Performance Outcomes of Turnover Intentions in Temporary Organizations: A Dyadic Study on the Effects at the Individual, Team, and Organizational Level

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12142
• Date: 01 June 2019
• Published date: 01 June 2019

Performance Outcomes of Turnover Intentions

in Temporary Organizations: A Dyadic Study

on the Effects at the Individual, Team, and

Organizational Level

HELGE F.R. NUHN,

1

SVEN HEIDENREICH

2

and ANDREAS WALD

3

1

KPMG AG WPG, 60549 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

2

Faculty of Law and Economics,Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

3

School of Business and Law,University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

This research examines the link between turnover intentions from temporary and permanent organizations and

how both types of turnover intentions affect employee performance at an individual, temporary and permanent

organizational level. Usingdyadic data from 253 teammembers and their supervisorswe find that turnover intentions

from temporary organizations significantly enhance turnover intentions from permanent organizations, which leads

to decreasingperformance at all three levels.A moderation analysis suggests thatcompanies can reduce detrimental

effects of turnoverintentions from temporary organizations by providingtransparency and possibilities to participate

in staffing processes. Our paper contributes to research on the performance effects of employee turnover intentions

by: (1) analyzingeffects of turnover intentionsfrom temporary organizations; (2) investigating the interplaybetween

turnover intentions from temporary organizations and the permanentorganization; and (3)considering performance

effects at three different organizational levels.

Keywords: employee performance; employee turnover; temporary organizations; turnover intentions

Introduction

The use of temporary forms of organizing within

companies has encountered a rapid growth throughout

the past decades (Ekstedt et al., 1999; DeFillippi, 2002;

Sydow et al., 2004). A temporary organization (TO) can

be defined as an aggregate of individuals temporarily

collaborating for a shared cause (Packendorff, 1995;

Tyssen et al., 2014a, 2014b).TOs, such as a project teams

or a task force, differ frompermanent organizations (POs)

in several important aspects (Hanischand Wald, 2014). In

contrast to POs, TOs have a pre-defined ending and a

defined goal that they are supposed to reach (Braun

et al., 2013). After the completion of the task, the TO

dissolves and the team members either are assigned to

another TO or they continue working on their regular

positions within their PO. TOs are employed in order to

integrate diverse and specialized intellectual resources

and expertise (DeFillippi and Arthur, 1998; Sydow

et al., 2004), generate innovations, bring about

organizational change and implement strategies (Bakker,

2010; Tyssenet al., 2014a). They are often used to operate

on tasks which are new, unique, at times complex, reflect

high degrees of uncertainty and risk, and rely on

specialized members that work i n interdisciplinary

environments (Bresnen et al., 2004; Atkinson et al.,

2006; Bechky, 2006; Kwak and Smith, 2009; Hanisch

and Wald, 2014). In most cases, TOs reside within a PO,

that assigns a goal or purpose and also employees to the

TO (Engwall, 2003; Grabher, 2004; Sydow et al., 2004).

As a result, TOs have evolvedto be critical success factors

for many companies.

As it is with POs, employees may under certain

circumstances want to leave their TO. Seeing employees

leave a TO is common,especially in companies thatmake

extensive use of TOs; i.e. project-based organizations

(Sydow et al., 2004; Turner, 2009). The main difference

between turnover intentions in TOs and turnover

European Management Review, Vol. 16, 255–271, (2019)

DOI: 10.1111/emre.12142

Correspondence: AndreasWald is Professorof Strategy at theUniversity of

Agder, School of Business and Law, Postbox 422, 4604 Kristiansand,

Norway, Tel:+47 95732342. E-mail andreas.wald@uia.no

©2017 European Academy of Management

intentions in POslies in the fact that employees may wish

to work for another TO but remain within the same PO,

whereas employees that develop turnover intentions in a

PO consider leaving their company altogether (Nuhn

and Wald, 2016). As employees change their attitudes

and behaviors towards an organization once they decide

to leave (Nelson, 2011; Wells and Peachy, 2011), they

might also alter their individual performance behavior in

the presence of turnover intentions from a TO. Moreover,

if only quittingthe TO but staying with the company is not

an option, employeesmight also develop a wish to quit the

permanent organization. Such turnover intentions from

POs were shown to increase costs for training and

replacement (Abelson and Baysinger, 1984), decrease

integration, satisfaction and innovation (Price, 1989) as

well as overall performance of companies (Hancock

et al., 2013; Eckardt et al., 2014). Hence, the occurrence

of turnover intentions from TOs might significantly affect

individual performance of employees, their loyalty to the

PO and as a result critically decrease the overall

performance of companies.

