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IJM
37,3
Determinants of job-hopping:
an empirical study in Belgium
Kelly Steenackers
494 Department of Business, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium, and
Marie-Anne Guerry
Received 15 September 2014 Department of Business Technology and Operations,
Revised 11 March 2015
19 May 2015
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
Accepted 26 May 2015

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the determinants of job-hopping. More specifically,
the authors investigate the effect of age, gender, educational level, organizational size and sector on the
job-hop frequency.
Design/methodology/approach – Due to a lack of an existing appropriate measure of job-hopping,
the authors introduce a new measure, namely, the job-hop frequency. Based on the data collected from
a survey in Belgium, a linear regression analysis is performed.
Findings – Through an empirical analysis, the authors show that age is negatively related to the
job-hop frequency. Gender moderates this relationship. Therefore, the analysis supports the view that
young women tend to job-hop significantly more than young men, but as they age, women are
significantly more likely than men to remain within the same company. Furthermore, the authors find
that the educational level has no influence on the job-hop behavior, indicating that having more job
alternatives does not necessarily result in actual job-hop behavior. Both the sector and the size of the
organization are found not to be significantly related to the job-hop frequency.
Practical implications – This research provides human resource managers more insight into the
job-hop behavior of employees and offers some useful suggestions for their retention management.
Originality/value – Existing literature on turnover is very extensive, but literature on job-hopping
remains rather underexplored. Therefore, the study extends previous research on voluntary turnover
and job mobility by focussing on job-hopping in particular.
Keywords Gender, Human resources, Determinants, Belgium, Generational differences,
Job-hopping
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Although job-hopping is a recent trend, the precursor of this phenomenon was already
introduced 40 years ago by Ghiselli (1974) who named it “hobo-syndrome.” According
to Ghiselli (1974), the tendency to migrate from one job to another is driven by a
periodic itch, encouraging employees to make these transitions irrespective of rational
motives. Ghiselli’s (1974) “hobo-syndrome” refers to employees frequently changing
jobs because of instinctive impulses. Dougherty et al. (1993) define job-hopping as the
behavior of employees frequently changing companies, instead of changing jobs.
As human capital theory states that human capital investments increase future
productivity (Becker, 1964), the departure of an employee might be associated with a
loss of knowledge and expertise, implying intangible costs for the organization.
Therefore, our definition of job-hopping comprises only inter-organizational
International Journal of Manpower
transitions, in analogy with Dougherty et al. (1993).
Vol. 37 No. 3, 2016
pp. 494-510
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0143-7720
The authors would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive
DOI 10.1108/IJM-09-2014-0184 comments on earlier versions of this paper.
It is not only important to know how many inter-organizational transitions Determinants
employees have made during their career, but even more important to know is whether of job-hopping
these transitions are made voluntarily. Often, voluntary turnover involves the loss of
valued employees, a process known as dysfunctional turnover (Dalton et al., 1982).
Therefore, following the definition of Ghiselli (1974), in defining job-hopping we only
consider the voluntary inter-organizational transitions. However, in contrast to Ghiselli
(1974), we do not restrict the voluntary aspect to instinctive impulses, as job-hopping 495
might be the result of rational decisions of employees (Maertz and Griffeth, 2004).
Thus, in the present paper job-hopping is referred to as frequently making voluntary
inter-organizational transitions.
Although research on turnover has received considerable attention, literature on job
mobility and job-hopping in particular is rather underexplored in management research.
