Antecedents of Employee Turnover: Review of Literature and Proposed Research Agenda

Employee turnover has been a frequent subject of inquiryin researches on Human Resource Management (HRM). In this context, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and intentions have emerged as the most frequently cited antecedents to actual turnover. However, the literature provides mixed opinions regarding which one is a stronger predictor. This paper seeks to examine the relationships among these variables based on an extensive literature review. Both job satisfaction and organizational commitment are found to be vital predictors of turnover. It was also inferred that intention to stay was considered as the closest and most important predictor of employee turnover but at the same time there is dearth of empirical studies in literature that examine its relationship with actual turnover. The paper also proposes a conceptual framework based on the constructs of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intention to stay and actual turnover. Subsequently, research propositions are developed based on the conceptual model