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Role of employee coping and performance in voluntary employee withdrawal: a research refinement and elaboration

Journal of Management - March 22, 1993

At the present time, despite the voluminous number of studies, our knowledge of why employees stay or leave their organization remains limited (Steel & Ovalle, 1984). The present study builds upon prior theory and research in providing the results of the first management study to simultaneously examine the role of both employee performance and a mode of coping, growth, on subsequent employee organizational turnover.

The importance of considering the role played by employee work performance on turnover has been clearly demonstrated by McEvoy and Cascio (1987). However, the results of their meta-analysis indicate the need for greater clarity regarding the precise role of employee performance in the decision to withdraw. For example, they note the failure of much previous research to test for a curvilinear relationship, while controlling for "the difficulty of separating organizationally encouraged turnover from truly volitional turnover..." (1987: 759).

Additionally, several authors suggest that our understanding of turnover can be greatly enhanced through the examination of employee coping or adjustment processes (Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982; Steers & Mowday, 1981). While the role of coping is now receiving greater emphasis (Cooper, 1983; Holroyd & Lazarus, 1982), this burgeoning consideration has not yet attained equivalent prominence in the work environment.

Currently, very little empirical research exists linking individual coping strategies and job-related outcome variables, such as turnover. One exception, however, involves the work of Wright and Bonett (1991), who found that one type of turnover (intra/interoccupational) and level of employee growth-oriented coping were strongly related for a sample of criminal justice employees.

Following the advice and direction of several researchers (McEvoy & Cascio, 1987; Mowday et al., 1982; Wright & Bonett, 1991), the present study extends our knowledge of employee withdrawal in several meaningful ways. While the results of McEvoy and Cascio's meta-analysis indicate "a significant negative overall relationship between performance and turnover" (1987: 758), recent research (Wright, 1992) found a positive relationship in a highly bureaucratic work setting, which lacks any form of merit-based reward system.

The present study confirms this finding of a positive relationship. Specifically, this study not only provides empirical confirmation, but also provides the necessary theoretical framework lacking in Wright's research. Further, the current research tests for a curvilinear relationship because, as noted by McEvoy and Cascio, "Our search of the literature yielded only three other studies that tested for a curvilinear relationship between performance and turnover.... It appears that more research on voluntary turnover is needed to resolve the curvilinearity issue" (1987: 759).

This study confirmed Wright and Bonett's (1991) finding of a positive relationship between growth coping and employee withdrawal. This replication takes on further significance since the present study defines the criterion variable, turnover, organizationally in contrast to Wright and Bonett's (1991) occupational (intra/interoccupational) conceptualization. Alternatively, the present results fail to replicate Wright's (1990a) finding of a positive relationship between growth coping and performance. As the first published study examining the role played by both growth coping and work performance as predictors of employee organizational turnover, further clarification regarding the relationships among growth coping, turnover, and work performance is provided.

Finally, while the consistent negative relationships among work satisfaction, organizational tenure and employee turnover have been well-documented, these two variables typically account for only a small portion of withdrawal movement (Wright & Bonett, 1991). However, since literally hundreds of turnover studies have established the roles played by satisfaction and tenure (Cotton & Tuttle, 1986), we consider it necessary to control for work satisfaction and tenure in the current study. Specifically, in Hypothesis 1, we predict that the stayer and leaver groups will differ in terms of growth coping, work performance, work satisfaction and tenure with the organization measured simultaneously.

Turnover and Coping

Turnover is defined in the present study as voluntary withdrawal from the organization. Lee and Mitchell note that, "In the psychological and sociological research, voluntary, as opposed to involuntary, turnover is the phenomenon of interest" (1991: 101). Similarly, McEvoy and Cascio, while noting "the difficulty of separating organizationally encouraged voluntary turnover from truly volitional turnover...." emphasize that ".... research must be careful to measure voluntary turnover in such a way as to minimize the possibility that the construct also captures some involuntary turnover" (1987: 745). In the current study, conversations with both administrative personnel and the employees themselves, along with access to the company's personnel files, confirmed that organizational turnover was totally employee initiated and volitional.

As noted, the dire need for research to investigate the role played by employee strategies of coping or adjustment regarding employee turnover is widely recognized (Mowday et al., 1982; Wright & Sweeney, 1990). Initially, coping was investigated in clinical settings and acknowledged in "common sense" terms. However, as a theoretical concept, "coping" is more problematic (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Billings and Moos (1984) posited that the way in which an individual copes with a specific stressful event is representative of the way in which that individual copes with stressful events in general. Research has found that individuals use certain strategies of coping, such as growth, more consistently than other strategies such as self-blame (Aldwin, Folkman, Schaefer, Coyne & Lazarus, 1980; Folkman, Lazarus, Gruen & DeLongis, 1986). Following Lazarus (1981), coping is conceptualized in primarily psychological terms. It is defined as the process of managing demands (external or internal) that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the individual. Specifically, in the present study, turnover is viewed as a potentially positive individual adjustment strategy with an organization that does not utilize employee growth capabilities (Porter, Lawler & Hackman, 1975; Wright & Bonett, 1991).

Recent research has identified several coping strategies (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988). Included among these strategies are wishful thinking, avoidance, minimization of threat, seeking of emotional support, and growth. Based upon the research of Lazarus and his colleagues (Aldwin et al., 1980) and Wright and Bonett, growth coping is defined as "the extent to which an individual values opportunities to learn and grow, to be creative, and to competently utilize the full range of their talents" (1991: 134).

Regarding growth, related research has long recognized the role of intrinsic rewards such as growth, achievement and competence to individual development (Lewin, 1936; White, 1959). Early research focused on the conceptualization of these constructs as needs or stable traits, where the focus was on various personality dispositions from which inferences regarding outcomes were made (Wright, 1990a). However, this perspective has provided inconsistent results which have been strongly critiqued on theoretical grounds (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1977).

Similarly, early coping research primarily focused on the trait or dispositional approach (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The trait approach focuses on what the individual usually does (Lazarus, 1981). More recently, the process approach is emerging as the dominant trend in coping research (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988). The process approach addresses what an individual actually thinks and does within the context of a specific encounter (Wright & Sweeney, 1990). This distinction in coping research between trait and process approaches is analogous to the current debate in organizational behavior research regarding the relative merits of dispositional versus situational explanations regarding job attitude determination (Staw, 1986).

The present research follows a process approach. That is, following Billings and Moos (1984), the way an individual copes with a specific situation is representative of how they cope across situations. This perspective is confirmed by the finding of Wright (1990b), indicating that the use of growth coping strategies tend to be consistent over time and across situations.

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