Though these three constructs are related, they differ in how they are associated with
employee behavior. Whereas turnover refers to employees withdrawing from a single
organization (Tett and Meyer, 1993), job mobility measures the number of job changes
over the course of an employee’s career (Hall, 1996). These job changes include both
intra- and inter-organizational transitions, while job-hopping, as defined in the present
paper, only refers to voluntary inter-organizational transitions.
The aim of this paper is to extend previous research on voluntary turnover and job
mobility by focussing on job-hopping in particular. More specifically, the present
paper focusses mainly on personal characteristics as explanations for the job-hop
behavior of employees using the definition as described in this paper. We focus
on personal characteristics for two main reasons. First, as employees with a history of
many job changes are more predisposed toward future turnover behavior ( Judge and
Watanabe, 1995), we assume that managers would benefit from having information
about which personal characteristics are associated with job-hopping. This would
aid managers to develop programs that would help employees to maintain their
job satisfaction and performance in anticipation of and as a means of avoiding
withdrawal behavior. Second, according to the boundaryless career theory
(Arthur and Rousseau, 1996), even more employees will be engaging in
job-hopping, especially the youngest generations in the current workforce.
Therefore, we assume that managers would benefit from knowing whether age is
associated with job-hopping.
It is often argued that turnover is associated with high costs (Tziner and Birati,
1996), including administrative costs, additional recruiting and training costs, a loss of
knowledge and expertise. In addition, if an employee leaves for a better position
elsewhere or because of dissatisfaction with the job, the attitude of those that choose to
stay might be negatively affected. Therefore, the departure of an employee might
negatively affect the job satisfaction and productivity of those who stay
(Sheehan, 1993). Besides the costs that are associated with job-hopping, job-hopping
might also provide benefits to the economy as it fosters knowledge spillovers and thus
facilitates the rapid reallocation of resources toward firms with the best innovations
(Fallick et al., 2006).
Furthermore, we contribute to the literature in the following ways. First, the
majority of prior research on turnover and job mobility is conducted in the USA and
only a small amount of studies has been conducted in continental Europe. Due to
country-specific factors, turnover rates among countries are presumed to differ,
which may limit the generalizability of these studies. According to Esping-Andersen
(1990), countries can be divided into three types of welfare states. Belgium belongs
IJM to the corporatist-statist type, whereas the USA belongs to the liberal type.
37,3 As DiPrete et al. (1997) state that job mobility is influenced by labor market structures
and welfare state policies, mobility patterns may differ between countries. Similarly,
with regard to turnover intentions, Sousa-Poza and Henneberger (2004) found large
differences among countries, indicating that customs and traditions must play a very
important role in determining job-turnover intentions and, thus, job mobility in general.
496 Therefore, results of prior research in other countries may not automatically be
generalized to Belgium.
Furthermore, Belgium is an interesting context to examine the job-hop behavior of
employees, since the average number of jobs has increased from 2.6 (2006) to 3.4 (2010)
(De Vos and Cuyckens, 2012). Moreover, Belgian employees expect to have 6.4 jobs
in different organizations over their entire careers (Manpower, 2011). These statistics
suggest that managers will face new challenges with regard to maintaining employee
loyalty toward their organizations.
In addition, job-hopping is relatively underexplored in management research.
The present paper addresses this gap in the literature by introducing a new
definition of job-hopping that takes into account the number of voluntary
inter-organizational transitions.
The present study is based on an analysis drawn from a mailed questionnaire to
Belgian employees. Based on career related and turnover theories, we develop several
hypotheses with regard to personal characteristics of job-hoppers.

