Turnover Rates and Organizational Performance: A Meta-Analysis

The authors conducted a meta-analysis of the relationship between turnover rates and organizational performance to (a) determine the magnitude of the relationship; (b) test organization-, context-, and methods-related moderators of the relationship; and (c) suggest future directions for the turnover literature on the basis of the findings. The results from 300 total correlations (N = 309,245) and 110 independent correlations (N = 120,066) show that the relationship between total turnover rates and organizational performance is significant and negative (rho = -.15). In addition, the relationship is more negative for voluntary (rho = -.15) and reduction-in-force turnover (rho = -.17) than for involuntary turnover (rho = -.01). Moreover, the meta-analytic correlation differs significantly across several organization-and context-related factors (e. g., types of employment system, dimensions of organizational performance, region, and entity size). Finally, in sample-level regressions, the strength of the turnover rates-organizational performance relationship significantly varies across different average levels of total and voluntary turnover rates, which suggests a potential curvilinear relationship. The authors outline the practical magnitude of the findings and discuss implications for future organizational-level turnover research.