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Turnover of highly educated R&D professionals: The role of pre‐entry cognitive style, work values and career orientation
Author(s) -
Chang Jae Yoon,
Choi Jin Nam,
Kim Myung Un
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of occupational and organizational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.257
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 2044-8325
pISSN - 0963-1798
DOI - 10.1348/096317907x204453
Subject(s) - psychology , turnover , social psychology , hazard , cognition , demographic economics , work (physics) , style (visual arts) , management , chemistry , economics , mechanical engineering , organic chemistry , archaeology , neuroscience , engineering , history
Retention of key R&D experts has been recognized as a critical managerial challenge for many technology‐based companies. In this study, we propose that turnover of highly educated professional workers is meaningfully related to individual characteristics such as cognitive style, work values and career orientation. We tested the hypotheses using data collected from a sample of 132 R&D professionals with PhD degrees in engineering or natural science in a Korean electronics firm. The time‐dependent risk of turnover was estimated by survival analysis using a proportional hazards regression model. The results showed that over the 7‐year period after their organizational entry, R&D professionals with high levels of intrinsic values and cosmopolitan orientation were more likely to leave the organization than were their counterparts with low levels of intrinsic values and cosmopolitan orientation. The hazard function showed that the positive effect of intrinsic work values on turnover was particularly salient in the third and fourth year of R&D professionals' organizational tenure. We found that the positive effect of cosmopolitan orientation on turnover increased over time, introducing a greater risk of turnover with increasing tenure. The present findings have practical implications for the retention of highly educated R&D professionals in a corporate setting.