Applying the job demands-resources model to migrant workers: Exploring how and when geographical distance increases quit propensity

We extend the job demands–resources model to explain how and when rural migrants who work far from their families and provincial hometowns are more likely to leave jobs. Through two studies, we found that the geographical distance between employees' workplace and home village, representing a proxy for a wide range of migration demands and resources, may engender higher turnover intentions under some conditions. Specifically, employees' psychological contract fulfilment diminished positive associations between geographical distance and turnover intentions. Moreover, we demonstrated emotional exhaustion as an explanatory mechanism underlying the relationship between geographical distance and turnover intentions. Our investigation thus yielded greater insight into rural migrants' quit propensity by identifying geographical distance (a proxy for migration‐based demands and resources) as a key driver whose influence is mediated by emotional exhaustion and moderated by psychological contract fulfilment. Practitioner points Proposed and found that geographical distance between migrants' workplace and hometown was a proxy for various (increased) demands and (decreased) resources that are intrinsically tied to employment location rather than job content. Through increasing emotional exhaustion, geographical distance may lead to high turnover intentions among workers under certain conditions (i.e., when psychological contract was violated). When export‐processing zones organizations consider keeping employees, they must address how long geographical distance from home can exhaust migrants' mental and physical resources and therefore engender turnover through energy depletion (i.e., a state of exhaustion). Provided that geographical distance is an unavoidable problem for organizations, firms can lessen the psychological and family costs of geographical distance through certain ways. Specifically, organizations can better fulfil psychological contracts, which can increase emotional attachment to organizations and thus lessen emotional exhaustion due to long family separations.