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Why Are Quit Rates Lower Among Defense Contractors?
Author(s) -
WATKINS TODD A.,
HYCLAK THOMAS
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
industrial relations: a journal of economy and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.61
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1468-232X
pISSN - 0019-8676
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-232x.2011.00653.x
Subject(s) - workforce , business , mediation , workforce management , human resource management , empirical evidence , set (abstract data type) , labour economics , marketing , demographic economics , operations management , economics , management , political science , economic growth , law , computer science , philosophy , epistemology , programming language
This paper presents empirical evidence of lower quit rates at small manufacturers with defense contracts and examines whether this is associated with differences in their human resource policies and organizational practices and strategies. We take advantage of an original data set to compare labor quits, workforce skills, and occupational structure between defense‐contracting and noncontracting small manufacturers in eastern Pennsylvania. We find that the remarkably large defense contractor advantage in quit rates—7 percentage points—is almost totally explained by differences in skills, operational strategies, and workforce management and training practices, suggesting a mediation effect through these HR practices. Defense‐contracting status emerges as an important overlooked variable in HRM studies.