as special cases, and lends itself to an empirically estimable regression model from which one can derive the implied costs and benefits of turnover. Applications to data from two retail firms reveal some benefits from turnover in one firm, and none in the other. Turnover costs exceed benefits in both firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Zubanov, Nick & Shakina, Elena, 2023. "Performance Costs and Benefits of Collective Turnover: A Theory-Driven Measurement Framework and Applications," IZA Discussion Papers 16413, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16413
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp16413.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ferreira, Priscila & Taylor, Mark, 2011. "Measuring match quality using subjective data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(3), pages 304-306.
    2. Mark Gertler & Christopher Huckfeldt & Antonella Trigari, 2020. "Unemployment Fluctuations, Match Quality, and the Wage Cyclicality of New Hires," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(4), pages 1876-1914.
    3. Mortensen, Dale T. & Pissarides, Christopher A., 2016. "Job Matching, Wage Dispersion, and Unemployment," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198779995.
    4. Stoyanov, Andrey & Zubanov, Nikolay, 2014. "The distribution of the gains from spillovers through worker mobility between workers and firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 17-35.
    5. Peter Kuhn & Lizi Yu, 2021. "How Costly Is Turnover? Evidence from Retail," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 461-496.
    6. Richard F. J. Haans & Constant Pieters & Zi-Lin He, 2016. "Thinking about U: Theorizing and testing U- and inverted U-shaped relationships in strategy research," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(7), pages 1177-1195, July.
    7. Rob Eisinga & Ben Pelzer, 2011. "Saddlepoint approximations to the mean and variance of the extended hypergeometric distribution," Statistica Neerlandica, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, vol. 65(1), pages 22-31, February.
    8. Guido Friebel & Matthias Heinz & Nikolay Zubanov, 2022. "Middle Managers, Personnel Turnover, and Performance: A Long‐Term Field Experiment in a Retail Chain," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(1), pages 211-229, January.
    9. Weller, Ingo & Hymer, Christina B. & Nyberg, Anthony J. & Ebert, Julia, 2019. "How Matching Creates Value: Cogs And Wheels For Human Capital Resources Research," Munich Reprints in Economics 78209, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    10. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1979. "Job Matching and the Theory of Turnover," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 972-990, October.
    11. Zeynep Ton & Robert S. Huckman, 2008. "Managing the Impact of Employee Turnover on Performance: The Role of Process Conformance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(1), pages 56-68, February.
    12. Qin Li & Ben Lourie & Alexander Nekrasov & Terry Shevlin, 2022. "Employee Turnover and Firm Performance: Large-Sample Archival Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(8), pages 5667-5683, August.
    13. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1984. "Matching, Turnover, and Unemployment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(1), pages 108-122, February.
    14. Sophie de Winne & Elise Marescaux & Luc Sels & Ilke van Beveren & Stijn Vanormelingen, 2019. "The impact of employee turnover and turnover volatility on labor productivity: a flexible non-linear approach," Post-Print hal-02998176, HAL.
    15. Andrey Stoyanov & Nikolay Zubanov, 2012. "Productivity Spillovers across Firms through Worker Mobility," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 168-198, April.
    16. John M. Barron & Mark C. Berger & Dan A. Black, 2006. "Selective Counteroffers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(3), pages 385-410, July.
    17. Douglas H. Frank & Tomasz Obloj, 2014. "Firm‐specific human capital, organizational incentives, and agency costs: Evidence from retail banking," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(9), pages 1279-1301, September.
    18. Hsu, Yu-Chin & Shiu, Ji-Liang, 2021. "Nonlinear Panel Data Models With Distribution-Free Correlated Random Effects," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(6), pages 1075-1099, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kampkötter, Patrick & Petters, Lea M. & Sliwka, Dirk, 2021. "Employee identification and wages – on the economics of “Affective Commitment”," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 608-626.
    2. Guido Friebel & Matthias Heinz & Mitchell Hoffman & Nick Zubanov, 2023. "What Do Employee Referral Programs Do? Measuring the Direct and Overall Effects of a Management Practice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(3), pages 633-686.
    3. Zsolt Csáfordi & László Lőrincz & Balázs Lengyel & Károly Miklós Kiss, 2020. "Productivity spillovers through labor flows: productivity gap, multinational experience and industry relatedness," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 86-121, February.
    4. Jaana Rahko, 2017. "Knowledge spillovers through inventor mobility: the effect on firm-level patenting," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 585-614, June.
    5. Braz Camargo & Elena Pastorino, 2016. "Learning-by-Employing: The Value of Commitment under Uncertainty," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(3), pages 581-620.
    6. Cahuc, Pierre & Malherbet, Franck & Prat, Julien, 2019. "The Detrimental Effect of Job Protection on Employment: Evidence from France," IZA Discussion Papers 12384, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Isaac Baley & Ana Figueiredo & Robert Ulbricht, 2022. "Mismatch Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(11), pages 2943-2984.
    8. Yashiv, Eran, 2007. "Labor search and matching in macroeconomics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1859-1895, November.
    9. Marta Silva & Luis Filipe Martins & Helena Lopes, 2015. "Asymmetric labour market reforms and wage growth with fixed-term contracts: does learning about match quality matter?," Working Papers Series 2 15-04, ISCTE-IUL, Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL).
    10. Ravi Balakrishnan, 2001. "The interaction of firing costs and on-the-job search: an application of a search theoretic model to the Spanish labour market," Working Papers 0102, Banco de España.
    11. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki & Stephen Redding, 2010. "Inequality and Unemployment in a Global Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(4), pages 1239-1283, July.
    12. Sergio Destefanis & Raquel Fonseca, 2006. "Labour-Market Reforms and the Beveridge Curve. Some Macro Evidence for Italy," CSEF Working Papers 168, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    13. Pinheiro, Roberto & Visschers, Ludo, 2015. "Unemployment risk and wage differentials," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 397-424.
    14. Theodossiou, I. & Zangelidis, A., 2009. "Career prospects and tenure-job satisfaction profiles: Evidence from panel data," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 648-657, August.
    15. Lacroix, Robert & Montmarquette, Claude & Mahseredjian, Sophie & Froment, Nicole, 1991. "Disparités interindustrielles dans les taux de départs volontaires : une étude empirique," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 67(4), pages 458-481, décembre.
    16. Lisa M. Lynch, 1992. "Differential Effects of Post-School Training on Early Career Mobility," NBER Working Papers 4034, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Parent, Daniel, 2002. "Matching, human capital, and the covariance structure of earnings," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 375-404, July.
    18. Jeremy Lise & Shannon Seitz & Jeffrey Smith, 2015. "Evaluating search and matching models using experimental data," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-35, December.
    19. Heijke, Hans & Meng, Christoph & Ris, Catherine, 2003. "Fitting to the job: the role of generic and vocational competencies in adjustment and performance," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 215-229, April.
    20. Yi Zhang & Martin Salm & Arthur Soest, 2021. "The effect of training on workers’ perceived job match quality," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(5), pages 2477-2498, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    employee turnover; performance;

    JEL classification:

    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16413. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.