When Employees Are Out of Step with Coworkers: How Job Satisfaction Trajectory and Dispersion Influence Individual- and Unit-Level Voluntary Turnover

This study takes a dynamic multilevel approach to examine how the relationship between an employee's job satisfaction trajectory and subsequent turnover may change depending on the employee's unit's job satisfaction trajectory and its dispersion. Analyses of longitudinal multilevel data collected from 5,270 employees in 175 business units of a hospitality company demonstrate a significant three-way interactive effect of unit-level job satisfaction trajectory and its dispersion and individual job satisfaction trajectory on individual job exit. In particular, in the presence of a negative unit-level job satisfaction trajectory and low dispersion, a positive change in individual-level job satisfaction does not affect the odds of a person leaving an organization. Put differently, an employee's being out of step with prevailing unit-level attitudes appears to alter the relationship between his or her job satisfaction trajectory and turnover propensity. Further, unit-level job-satisfaction change and its dispersion jointly influence the overall turnover rate in a unit. The results indicate unit-level and individual-level job satisfaction trajectories have unique multilevel influences on turnover above and beyond static levels of job satisfaction. Accounting for these dynamics substantially increases the explained variance in turnover behavior. The findings increase understanding of the job satisfaction-turnover link over time and across levels. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]