ABSTRACT
Two notable approaches toward studying employee withdrawal and voluntary turnover have been developed by Hulin and colleagues (e.g., Hanisch, Hulin, & Roznowski, 1998; Hulin, 1991; Hulin & Ilgen, 2000) and Lee and Mitchell and colleagues (Lee & Mitchell, 1994; Lee, Mitchell, Holtom, McDaniel, & Hill, 1999; Lee, Mitchell, Wise, & Fireman, 1996). Hulin and colleagues have been studying organizational withdrawal as a general construct encompassing turnover, absenteeism, and other behaviors. Lee and Mitchell’s unfolding model of turnover (Lee & Mitchell, 1994; Lee et al., 1996, 1999) and their conceptualized job embeddedness construct (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Erez, & Sablynski, 1999) focus on understanding why people leave and why they stay with their organizations. In this chapter, we address two questions about these two related streams of research and theorizing. First, how are these two approaches similar and how are they different? Second, what can be learned from each approach that helps us deepen our understanding of employee behavior—specifically that of withdrawal and voluntary turnover? Thus, the goal of this chapter is to expand thinking about employee attachment and withdrawal.
