University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 5-2012 Job embeddedness theory : can it help explain employee retention?. Jeffery A. Young University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Recommended Citation Young, Jeffery A., "Job embeddedness theory : can it help explain employee retention?." (2012). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1625. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/1625 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. JOB EMBEDDEDNESS THEORY: CAN IT HELP EXPLAIN EMPLOYEE RETENTION? By Jeffery A. Young B.S., University of Kentucky, 1985 M.P.A., University of Louisville, 1995 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Education and Human Development of the University of Louisville in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Leadership, Foundations and Human Resource Education University of Louisville Louisville, KY May 2012 Copyright 2012 by Jeffery A. Young All rights reserved JOB EMBEDDEDNESS THEORY: CAN IT HELP EXPLAIN EMPLOYEE RETENTION? By Jeffery A. Young B.S., University of Kentucky, 1985 M.P.A., University of Louisville, 1995 A Dissertation Approved on April 4, 2012 by the following Dissertation Committee: Dr. James Stone Dissertation Director Dr. Oscar Aliaga Abanto Dr. Brad Shuck Dr. Ann M. Herd Dr. Pradeep Kotamraju ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to express my deepest appreciation to my family, friends, colleagues, and fellow doctoral students, without whose support I would not have been able to accomplish this daunting task. Thanks especially to my wife, Sheila, for her understanding and support. Thanks to my children for their patience when I was gone, though in the same room. A special thanks to my parents who instilled in me a love for learning. In addition, I want to express my appreciation to the members of my dissertation committee. Your professionalism is matched only by your enthusiasm and generosity. Thank you, Dr. James Stone, for agreeing to walk this road with me. I have realized many times throughout this process how fortunate I was to have you on my team. Thank you, Dr. Oscar Aliaga Abanto, for your patience and willingness to share your wisdom, knowledge, and experience regarding the dissertation process. Thank you, Dr. Brad Shuck, for serving as "methodologist" and for being a reliable source of enthusiasm and support whenever I needed either. Thank you, Dr. Pradeep Kotamraju and Dr. Ann Herd, for agreeing to serve on my dissertation committee and for providing valuable feedback and advice. Thanks to Dr. Jimmy Henning, Associate Dean for the Extension and Director of the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, and Dr. Daryl Buchholz, Associate Director of Extension and Applied Research at Kansas State University, for 111 agreeing to support this study. It goes without saying that without your support, this work would not have happened. Thanks to Stacey Warner (Kansas State University), Dr. Kenneth Jones (University of Kentucky), Dr. Charlene Jacobs (University of Kentucky), and Martha Thompson (University of Kentucky) for serving as my panel of experts. Your insight into shaping the data-collection instrument was extremely helpful. Most important, thank you Father, God in Heaven. I could never have imagined the life You have blessed me with, the opportunities You have brought my way, and the wonderful, healthy family You have given me. Thank You. IV ABSTRACT JOB EMBEDDEDNESS THEORY: CAN IT HELP EXPLAIN EMPLOYEE RETENTION? Jeffrey A. Young April 4, 2012 Job embeddedness theory, as introduced by Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, and Erez (2001), offers a method of discovering why people stay in an organization. By analyzing the construct's three dimensions (links, fit, and sacrifice) within community and workplace contexts, an overall level of embeddedness was determined and then used to examine retention among Extension agents (N = 454) in the Kansas and Kentucky Extension Services systems. An Internet-based survey was used to gather background data and responses to various scales (embeddedness, job satisfaction, organization commitment, engagement, intent to stay, and discretionary effort). Research questions were examined through the use of correlations, analyses of variance, and linear regression analyses. This dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 gives a historical overview of the problem of retention. Chapter 2 examines the major theories that scholars have used to explain retention and the factors that influence it; particular attention is given to job embeddedness theory. Chapter 3 contains a discussion of the research design, study population and sample, sampling procedure, instrumentation, and data- collection procedures. Chapter 4 presents the results ofthe study. The chapter presents the main analysis and more specific analyses by the study population's demographics v (including comparisons ofnonrespondents, respondents, and late respondents). Chapter 5 provides a summary of the study; a discussion of the results; implications for theory, research, and practice; and a discussion of the study's limitations. In summary, Kansas and Kentucky Extension agents reported significantly different levels of job embeddedness over the study period. Regression analyses showed that job embeddedness was significantly correlated with and predicted unique variance in intent to stay. An examination of the participants' background characteristics showed that age, education level, and geographic state of employment significantly influenced certain components of job embeddedness. VI TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................. iii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................... x INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 1 Retention of Extension Agents ................................................................................... 3 Retention Rates in Kansas and Kentucky .................................................................. .4 Extension Agents' Retention Rates Compared to Other Sectors ................................ .4 Problem Statement ..................................................................................................... 7 Purpose ...................................................................................................................... 7 Research Questions .................................................................................................... 8 Significance of Job Embeddedness .......................................................................... 10 Delimitations ........................................................................................................... 11 Defmitions of Key Terms ......................................................................................... 13 Organization ............................................................................................................ 16 Summary ................................................................................................................. 17 LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................................. 18 The Land-Grant University System and Cooperative Extensions .............................. 18 History of Retention Problems ................................................................................. 20 Wanted Versus Unwanted Tumover. ........................................................................ 25 Antecedents to Job Embeddedness ........................................................................... 26 Job Embeddedness ................................................................................................... 33 Vll Prior Research on Job Embeddedness ...................................................................... 39 Research Gaps ......................................................................................................... 46 Study Model ............................................................................................................ 54 Summary ................................................................................................................. 54 METHOD ..................................................................................................................... 57 Research Method and Design ................................................................................... 57 Census Population ................................................................................................... 59 Variables and Instrumentation .................................................................................. 62 Data Collection .......................................................................................................