Bringing the Firms (and Forms) Back In: Organizational Form Identity and Individual Turnover

Ideas about the role of the organization in models of voluntary turnover remain scant. We posit that the social audience in general, and people working in organizations in particular, sort organizations into categories ("organizational forms") and rely on knowledge of the taken-for-granted external identities of firms in these categories to interpret their experience as employees. Although many of these interpretations revolve around size, categorical distinctions between "small" and "large" firms pack concepts and ideas that extend significantly beyond a simple distinction based on size, and would be better understood as an organizational form distinction between specialist and generalist firms. Focusing on the organizational form of a specialist, we claim that two features of its form identity work against each other to influence turnover: employees of specialists realize that it is hard to develop careers internally (a push factor) but value the more relaxed environment, meaningful work, and flexibility of their jobs (a pull effect). We propose a theory to parse out the two effects, find empirical support for it in analyses of managerial turnover in the Korean TV advertising industry, and conclude that the construct of organizational form offers an opportunity to extend models of career mobility and individual turnover.