ABSTRACT



A Study on the Effect of Job-Embeddedness on Turnover Intention
- Focusing on the employment type -


Kim, Jung Eun
Major in HRM and Organization
Department of Management
Graduate School of Dongguk University-Seoul


This study figures out how to hold talent within the organization. Turnover prevention management is majority maintenance strategies of human resources by avoiding turnover that can be avoided, among voluntary turnover which is caused by complaints to the company. The management of turnover is able to divide into two ways that find out the reason for leaving and retaining their jobs. This study is focused on the reason for retaining their jobs by the job-embeddedness.
Job-embeddedness is defined as a comprehensive and extensive network (influence) that affects employees in their current job and organization. Job-embeddedness consists of two aspects (on-the job-embeddedness and off-the job-embeddedness) and three sub-elements (link, fit, sacrifice), and it is possible to explain the predictive factors of turnover that have been found in the precedent studies.
In the previous study of the relationship between job-embeddedness and turnover intention, on-the job-embeddedness is confirmed that it consistently reduces turnover intention. However, in the case of off-the job-embeddedness is no consistent conclusion or excluded from the study due to difficulty of measurement and ambiguity of the concept. Therefore, in this study, we try to describe the relationship between job-embeddedness and turnover intentions, and confirm that the effectiveness of job-embeddedness management for lowering turnover intention is valid. Moreover, in this process, the different type of employment was considered as moderators.

The results of the empirical analysis are as follows. First, job-embeddedness plays a sufficient role in predicting turnover intention. The higher job-embeddedness indicates the lower turnover intention. There are some differences by sub-elements. There is a significant negative relationship between turnover intention and on-the ‘fit’ of job-embeddedness. And also on-the ''sacrifice'' job-embeddedness shows a high negative relationship with turnover intention. However, there was no significant relationship between the ''link'' of job-embeddedness and turnover intention. In the case of the ''fit'' of off-the job-embeddedness and turnover intention, the relationship is demonstrated positively. This is a contrast to the hypothesis predicted by the researcher. The ''link'' was not extracted as a valid factor in the factor analysis process and thus could not be verified. The relationship between ''sacrifice'' of off-the job-embeddedness and turnover indicated negatively but not significant.
Second, as a result of observing turnover intentions depends on the distinctive type of employment, nonstandard workers with direct and indirect employment contracts had lower turnover intentions than regular workers. This is different from the common view that nonstandard workers are not maintain good attitudes in work place than regular workers.
Third, the moderating effects of the employment type was not so strong. The interaction term shows statistically significant alleviating effect on the ''fit'' of on-the job-embeddedness to nonstandard workers with direct and indirect employment contract. On the other hands, the interaction term shows statistically significant exacerbating effect on the ''fit'' of off-the job-embeddedness to nonstandard workers with indirect employment contract.
In other words, it can be interpreted that the HRM system for enhancing the ''fit'' of on-the job-embeddedness has less direct turnover intention effect for nonstandard workers with direct and indirect employment contracts. These results can be explained as the fact that nonstandard workers count employment stability more important than others.
In addition, we investigated the changes in turnover reasons by using the Korean Labor Panel data from 2001 to 2016. As a result, we found that as the time went by, the frequent of factors in the organization and job contents decreased, and the frequent of factors in work environment, maintenance, personal reasons and other factors increased.
Implications of this study are as follows. First, this study is important in terms of enhancement of the importance in turnover prevention management and the necessity of managing job-embeddedness. In particular, as the study was conducted by classifying the employment types in detail, some differences were found in the turnover intention by employment types.
Second, by analyzing the reasons for the voluntary turnover with the Korean Labor Panel data it reveals the importance of support program for balancing work-family. And in order to reinforce the intention to stay in the company, companies should consider the job-embeddedness, especially ''fit'' and ''sacrifice''.
Third, by subdividing the employment type in detail, different turnover intention was indicated depends on different employment types of nonstandard workers. This suggests a need to revise the common perception that the job attitude of nonstandard worker will be less positive than that of regular workers. This means we need to use different approaches to job retention management according to the type of employment.
Fourth, we examined the moderating effect of employment type on the relationship between job-embeddedness and turnover intention. Even if the same measures are taken to increase the employee''s job-embeddedness, nonstandard works show lower turnover intention than regular workers. This suggests that job-embeddedness reduces the turnover intention in both regular and nonstandard workers, but it can predict that securing employment stability is the priority for nonstandard workers.
In addition, there are differences in working conditions and personal composition characteristics between direct and indirect employment nonstandard workers. Also there is difference the moderating effect of job-embeddedness and turnover intention. Nonstandard workers with indirect employment contract have practically more difficult working conditions than nonstandard workers with direct employment contract, but their expectations about the transition to full-time employment and improving working conditions are also lower than those with direct employment contract. As a result, when we think managing nonstandard workers, it is necessary to consider in a different way depends employment contract types.

Key Words: job-embeddedness, turnover intention, employment types, nonstandard worker, direct employment contract, indirect employment contract