The Paradoxical Effects of COVID-19 Event Strength on Employee Turnover Intention

Hui Deng, Wenbing Wu, Yihua Zhang, Xiaoyan Zhang and Jing Ni
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Hui Deng: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
Wenbing Wu: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
Yihua Zhang: Graduate School of Education and Psychology, Pepperdine University, Los Angeles, CA 90045, USA
Xiaoyan Zhang: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
Jing Ni: School of Business, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 14, 1-17

Abstract: As a global pandemic, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has brought enormous challenges to employees and organizations. Although numerous existing studies have highlighted that the COVID-19 pandemic is a stressful event and empirically proved its detrimental effect on employee turnover intention, few scholars have noted that this pandemic can deteriorate the external economic and employment environment simultaneously, which may further complicate employees’ intentions to leave or stay in the current organization. Drawing on event system theory and social cognitive theory, this study aims to uncover two potential cognitive mechanisms of the complex impact of COVID-19 event strength on employee turnover intention. To examine the proposed model, this study employed a three-wave and time-lagged research design and collected data from a sample of 432 employees of four Chinese companies from different industries. The findings indicated that COVID-19 event strength was negatively related to perceived external employability, and ultimately curbed employee turnover intention. Yet, COVID-19 event strength also negatively predicted perceived organizational growth, thus influencing employees to exhibit intentions to quit. Moreover, organizational identification not only attenuated the positive effect of perceived external employability on turnover intention but also amplified the negative impact of perceived organizational growth on turnover intention. Further, organizational identification moderated the indirect effects of COVID-19 event strength on turnover intention through perceived external employability and perceived organizational growth. This study provided a comprehensive insight into scholars’ understanding of the COVID-19 downstream outcomes.

Keywords: COVID-19 event strength; perceived external employability; perceived organizational growth; turnover intention; organizational identification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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