Understanding Salesperson Turnover: A Partial Evaluation of Mobley's Turnover Process Model

Abstract

AbstractThis study contributed to recent efforts aimed at understanding the turnover behavior of salespeople (Jolson, Dubinsky, and Anderson 1987; Johnston, Varadarajan, Futrell, and Sager 1987; Williamson 1983) by testing relationships drawn from a general model of employee turnover proposed by Mobley (1977). The data used to test the model were gathered from detail salespeople.Findings suggest that dissatisfaction with work and promotion aspects of the job as well as thinking of quitting and intention to quit are stages in the turnover process of the salespeople studied. Conversely, variables representing attitude towards searching for another job, attitude towards quitting and comparison of a perceived alternative job with the present job did not contribute significantly to explaining turnover for the salespeople studied. Implications of the study results for the practicing sales manager are outlined along with areas for future research.