شرایط محیط کار نامطلوب، درگیر بالای شیوه های کار و گردش مالی کار: شواهدی از دانمارک مرتبط با اطلاعات کارفرما-کارمند

Using Danish linked employer–employee data, we find that: (i) exposing the worker to physical hazards leads to a 3 percentage point increase in the probability of voluntary turnover from the average rate of 18%; (ii) working in night shift results in an 11-percentage point hike; and (iii) having an unsupportive boss leads to a 6-percentage point jump. High involvement work practices are found to play a significant role in mitigating the adverse effects of workplace hazards. Finally, the worker under adverse workplace conditions is found to improve the 5-year odds of rectifying such workplace adversities by quitting the firm.

This paper provides new evidence on the exit behavior of workers who are exposed to workplace hazards and the potentially important role that high involvement work system (a cluster of complementary human resource management practices designed to promote employee involvement) can play in mitigating such exit behavior. In so doing, the paper integrates two very different streams of research: that of workplace hazards and that of high involvement work systems, and provides researchers, practitioners and policy makers with fresh insight on interplay between workplace hazards and high involvement work systems. Our Danish linked employer–employee data are uniquely suited for the objective of our study. First, unlike typical workplace hazards data used by prior researchers, our data provide information not only on workplace hazards but also on high involvement work systems, which will allow us to test our novel hypothesis, i.e., the quit-enhancing effect of workplace hazards can be mitigated by high involvement work systems. Second, the data provide information on an unusually comprehensive list of workplace hazards, ranging from standard physical hazards (such as loud noise, vibration or poor lighting) to ‘human hazards’ (such as workplace violence and bullying, and unwanted sexual advancement). Third, our data allow us to distinguish voluntary turnover from involuntary turnover, which represents an important advantage because prior research has shown that voluntary turnover is a substantial and significant predictor of lower organizational performance. Finally, we link the 2000 data to the 2005 data and study whether the worker exposed to adverse workplace conditions can improve her odds of rectifying such workplace adversities in 5 years significantly by separating from the firm voluntarily. The paper is organized as follows. The next section discusses prior research, followed by the presentation of the empirical strategy. In Section 4 we present the econometric specifications and our main findings. Section 5 provides additional evidence on the long-run consequences on workplace conditions of voluntary turnover, followed by the concluding section.

We have found evidence that workers in hazardous workplace conditions are indeed more likely to quit their current firms while HIWPs reduce such voluntary turnover. Perhaps more importantly the turnover-increasing effect of physical hazards is found to be significantly reduced by the presence of strong labor-management communication whereas the adverse effect on turnover of the use of fixed night shift is also found to be significantly tempered by the authority delegation to workers by management. As such, our evidence lends support to those who advocate the use of HIWPs for those firms with employee turnover problems due to hazardous workplace conditions. Finally, our logit analysis of the 5-year odds of improving workplace conditions has yielded evidence that the worker exposed to adverse workplace conditions will improve her long-term odds of rectifying such workplace adversities significantly by separating from the firm voluntarily. Voluntary turnover appears to be a rational worker response to adverse workplace conditions, and unless the firm alleviates its adverse workplace conditions directly or mitigates their effects on voluntary turnover through HIWPs, workers exposed to adverse workplace conditions will likely continue to take the exit option. Granted the implementation of HIWPs is not free, however, we are not advocating the implementation of HIWPs without conducting a careful cost–benefit analysis of HIWPs (the importance of such cost–benefit analysis of HIWPs was forcibly made by Cappelli and Neumark, 2001). Since we do not have adequate data to estimate the cost of implementing HIWPs in Denmark, we are unable to conduct a careful cost–benefit analysis. Nonetheless, considering that the cost of voluntary turnover is estimated at close to 30% of annual salary for the average Danish worker (Bingley and Westergaard-Nielsen, 2003), the benefit of HIWPs as a mechanism to mediate the quit-inducing effect of workplace hazards may be considerable.