John P. Hausknecht

Retesting in selection: a meta-analysis of coaching and practice effects for tests of cognitive ability.

Previous studies have indicated that as many as 25% to 50% of applicants in organizational and educational settings are retested with measures of cognitive ability. Researchers have shown that practice effects are found across measurement occasions such that scores improve when these applicants retest. In this study, the authors used meta-analysis to summarize the results of 50 studies of practice effects for tests of cognitive ability. Results from 107 samples and 134,436 participants revealed an adjusted overall effect size of .26. Moderator analyses indicated that effects were larger when practice was accompanied by test coaching and when identical forms were used. Additional research is needed to understand the impact of retesting on the validity inferences drawn from test scores.

Collective Turnover at the Group, Unit, and Organizational Levels: Evidence, Issues, and Implications

Studies of the causes and consequences of turnover at the group, unit, or organizational level of analysis have proliferated in recent years. Indicative of its importance, turnover rate research spans numerous academic disciplines and their respective journals. This broad interest is fueled by the considerable implications of turnover rates predicting broader measures of organizational effectiveness (productivity, customer outcomes, firm performance) as well as by the related perspective that collective turnover is an important outcome in its own right. The goal of this review is to critically examine and extract meaningful insights from research on the causes and consequences of group, unit, and organizational turnover. The review is organized around five major “considerations,” including (1) measurement and levels of analysis issues, (2) consequences, (3) curvilinear and interaction effects, (4) methodological and conceptual issues, and (5) antecedents. The review concludes with broad directions for future research.

Unit-Level Voluntary Turnover Rates and Customer Service Quality: Implications of Group Cohesiveness, Newcomer Concentration, and Size

Despite substantial growth in the service industry and emerging work on turnover consequences, little research examines how unit-level turnover rates affect essential customer-related outcomes. The authors propose an operational disruption framework to explain why voluntary turnover impairs customers service quality perceptions. On the basis of a sample of 75 work units and data from 5,631 employee surveys, 59,602 customer surveys, and organizational records, results indicate that unit-level voluntary turnover rates are negatively related to service quality perceptions. The authors also examine potential boundary conditions related to the disruption framework. Of 3 moderators studied (group cohesiveness, group size, and newcomer concentration), results show that turnovers negative effects on service quality are more pronounced in larger units and in those with a greater concentration of newcomers.

Causes and Consequences of Collective Turnover: A Meta-Analytic Review

Given growing interest in collective turnover (i.e., employee turnover at unit and organizational levels), the authors propose an organizing framework for its antecedents and consequences and test it using meta-analysis. Based on analysis of 694 effect sizes drawn from 82 studies, results generally support expected relationships across the 6 categories of collective turnover antecedents, with somewhat stronger and more consistent results for 2 categories: human resource management inducements/investments and job embeddedness signals. Turnover was negatively related to numerous performance outcomes, more strongly so for proximal rather than distal outcomes. Several theoretically grounded moderators help to explain average effect-size heterogeneity for both antecedents and consequences of turnover. Relationships generally did not vary according to turnover type (e.g., total or voluntary), although the relative absence of collective-level involuntary turnover studies is noted and remains an important avenue for future research.

Retaking Ability Tests in a Selection Setting: Implications for Practice Effects, Training Performance, and Turnover

This field study investigated the effect of retaking identical selection tests on subsequent test scores of 4,726 candidates for law enforcement positions. For both cognitive ability and oral communication ability selection tests, candidates produced significant score increases between the 1st and 2nd and the 2nd and 3rd test administrations. Furthermore, the repeat testing relationships with posthire training performance and turnover were examined in a sample of 1,515 candidates eventually selected into the organization. As predicted from persistence and continuance commitment rationales, the number of tests necessary to gain entry into the organization was positively associated with training performance and negatively associated with turnover probability.

When Does Employee Turnover Matter? Dynamic Member Configurations, Productive Capacity, and Collective Performance

In theory, employee turnover has important consequences for groups, work units, and organizations. However, past research has not revealed consistent empirical support for a relationship between aggregate levels of turnover and performance outcomes. In this paper, we present a novel conceptualization of turnover to explain when, why, and how it affects important outcomes. We suggest that greater attention to five characteristics—leaver proficiencies, time dispersion, positional distribution, remaining member proficiencies, and newcomer proficiencies—will reveal dynamic member configurations that predictably influence productive capacity and collective performance. We describe and illustrate the five properties, explain how particular member configurations exacerbate or diminish turnovers effects, and present a new measurement approach that captures these characteristics in a collective context and over time.

Justice as a Dynamic Construct: Effects of Individual Trajectories on Distal Work Outcomes

Despite an amassing organizational justice literature, few studies have directly addressed the temporal patterning of justice judgments and the effects that changes in these perceptions have on important work outcomes. Drawing from Gestalt characteristics theory (Ariely & Carmon, 2000, 2003), we examine the concept of justice trajectories (i.e., levels and trends of individual fairness perceptions over time) and offer empirical evidence to highlight the value of considering fairness within a dynamic context. Participants included 523 working adults who completed surveys about their work experiences on 4 occasions over the course of 1 year. Results indicate that justice trends explained additional variance in distal work outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions) after controlling for end-state levels of justice, demonstrating the cumulative effects of justice over time. Findings also reveal that change in procedural justice perceptions affected distal work outcomes more strongly than any other justice dimension. Implications for theory and future investigations of justice as a dynamic construct are discussed.

One hundred years of employee turnover theory and research

We review seminal publications on employee turnover during the 100-year existence of the Journal of Applied Psychology. Along with classic articles from this journal, we expand our review to include other publications that yielded key theoretical and methodological contributions to the turnover literature. We first describe how the earliest papers examined practical methods for turnover reduction or control and then explain how theory development and testing began in the mid-20th century and dominated the academic literature until the turn of the century. We then track 21st century interest in the psychology of staying (rather than leaving) and attitudinal trajectories in predicting turnover. Finally, we discuss the rising scholarship on collective turnover given the centrality of human capital flight to practitioners and to the field of human resource management strategy.