1932
0
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior
  4. Volume 1, 2014
  5. Article

Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior

Volume 1, 2014

The Story of Why We Stay: A Review of Job Embeddedness

Abstract

In this article, we examine the history and development of job embeddedness, beginning with the story of the idea’s conception, theoretical foundation, and original empirical structure as a major predictor of employee voluntary turnover. We then consider more recent expansions in the theoretical structure and empirical measurement of job embeddedness, exploring job embeddedness as a causal indicator model versus a reflective model. Next, we review some promising expansions of embeddedness to new domains (e.g., family embeddedness) as well as important contingency factors that enhance or diminish its impact. Finally, we describe how job embeddedness affects important organizational outcomes beyond turnover, including job performance, organizational citizenship behavior, innovation, and the development of social and human capital. Throughout the article, we provide our opinions on how the theory and research on embeddedness have progressed as well as ideas on how it can be improved.

Keyword(s): causal indicator, contextual influences, organizational outcomes, reflective, voluntary turnover
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091244
2014-03-21
2024-04-20
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/orgpsych/1/1/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091244.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091244&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Bagozzi RP. 2007. On the meaning of formative measurement and how it differs from reflective measurement: comment on Howell, Breivik, and Wilcox (2007). Psychol. Methods 12:2229–37 [Google Scholar]
  2. Bollen KA. 2007. Interpretational confounding is due to misspecification, not to type of indicator: comment on Howell, Breivik, and Wilcox (2007). Psychol. Methods 12:2219–28 [Google Scholar]
  3. Bollen KA, Bauldry S. 2011. Three Cs in measurement models: causal indicators, composite indicators, and covariates. Psychol. Methods 16:3265–84 [Google Scholar]
  4. Burton JP, Holtom BC, Sablynski CJ, Mitchell TR, Lee TW. 2010. The buffering effects of job embeddedness on negative shocks. J. Vocat. Behav. 76:142–51 [Google Scholar]
  5. Crossley CD, Bennett RJ, Jex SM, Burnfield JL. 2007. Development of a global measure of job embeddedness and integration into a traditional model of voluntary turnover. J. Appl. Psychol. 92:41031–42 [Google Scholar]
  6. Feldman DC, Ng TWH. 2007. Careers: mobility, embeddedness, and success. J. Manag. 33:3350–77 [Google Scholar]
  7. Felps WA, Mitchell TR, Hekman DR, Lee TW, Holtom BS, Harman WS. 2009. Turnover contagion: how coworkers’ job embeddedness and coworkers’ job search behaviors influence quitting. Acad. Manag. J. 52:3545–61 [Google Scholar]
  8. Halbesleben JRB, Wheeler AR. 2008. The relative roles of engagement and embeddedness in predicting job performance and intention to leave. Work Stress 22:3242–56 [Google Scholar]
  9. Holtom BC, Burton JP, Crossley CD. . 2012. How negative affectivity moderates the relationship between shocks, embeddedness and worker behaviors. J. Vocat. Behav. 80:2434–43 [Google Scholar]
  10. Holtom BC, Inderrieden EJ. 2006. Integrating the unfolding model and job embeddedness model to better understand voluntary turnover. J. Manag. Issues 18:4435–52 [Google Scholar]
  11. Holtom BC, Mitchell TR, Lee TW, Eberly MB. 2008. Turnover and retention research: a glance at the past, a closer review of the present, and a venture into the future. Acad. Manag. Ann. 2:231–74 [Google Scholar]
  12. Holtom BC, O’Neill BS. 2004. Job embeddedness: a theoretical foundation for developing a comprehensive nurse retention plan. J. Nurs. Adm. 34:5216–27 [Google Scholar]
  13. Holtom BC, Tidd ST, Mitchell TR, Lee TW. 2013. A demonstration of the importance of temporal considerations in the prediction of newcomer turnover. Hum. Relat. 66:101337–52 [Google Scholar]
  14. Hom PW, Mitchell TR, Lee TW, Griffeth RW. 2012. Reviewing employee turnover: focusing on proximal withdrawal states and an expanded criterion. Psychol. Bull. 138:5831–58 [Google Scholar]
  15. Howell RD, Breivik E, Wilcox JB. 2007. Reconsidering formative measurement. Psychol. Methods 12:2205–18 [Google Scholar]
  16. Jiang K, Liu D, McKay PF, Lee TW, Mitchell TR. 2012. When and how is job embeddedness predictive of turnover? A meta-analytic investigation. J. Appl. Psychol. 97:51077–96 [Google Scholar]
  17. Karatepe OM. 2012. The effects of coworker and perceived organizational support on hotel employee outcomes: the moderating role of job embeddedness. J. Hosp. Tour. Res. 36:4495–516 [Google Scholar]
  18. Kraimer ML, Shaffer MA, Harrison DA, Ren H. 2012. No place like home? An identity strain perspective on repatriate turnover. Acad. Manag. J. 55:2399–420 [Google Scholar]
  19. Lee TW, Mitchell TR. 1994. An alternative approach: the unfolding model of voluntary employee turnover. Acad. Manag. Rev. 19:151–89 [Google Scholar]
