When Acquaintances or Friends Leave: Turnover Embedded in Instrumental and Expressive Networks

This research investigates the relationship between quitters from ego's intra-organizational networks and ego's retention. Delineating interpersonal ties as instrumental and expressive, in this paper, we propose that the turnover effects of coworkers on employee retention are contingent on the content of the ties. We hypothesize that quitters from ego's instrumental networks positively affect ego's staying whereas quitters from ego's expressive networks negatively affect ego's staying. We also examine the interaction effect between quitters from both networks on employee retention. Furthermore, we discuss the moderating role of employees' high-commitment climate perceptions on the relationship between quitters from expressive networks and employee retention. Analyzing with both logistic regression and survival analysis, we test our hypotheses with data from 1459 employees in 43 business units of a multinational company in China.