The purpose of this chapter is to identify the antecedents of mature workers' turnover intention and to review the role of organizational culture in their intention. By reviewing 20 empirical studies on mature workers' turnover intention published between 2006 and 2017, the authors identified 44 antecedents of mature workers' turnover intention at the individual, group/organizational, and intersectional levels. This literature review reveals that the antecedents of mature workers' turnover intention are diverse, including personal characteristics, work-related behavior, leadership, HR practices, job characteristics, organizational culture, and work-life balance. They also discuss the role of organizational culture in mature workers' turnover intention based on the findings. Finally, they present implications for HR practitioners and recommendations for future research.
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Organizational culture has been considered as a critical factor influencing employees’ attitude and behavior through integrated collective values, beliefs, and assumptions (Hartnell, Ou, & Kinicki, 2011; Naranjo-Valencia, Jiménez-Jiménez, & Sanz-Valle 2011; Taylor, Levy, Boyacigiller, & Beechler, 2008). For instance, organizational culture contributes to fostering employees’ positive outcomes, such as innovation, interpersonal trust, knowledge-sharing, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, performance, transfer of learning, and turnover intention (Lok & Crawford, 2004; Naranjo-Valencia et al., 2011). By developing a common way of thinking and understanding, organizational culture affects employees’ perception and interpretations of organizational contexts and practices, and thus develops employees’ attitude and behavior (Bellou, 2010; Cameron & Quinn, 1999).
Considerable attention has been paid to establishing organizational culture and climate for mature workers, one of employee groups, as many organizations are experiencing a drastic change in the composition of organizational members according to the trend of rapid aging (Lim, Jeong, Yoo, & Yoo, 2018; Smedley, 2006). In particular, Zacher, Kooij, and Beier (2018) identified organizational culture and climate as a contextual factor creating active workplace for mature workers. In the same vein, Appannah and Biggs (2015) indicated that age-friendly organizational culture can impact the recruitment and retention of mature workers and improve their participations in multiple practices. Wöhrmann, Deller, and Pundt (2018) also emphasized the critical role of organizational culture to develop organizational practices for mature workers, as one dimensions of Later Life Work Index (LLWI). The LLWI describes age-friendly organizational conditions and characteristics for sustainable employment of mature employees by identifying nine dimensions, including organizational culture, leadership, work design, health management, individual development, knowledge management, transition to retirement, continued employment, and health and retirement coverage, based on the Silver Work Index from German and the Age Smart Employer Award from the United States (Wöhrmann et al., 2018).
Turnover intention has been considered as an important factor for organizational functions, survival, and financial performance because it is the strongest precursor to turnover, the actual behavior of leaving (Ehrhart & Kuenzi, 2017; Rubenstein, Eberly, Lee, & Mitchell, 2018). Turnover is a critical organizational issue in that it causes a lot of cost, including financial burden, loss of knowledge and social capital, reduced satisfaction, and turnover contagion (Rubenstein et al., 2018). To prevent potential turnover, it is important to understand how to reduce turnover intention in the workplace. Specifically, mature workers could have weak intention to stay when they experience negative stereotypes related to aging and do not receive appropriate support from organization (Cheung & Wu, 2013; von Hippel, Kalokerinos, & Henry, 2013).