Employee Turnover
EMPLOYEE TURNOVER: BAD ATTITUDE OR POOR MANAGEMENT?
NARESH KHATRI Assistant Professor Nanyang Business School Nanyang Technological University Mail Box: S3-B2-C-82 Singapore 639798 Phone: (65) 790-5679 Fax: (65) 791-3697 E-mail: ankhatri@ntu.edu.sg
PAWAN BUDHWAR Lecturer Cardiff Business School Cardiff University Aberconway Building Colum Drive Cardiff, CF1 3EU E-mail: budhwar@cardiff.ac.uk
CHONG TZE FERN Nanyang Business School Nanyang Technological University Singapore 639798 E-mail: p7515495z@ntu.edu.sg
EMPLOYEE TURNOVER: BAD ATTITUDE OR POOR MANAGEMENT?
Abstract
Employee turnover is giving sleepless nights to human resource managers in many countries in Asia. A widely-held belief in these countries is that employees have developed bad attitudes due to labor shortage. Employees are believed to job-hop for no reason or even for fun. Unfortunately, despite employee turnover being such a serious problem in Asia, there is dearth of studies investigating it; especially studies using a comprehensive set of causal variables are rare. In this study, we examined three sets of antecedents of turnover intention in companies in Singapore: demographic, controllable, and uncontrollable. Singapore companies provide an appropriate setting as their turnover rates are among the highest in Asia. Findings of the study suggest that the extent of controllable turnover is much greater than uncontrollable turnover and that poor management practices are the major source of employee turnover.
EMPLOYEE TURNOVER: BAD ATTITUDE OR POOR MANAGEMENT? Voluntary turnover is a major problem for companies in many Asian countries such as Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan (Barnett, 1995; Chang, 1996; Syrett, 1994). For example, in 1995 (the last year for which comparative data were available), the average monthly resignation rates were 3.4%, 2.9%, and 2.7% in Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, respectively (Barnard & Rodgers, 1998). In a recent forum of
NARESH KHATRI Assistant Professor Nanyang Business School Nanyang Technological University Mail Box: S3-B2-C-82 Singapore 639798 Phone: (65) 790-5679 Fax: (65) 791-3697 E-mail: ankhatri@ntu.edu.sg
PAWAN BUDHWAR Lecturer Cardiff Business School Cardiff University Aberconway Building Colum Drive Cardiff, CF1 3EU E-mail: budhwar@cardiff.ac.uk
CHONG TZE FERN Nanyang Business School Nanyang Technological University Singapore 639798 E-mail: p7515495z@ntu.edu.sg
EMPLOYEE TURNOVER: BAD ATTITUDE OR POOR MANAGEMENT?
Abstract
Employee turnover is giving sleepless nights to human resource managers in many countries in Asia. A widely-held belief in these countries is that employees have developed bad attitudes due to labor shortage. Employees are believed to job-hop for no reason or even for fun. Unfortunately, despite employee turnover being such a serious problem in Asia, there is dearth of studies investigating it; especially studies using a comprehensive set of causal variables are rare. In this study, we examined three sets of antecedents of turnover intention in companies in Singapore: demographic, controllable, and uncontrollable. Singapore companies provide an appropriate setting as their turnover rates are among the highest in Asia. Findings of the study suggest that the extent of controllable turnover is much greater than uncontrollable turnover and that poor management practices are the major source of employee turnover.
EMPLOYEE TURNOVER: BAD ATTITUDE OR POOR MANAGEMENT? Voluntary turnover is a major problem for companies in many Asian countries such as Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan (Barnett, 1995; Chang, 1996; Syrett, 1994). For example, in 1995 (the last year for which comparative data were available), the average monthly resignation rates were 3.4%, 2.9%, and 2.7% in Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, respectively (Barnard & Rodgers, 1998). In a recent forum of