| Abstract: | This paper analyzes sixty-five influential collective turnover events that occurred from year 2000 to 2011. The first finding is that collective turnover is most likely to take place at the departmental level because staff in the same department tend to reach collective consensus more easily. The second finding is that collective turnover takes place more frequently in industries such as IT, retailing and banking. The third finding is that collective turnover often begins with the turnover of managers at the departmental or higher levels. With further exploration of collective turnover, we notice that the institutional environment during China’s economic transition is the external constraint on collective turnover, and improper management policies is the internal driving factor. We also find that motivations vary for employees at different levels in the organization. Finally, we conclude that organizational outcomes of collective turnover are not only linked with the absolute level of turnover, but “quality” factors of collective turnover such as relative turnover ratio, occurrence frequency, employee type, rank and work experience should also be taken into consideration. |