However, empirical evidence for the theoretical

propositions made above is scarce. More specifically,

previous research has restricted investigations to

performance outcomes of turnover intentions in POs and

neglected to examine effects of turnover intentions from

TOs (Howes et al., 2000; Nuhn and Wald, 2016).

Furthermore, previous research has examined several

performance outcomes of turnover intentions at a

corporate level but largely neglected to investigate

performance out comes of turnover i ntentions at the

individual level of a single employee (Mowday, 1984;

Glebbeek and Bax, 2004). As a consequence, it still lacks

empirical evidence on how turnover intentions from TOs

affect turnover intentions from the PO and how this

influences employee performance at different levels of

aggregation.

The present paperintends to fill these gaps by shedding

light on the linkage between turnover intentions from

temporary and permanent organizations and on their

effects on employee performance. The study has three

goals: (1) to empirically examine the linkage between

turnover intentions from temporary and turnover

intentions frompermanent organizations; (2) to determine

effects of both types on perceived employee performance

at the individual level, at the temporary organizational

level and at the permanent organizational level; and (3)

to investigate whether staffing self-efficacy reduces

detrimental eff ects of turnover inten tions from tempora ry

organizations.

Therefore,this study also examines whatorganizational

measures can be deployed to reduce detrimentaleffects of

turnover intentions from TOs. Conclusively, it contributes

to extant research by providing first empirical insights on

how turnover intentions from both temporary as well as

permanent organizations affect performance at different

aggregation levels.

The remainder of this article is organized as follows.

We first develop a con ceptual framewo rk and provide

theoretical rationales for our deducted hypotheses before

proceeding with the analysis of dy adic data from 253

employees and theirsupervisors. Thereby, we empirically

investigate the effects of turnover intentions from TOs on

turnover intentions from POs and how this effect is

moderated by the employee’s ability to influence the

staffing in TOs. Subsequently, we assess performance

effects of both types of turnover intentions at: (1) the

individual level; (2) the level of the TO and (3) the level

of the PO. Based on our results, we discuss our generated

findings and conclude with research opportunities for

future studies.

Theoretical background and research

model

Turnover intentions from temporary organizations and

employee performance

Turnover intentions of employees are a well-established

phenomenon that has often been linked to performance

in the literature (Kuvaas and Dysvik, 2010). Despite

the recent growth of research on TOs (Bakker, 2010),

only little has been done to differentiate turnover

intentions from temporary as opposed to permanent

organizations. We define turnover intentions from

temporary organizations as an employee’swillingness

to withdraw from a TO, regardless of whether

the employee wants to quit the surrounding PO as well

(Nuhn and Wald, 2016). Previous studies confirmed

that turnover intentions from POs cause detrimental

effects on employees’performance behavior

(Hui et al., 2007). It seems reasonable to expect similar

effects for turnover intentions from TOs.

One of the most comprehensive conceptualizations of

employee performance developed by Griffin et al.

(2007) describes employee performance as a perceived

performance measure encompassing the following three

dimensions: (1) proficiency as the degree to which an

employee fulfills the prescribed or predictable

requirementsof his work role; (2) adaptivity as the degree

to which an employee copes with, responds to,

and supports change and (3) proactivity as the degree

to which an employee initiates change, is self-starting

and future directed. Proactivity in this sense refers to

the behavior of employees and must not be confused

with proactivity as a character trait (Grant and Ashford,

2008; Tornau and Frese, 2013). Furthermore, it is

differentiated whether such performance outcomes

contribute to: (1) individual effectiveness; (2) team

256 H.F.R. Nuhn et al.

©2017 European Academy of Management