Underlying Labor Market Dimensions of "Opportunities": The Case of Employee Turnover

The underlying labor market and organizational source of alternative job opportunities is re-examined here and applied to investigate employee turnover behavior. We contend that by refining this concept in terms of perceived and objective opportunities and market reference points, a clearer appreciation of this concept and more powerful model of turnover will emerge. To this end, a cross-sectional and multistage longitudinal survey of 700 employees was conducted in eight medical centers at seven distinct labor market locations. Measures of perceived and objective opportunities in internal and external markets were introduced into logistic regressions which clearly showed that objective opportunities are a far better set of explanations of actual turnover behavior than either perceived internal or external market opportunities. This relationship is further explored and its complexity woven into a labor market-oriented turnover model.

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