  20. Lee TW, Mitchell TR. 2011. Working in research teams: lessons from personal experiences. Manag. Organ. Rev. 7:3461–69 [Google Scholar]
  21. Lee TW, Mitchell TR, Holtom BC, McDaniel LS, Hill JW. 1999. The unfolding model of voluntary turnover: a replication and extension. Acad. Manag. J. 42:4450–62 [Google Scholar]
  22. Lee TW, Mitchell TR, Sablynski CJ, Burton JP, Holtom B. 2004. The effects of job embeddedness on organizational citizenship, job performance, volitional absences, and voluntary turnover. Acad. Manag. J. 47:5711–22 [Google Scholar]
  23. Lee TW, Mitchell TR, Wise L, Fireman S. 1996. An unfolding model of voluntary employee turnover. Acad. Manag. J. 39:15–36 [Google Scholar]
  24. Lev S, Koslowsky M. 2012. On-the-job embeddedness as a mediator between conscientiousness and school teachers’ contextual performance. Eur. J. Work Organ. Psychol. 21:157–83 [Google Scholar]
  25. Lewin K. 1951. Field Theory in Social Science New York: Harper
  26. Liu D, Mitchell TR, Lee TW, Holtom BC, Hinkin TR. 2012. When employees are out of step with coworkers: how job satisfaction trajectory and dispersion influence individual- and unit-level voluntary turnover. Acad. Manag. J. 55:61360–80 [Google Scholar]
  27. March JG, Simon HA. 1958. Organizations Oxford, UK: Wiley
  28. Mignonac K. 2008. Individual and contextual antecedents of older managerial employees’ willingness to accept intra-organizational job changes. Int. J. Hum. Resour. Manag. 19:4582–99 [Google Scholar]
  29. Mitchell TR, Holtom BC, Lee TW, Sablynski CJ, Erez M. 2001. Why people stay: using job embeddedness to predict voluntary turnover. Acad. Manag. J. 44:61102–21 [Google Scholar]
  30. Mitchell TR, Lee TW. 2001. The unfolding model of voluntary turnover and job embeddedness: foundations for a comprehensive theory of attachment. Res. Organ. Behav. 23:189–246 [Google Scholar]
  31. Mobley WH. 1977. Intermediate linkages in the relationship between job satisfaction and employee turnover. J. Appl. Psychol. 62:2237–40 [Google Scholar]
  32. Ng TWH, Feldman DC. 2007. Organizational embeddedness and occupational embeddedness across career stages. J. Vocat. Behav. 70:2336–51 [Google Scholar]
  33. Ng TWH, Feldman DC. 2010a. The effects of organizational embeddedness on development of social capital and human capital. J. Appl. Psychol. 95:4696 [Google Scholar]
  34. Ng TWH, Feldman DC. 2010b. The impact of job embeddedness on innovation-related behaviors. Hum. Resour. Manag. 49:61067–87 [Google Scholar]
  35. Ng TWH, Feldman DC. 2012. The effects of organizational and community embeddedness on work-to-family and family-to-work conflict. J. Appl. Psychol. 97:61233–51 [Google Scholar]
  36. Pratt MG, Rockmann KW, Kaufmann JB. 2006. Constructing professional identity: the role of work and identity learning cycles in the customization of identity among medical residents. Acad. Manag. J. 49:2235–62 [Google Scholar]
  37. Ramesh A, Gelfand MJ. 2010. Will they stay or will they go? The role of job embeddedness in predicting turnover in individualistic and collectivistic cultures. J. Appl. Psychol. 95:5807–23 [Google Scholar]
  38. Ren H, Shaffer M, Harrison DA, Fu C, Fodchuk KM. 2013. Reactive adjustment or proactive embedding? Multistudy, multiwave evidence for dual pathways to expatriate retention. Pers. Psychol. In press. doi: 10.1111/peps.12034
  39. Sekiguchi T, Burton JP, Sablynski CJ. 2008. The role of job embeddedness on employee performance: the interactive effects with leader–member exchange and organization-based self-esteem. Pers. Psychol. 61:4761–92 [Google Scholar]
  40. Smith DR, Holtom BC, Mitchell TR. 2011. Enhancing precision in the prediction of voluntary turnover and retirement. J. Vocat. Behav. 79:1290–302 [Google Scholar]
  41. Sun T, Zhao XW, Yang LB, Fan LH. 2011. The impact of psychological capital on job embeddedness and job performance among nurses: a structural equation approach. J. Adv. Nurs. 68:169–79 [Google Scholar]
  42. Swider BW, Boswell WR, Zimmerman RD. 2011. Examining the job search–turnover relationship: the role of embeddedness, job satisfaction, and available alternatives. J. Appl. Psychol. 96:2432–41 [Google Scholar]
  43. Tanova C, Holtom BC. 2008. Using job embeddedness factors to explain voluntary turnover in four European countries. Int. J. Hum. Resour. Manag. 19:91553–68 [Google Scholar]
  44. Tharenou P, Caulfield N. 2010. Will I stay or will I go? Explaining repatriation by self-initiated expatriates. Acad. Manag. J. 53:51009–28 [Google Scholar]
  45. Wheeler AR, Harris KJ, Sablynski CJ. 2012. How do employees invest abundant resources? The mediating role of work effort in the job-embeddedness/job-performance relationship. J. Appl. Soc. Psychol. 42:244–66 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091244
Loading
The Story of Why We Stay: A Review of Job Embeddedness
Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 1, 199 (2014); https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091244
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091244
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091244
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Review Article

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error