Purpose

According to previous research, exit interviews do not fulfil the purpose of generating useful feedback from parting employees. According to signaling theory, they might, however, serve a different purpose: to leave one last good impression on parting employees, and the aim of this study was to test this.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey was administered to a sample of 164 German employees.

Findings

Consistent with arguments based on signaling theory, those who experienced an exit interview reported more residual affective commitment toward their former employer and less willingness to complain about it, and these effects were mediated by interpersonal fairness perceptions. In addition, the probability of having an exit interview was found to depend on the resignation style of employees.

Research limitations/implications

This new perspective on exit interviews can renew the interest in studying how organizations manage the offboarding process.

Practical implications

This study advises employers to conduct “exit conversations” (as two-way interactions rather than one-way interviews) and to carefully plan the exit phase.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that proposes a signaling theory perspective of exit interviews and that links exit interviews with the literature on resignation styles.

中文翻译：

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离职面谈是一种减少离职员工对其前雇主的抱怨并确保剩余承诺的工具

目的

根据之前的研究，离职面谈不能达到从离职员工那里获得有用反馈的目的。然而，根据信号理论，它们可能服务于不同的目的：给离职员工留下最后的好印象，而本研究的目的是测试这一点。

设计/方法/方法

对 164 名德国员工的样本进行了一项调查。

发现

与基于信号理论的论点一致，那些经历过离职面谈的人报告说，他们对前雇主的残留情感承诺更多，抱怨的意愿更少，这些影响是由人际公平感知调节的。此外，发现离职面谈的概率取决于员工的辞职风格。

研究限制/影响

这种关于离职面谈的新观点可以重新激发人们对研究组织如何管理离职流程的兴趣。

实际影响

这项研究建议雇主进行“退出对话”（作为双向互动而不是单向访谈）并仔细计划退出阶段。

原创性/价值

据作者所知，这是第一项提出离职面谈信号理论观点并将离职面谈与辞职风格文献联系起来的研究。