Not just good for her: A temporal analysis of the dynamic relationship between representation of women and collective employee turnover

Abstract

Many organizations aim to increase the representation of women in their workforce, yet such efforts are often challenged by women’s relatively higher propensity to leave a job compared to men. Overlooked so far has been the temporal relationship between the representation of women and an organization’s collective employee turnover. We suggest that a substantive and rapid increase in the representation of women positively affects women and results in positive spillover effects for men, leading to a decrease in collective turnover. In our theoretical development, we explain how higher representation of women is associated with higher job embeddedness for all employees, which results in a subsequent decrease in collective employee turnover. We use latent curve model (LCM) analysis to examine a population of 499 organizations over a 14-year time span, and find support for our hypotheses. We suggest opportunities for future research and offer implications for practicing managers.