You stay, I’ll go: modelling how couples make the decision for one partner to leave a calling

Purpose This study seeks to increase our understanding of how employees make the decision to voluntarily leave an organization (the military) and a profession viewed by many as a “calling” (DiRenzo et al., 2022). Specifically, (1) do employees make this decision on their own or do they involve their partner in the voluntary turnover decision-making process, (2) the factors that influence the decision to “walk away from” a calling and (3) the role of work-identity in this process? Design/methodology/approach We employ a constructivist grounded theory approach to explore how 10 mixed gender dual-earner couples who both are or were members of the Canadian Armed Forces voluntarily made the decision for one partner to leave the organization and a career that they considered a calling. Findings Our research demonstrates the following about voluntary leaving decisions for dual-earner couples: the voluntary turnover decision in our respondents was made by the couple, not the individual; voluntary turnover is triggered by “shock events” and/or prolonged periods of job dissatisfaction (as theorized by Lee et al., 1999). Individuals will voluntarily walk away from a job that they consider core to their personal identity (a calling) when it conflicts with family needs, even though this decision was shown by our research to be emotive on the part of the leaver. Research limitations/implications Analysis of our data supports four main conclusions. Firstly, voluntary turnover decisions are made by the couple, not the individual. Our research also contributes to the couple decision-making literature, which has not studied the decision to leave. Findings support that voluntary turnover is triggered by either shock events and/or prolonged periods of job dissatisfaction (what we refer to as a slow simmer), as theorized by Lee et al. (1999). Practical implications Our couple narratives show many of our leavers were dissatisfied with how their organization was treating them and the organizational norms in place long before making the decision to leave but only made the decision to leave after a shock event occurred. Those organizations that work hard to develop a strong culture (such as militaries, police forces and other organizations where work identity enmeshes with personal identity) may be missing key factors regarding retention when they fail to understand the impacts of employer-related shock events and long-term employee dissatisfaction. Social implications Our analysis showed that individuals will voluntarily walk away from a job that they consider core to their personal identity (i.e. a calling) for family reasons and when confronted with a clear case of value incongruence, and that this decision is made by the couple, not the individual leaver. The social implications of this are that organizations need to proactively deal with dissatisfaction with the organizational culture in place if they are going to effectively address employee turnover. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, our study is one of the only ones we could find that approach the leaving decision from the perspective of the couple and apply a multi-identity approach to studying the voluntary leaving decision.

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