Although the functional effects of turnover have been argued from the earliest research in the field, empirical evidence so far supports a general negative effect on unit performance, and attempts to explore its potential benefits are scarce. It has been argued that one reason for the absence of positive effects has to do with a lack of specificity of the turnover construct. The present study focuses on two sources of specificity: the reason for turnover and the job level of the departing employees. Our objective is to perform integrative research to analyze their joint effects and discuss how the four turnover scenarios created by their combination make their potential benefits of departures salient. We integrate arguments from human and social capital theories with the literature on team adaptation and change to develop our conceptual framework, and test our hypotheses using longitudinal monthly data from 5,202 stores of a large fashion multinational retailer in 39 countries. Our results provide evidence of a curvilinear relationship between staff quits and unit performance, and show that discharges are linearly beneficial both for managerial and staff positions, although at different degrees. Our findings demonstrate that differentiating between quits and discharges matters, and that the relative value conveyed by the job level of the departing employees is a relevant contingency in this distinct effect over performance.

尽管从该领域最早的研究中就已经争论过营业额的功能效应，但迄今为止的经验证据支持对单位绩效的普遍负面影响，并且探索其潜在好处的尝试很少。有人认为，没有积极影响的一个原因与营业额结构缺乏特异性有关。本研究侧重于两个特殊性来源：离职原因和离职员工的工作水平。我们的目标是进行综合研究，分析它们的联合效应，并讨论它们组合所产生的四种离职情景如何使它们的离职潜在利益变得突出。我们将人力和社会资本理论的论点与团队适应和变革的文献相结合，以发展我们的概念框架，并使用来自 39 个国家/地区的大型时尚跨国零售商的 5,202 家商店的纵向月度数据检验我们的假设。我们的结果提供了员工离职与单位绩效之间存在曲线关系的证据，并表明离职对管理和员工职位都是线性有益的，尽管程度不同。我们的研究结果表明，区分离职和解雇很重要，离职员工的工作水平所传达的相对价值是这种对绩效的明显影响的相关偶然因素。并表明出院对管理和员工职位都是线性有利的，尽管程度不同。我们的研究结果表明，区分离职和解雇很重要，离职员工的工作水平所传达的相对价值是这种对绩效的明显影响的相关偶然因素。并表明出院对管理和员工职位都是线性有利的，尽管程度不同。我们的研究结果表明，区分离职和解雇很重要，离职员工的工作水平所传达的相对价值是这种对绩效的明显影响的相关偶然因素。