Are we ready for the unexpected disruption? Job embeddedness, calling, and turnover intentions

Abstract

Drawing on Event System Theory, this paper examines how organizational responsiveness to the pandemic, COVID-19 disruption, and job embeddedness influence airline personnel's turnover intention and investigates the moderating role of career calling. Through a longitudinal survey, we collected 372 observations from 186 full-time aviation employees in Taiwan, including cabin crew and ground staff. During the three-week interval, COVID-19 cases in Taiwan sharply increased for the first time, evolving from localized transmission (1390 daily confirmed cases) to the peak of a nationwide pandemic (35,205 daily confirmed cases). Results show that organizational responsiveness and COVID-19 disruption affect turnover intention through the mediating effect of job embeddedness. Moreover, we found that the negative indirect effects of organizational responsiveness and COVID-19 disruption on turnover intention are amplified when aviation personnel's career calling is high. By leveraging data from the pandemic's natural progression, this paper empirically contributes to the existing discourse on Event System Theory and offers practical implications for managing human resource loss during profound and unexpected events.