Skip Navigation


Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Advance Access originally published online on October 4, 2007
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 2008 18(4):573-590; doi:10.1093/jopart/mum028
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
18/4/573    most recent
mum028v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Meier, K. J.
Right arrow Articles by Hicklin, A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Employee Turnover and Organizational Performance: Testing a Hypothesis from Classical Public Administration

Kenneth J. Meier

Texas A&M University and Cardiff University

Alisa Hicklin

University of Oklahoma

Address correspondence to the author at kmeier{at}polisci.tamu.edu.

Empirical studies of public employee turnover, particularly using turnover as an independent variable, are rare; and most of the literature assumes turnover to have a negative impact on organizations. This study examines a provocative but little supported hypothesis that has recently emerged in the private sector literature—that turnover may provide positive benefits to the organization, at least up to a point. Using data from several hundred public organizations over a nine-year period, we test the proposition that moderate levels of turnover may positively affect organizational performance. We find that while turnover is indeed negatively related to performance for the organization's primary goal, it does have the hypothesized nonlinear relationship for a secondary output that is characterized by greater task difficulty.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J Public Adm Res TheoryHome page
K. Yang and A. Kassekert
Linking Management Reform with Employee Job Satisfaction: Evidence from Federal Agencies
J. Public Adm. Res. Theory., June 18, 2009; (2009) mup010v1.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.