Employee Fluctuation in Quality Management Profession: Exploiting Social Professional Network Data

Abstract Due to the lack of a significant volume of research on factors that affect employee fluctuation in the quality management profession, the paper is focused on exploring certain individual and organizational factors as possible influencers on quality management professionals’ turnover. As a business and employment-oriented social networking service, LinkedIn was used to gain data on education, contacts, company ownership type, workplace type, and fluctuation behavior of 1014 quality management professionals. For statistical analysis, χ2 contingency table, ANOVA with Tukey/Tamhane posthoc, and CHAID Decision Tree Analysis were employed. The results showed that employees’ fluctuation depends on the degree of education, career development activities as well as the type of current examinee workplace. There is also an association between the type of company ownership and employee fluctuations. Further, the greater number of LinkedIn contacts was found to be related to more pronounced fluctuation. Since employees’ fluctuation significantly influences company performance and competitiveness, the paper could provide valuable insight for managers to understand what could predict employees’ fluctuation, which is especially important for knowledge-based contemporary organizations.