Too Embedded to be Pulled: Job Embeddedness and Turnover Driven by Unsolicited Job Offers

Unsolicited job offers are one of the most common events that initiate deliberate evaluations of a current job, potentially leading to increased turnover intention and voluntary turnover. However, there is little research on variables that might moderate these relationships. Drawing on the unfolding model of voluntary turnover and job embeddedness literature, we argue that both on- the-job and off-the-job embeddedness moderate the relationship between unsolicited job offers and turnover intention as well as actual turnover. We test our hypotheses using employee data from two countries: 382 employees from China and 269 employees from Switzerland. Results indicate that in China off-the-job embeddedness buffers the effects of unsolicited job offers on both turnover intention and turnover. In contrast, in Switzerland both on-the-job and off-the-job embeddedness buffer the positive relation between unsolicited job offers and turnover intention. However, no moderation of job embeddedness dimensions on actual tu...