Files (shelf): Mobley Employee Turnover: Causes, Consequences, and Control (1982) · Mowday, Porter & Steers Employee–Organization Linkages (1982) · Hom & Griffeth Employee Turnover (1995) + Retaining Valued Employees (2001) + Innovative Theory & Empirical Research on Employee Turnover · Allen & Bryant Managing Employee Turnover: …Evidence-Based Retention. Tradition: Turnover / retention science Stance toward Performix: Ally — the exit-risk lever's science; mirror of Attraction/Attrition Read depth: Mobley TOC + model/consequences chapters close-read; cluster framed as a set (others to be deep-read in the assessment/lever pass)
Core claim (1 line)
Turnover is not a random event but a predictable process running through measurable intermediate linkages (satisfaction → thoughts of quitting → intention → search → leave); and not all turnover is bad — the goal is to manage who leaves, not to minimize all exits.
What the book(s) actually say (grounded, Mobley anchor)
- Conceptual models reviewed (Mobley Ch.6): March & Simon; the Price model; the Mobley Intermediate Linkage Model; the expanded Mobley et al. model.
- Diagnose from the employee's perspective (Ch.4): the Mobley et al. (1979) model says these categories "need to be measured from the employee's perspective" — (1) job satisfaction, (2) expectations/evaluation of alternative jobs outside the org, plus intentions, commitment, etc.
- Functional vs. dysfunctional turnover (Ch.3): "to the extent that individuals who left were not valued or were disruptive, satisfaction and cohesion among the … remain may be enhanced"; turnover can create internal mobility and "revitalize those who remain." Net-utility framing: relate causes (intentions, satisfaction, commitment) "to this net utility index."
- Withdrawal substitution: when people want to quit but can't, they shift to "absenteeism, apathy, sabotage, and poor quality work" — so retention-without-engagement isn't a win.
- Commitment (Mowday/Porter/Steers): organizational commitment as a core antecedent of staying.
Contrast with the Performix thesis
| Performix commitment | This corpus's position | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnostic, not laundry-list | Turnover decomposes into measurable antecedents (intention, satisfaction, alternatives, commitment, embeddedness) — diagnosable | Strong ally |
| CAMS binding constraint | Antecedents map across CAMS (satisfaction/commitment ≈ M; alternatives/embeddedness ≈ context); exit-risk is the outcome a CAMS deficit predicts | Ally |
| Psychometric-first / AI-as-consumer | Established validated antecedent scales + meta-analytic effect sizes (Griffeth/Hom 2000; Park & Shaw 2013) | Strong ally — measured, not anecdotal |
| Adaptive narrowing + VOI | Predict exit-risk probabilistically; intervene where preventable + valuable | Ally |
| Three levers | This IS the manage-exit-risk lever | Core |
Key reframing for the product: functional turnover means exit-risk is not "minimize all turnover." Like select-in, it's about who — keep the valued, let go the misfit. Our Attrition instrument should score regretted vs non-regretted exit-risk, mirroring Attraction (both protected-feedback indices). See [[project_attraction_measure_brand_plus_reverse_exit]].
Extractables
- Construct/measure: Mobley's employee-perspective antecedent set (satisfaction · alternatives · intention · commitment) = the Attrition instrument's backbone; job embeddedness + unfolding model (shocks) as the modern probabilistic layer.
- Scoring nuance: regretted vs non-regretted (functional/dysfunctional) split — a first-class dimension of the exit-risk index.
- Evidence for dossier crux: Park & Shaw 2013 (turnover→org performance) already logged in the dossier — confirm effect sizes on deep read.
- Substrate ingest candidate: yes — turnover antecedent taxonomy + meta-analytic priors (these partly overlap PA library holdings — dedupe on ingest).
Content seeds
- Article angle: "Stop trying to keep everyone: the science of regretted vs. non-regretted attrition."
- Guide entry: Part VI (manage exit-risk lever); antecedents cross-ref Part IV (M).
Library record
- Canonical ids: several works — multiple already in PA library (Employee Retention and Turnover, Innovative Theory…, meta-analyses). Dedupe on ingest; tag
performix. The shelf copies (Mobley, Mowday/Porter/Steers, Hom & Griffeth) fill the foundational-classics gap the library lacked.