Employee-Organization Exchange Relationships, HRM Practices, and Quit Rates of Good and Poor Performers

Abstract

We developed and tested an exchange-theory-based extension of the relationship between human resource management (HRM) practices and quit rates in a two-wave trucking industry study and attempted a constructive replication in a two-wave study of supermarkets. We found that HRM inducements and investments relate negatively to good- and poor-performer quit rates, whereas expectation-enhancing practices relate negatively to good-performer quit rates and positively to poor-performer quit rates. We find support for the predictions that expectation-enhancing practices attenuate the negative relationship between inducements and investments and good-performer quit rates (Study 1) and exacerbate the negative relationship with poor-performer quit rates (Study 2).