Turnover Intentions and Turnover: The Moderating Role of Dispositional Affectivity

Turnover is a costly problem for organizations, with severe consequences for individuals (Hom & Griffeth, 1995). Because turnover intentions are the best predictor of turnover (Griffeth, Hom, & Gaertner, 2000), our ability to explain and predict individual voluntary turnover decisions depends upon our understanding of the intentions-turnover relationship. Allen, Weeks, and Moffitt (2005) suggested that dispositional affectivity moderates this relationship. Using a sample of 443 U.S. insurance company employees and hierarchical moderator logistic regression, I found that dispositional affectivity (i.e., positive affectivity [PA] and negative affectivity [NA]) jointly moderated the turnover intentions-turnover relationship. As hypothesized, the positive relationship was strong when employees are high in PA and low in NA, signifying the presence of an approach system and the dormancy of an inhibition system (Watson, Wiese, Vaidya, & Tellegen, 1999), and weak for the other combinations. This study contributes to the turnover field by helping to explain the moderate strength and wide variance of the intentions-turnover relationship, and by suggesting a role for dispositional affectivity. Inclusion of the three-way interaction improved the substantive significance of a model with established turnover variables. This extends the traditional role of dispositional affectivity beyond a direct effects predictor, encouraging the field to pay greater attention to personality.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Industrial/Organizational Psychology (Arts and Sciences)

Grantor dc:publisher

Ohio University

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Ritter, Charles H.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Griffeth, Rodger

• Organizational Behavior
• Personality
• Psychology
• turnover intentions
• turnover
• dispositional affectivity
• positive affectivity
• negative affectivity

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1354230434

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:ohiou1354230434