2. Related literature and hypotheses development


2.1 Job-hop frequency
In the present paper, job-hopping refers to frequently making voluntary inter-
organizational transitions. Other areas of management research have investigated
related constructs, such as turnover and job mobility. These constructs are not
appropriate for the present study as we focus on job-hopping in particular. Indeed,
job-hopping refers to voluntary inter-organizational transitions, whereas turnover
relates to a single organization (Tett and Meyer, 1993) and job mobility is too broad as
it contains intra-organizational transitions as well (Hall, 1996). In order to address this
issue, the employer-to-employer mobility, which includes only inter-organizational
transitions, can be used (Fallick et al., 2006). Despite this, neither job mobility nor
the employer-to-employer mobility is restricted to voluntary transitions. Both
determinants might contain employees who were obliged to change companies
because of bankruptcy, redundancy, etc. Since this does not correspond to a
voluntary change of company, it should not be taken into account when measuring
job-hopping.
Based on this argument, the following measure of job-hopping is introduced:

The number of voluntary inter  organizational transitions


Job‐hop frequency ¼
The number of years of employment
(1)

This measure excludes involuntary changes of companies. Moreover, it aids in


identifying whether the employee makes inter-organizational transitions less or more
frequently. In the present paper, the job-hop behavior is studied by means of the
job-hop frequency.
2.2 Age Determinants
Prior research has found that it is mainly young employees that change jobs the most of job-hopping
often (Keith and McWilliams, 1999). Both the job matching theory and the career
development theory support this finding. According to the job matching theory
( Jovanovic, 1979), each match between an employee and a job has a certain quality,
which is not known to either parties a priori. Once a job is chosen, the quality of the
match is gradually revealed and employees that are not satisfied with this quality will 497
search for a better job match (Greve and Fujiwara-Greve, 2003). Since young people are
more likely to search for the perfect job match (Miller, 1984), they tend to job-hop more
often than their older counterparts, who have already found their perfect match. Thus,
this theory suggests that employees change jobs more often at the beginning of their
careers. This is consistent with the career development theory of Super et al. (1996),
which states that employees experience four different phases during their career
development. During the first phase, the exploration stage, employees seek to clarify
their career interests in order to make choices with regard to their career direction.
Hence, young individuals who are in the exploration stage of their career are more
likely to change companies.
Furthermore, there is a shift in society from “traditional” career paths, characterized
by upward career moves generally within a single organization, to “new” career types
(Reitman and Schneer, 2008). One of these newly emerged career paths is known as the
“boundaryless career” in which employees move across the boundaries of several
employers (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996). Another theoretical concept is the “protean
career” (Hall, 1996), in which the individual, and not the organization, takes the
responsibility for managing his own career, while the role of the organization is limited
to offering opportunities for growth and development.
These newly emerged career formats are in line with the generational values.
Human Resource literature generally agrees that three generations currently dominate
the workforce; Babyboomers (born between 1945 and 1964), Generation X (born
between 1965 and 1979) and Generation Y (born since 1980) (Becton et al., 2014). It is
argued that Generation Y has different expectations and experiences concerning their
careers than the older generations (Broadbridge et al., 2007). More so than any other
generation, Generation Y prefers freedom and flexibility and does not expect long-term
employment (Baruch, 2004). Despite the generational differences in work values,
similar to Generation Y, Generation X is thought to be less likely to display loyalty to a
particular company (Smola and Sutton, 2002). In contrast, Babyboomers tend to be
loyal to their organization and typically have traditional career paths (Hall, 1996).
Based on the argument given above regarding the age groups, the first hypothesis is
stated as follows:
H1. Age is negatively related to the job-hop frequency.

2.3 Gender
Prior research in various fields has found inconsistent results with regard to gender
differences in job mobility and turnover. Some relevant studies (Allen et al., 2010;
Griffeth et al., 2000) indicate that gender is not a good predictor of employee turnover.
Likewise, no significant differences in the turnover behavior among men and
women were found (Sicherman, 1996). Nevertheless, when considering the reasons
for turnover, significant gender differences are revealed. As women bear the
main responsibility for raising children and spend more time conducting household
IJM work than men (Hook, 2010), they are more likely to change jobs for family
37,3 related reasons than men.
According to the preference theory of Hakim (2000), women have the ability to
choose between several possible lifestyles. About 20 percent of women prefer a work-
centered lifestyle in which they commit to their work and career. Often, these women
remain childless by choice. Others adopt a home-centered lifestyle and prioritize
498 their family and children rather than their careers. But the majority of women seek to
combine their careers and family, without prioritizing one over another (adaptive
lifestyle). These women are thus in search of an optimal work-life balance and
since the responsibility of raising children decreases as the children grow up,
turnover rates for women are higher during the first years of their careers but tend to
decrease as they age.
However, the theory of Hakim (2000) has raised a considerable debate. For example
Kan (2007) states that women’s careers are not solely influenced by their preferences.
As women accumulate more skills and experience in the labor market, they may
become more work-centered. Similarly, as women face barriers to employment
(e.g. glass ceiling; household responsibilities), they might be discouraged from devoting
themselves to their careers and hence become less work centered. Thus, besides their
preferences, there are other factors influencing the career choices of women.
Nevertheless, other studies have also found that turnover rates for women are higher
during the first years of their careers, but tend to decrease as they age (Griffeth et al.,
2000; Keith and McWilliams, 1999). Therefore, we expect gender to moderate the
relationship between age and job-hop frequency. More precisely, we expect that as
women grow older they are more likely than men to remain within the same
organization. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H2. Being a female reinforces the negative relationship between age and job-hop
frequency.

2.4 Level of education


According to the human capital theory (Becker, 1964), education and training improve
the skills of an employee. Therefore, education is an important human capital asset that
makes an employee more marketable and, thus, more able to withdraw. Similarly,
signaling theory (Spence, 1973) states that an employee’s productivity is generally not
observable to outside employers. Therefore, employers often use education as a
selection criteria signaling the potential labor productivity of the employee. As high-
educated employees will be able to work with a larger scope of technologies, they will
accordingly be able to find another job more easily. This is named “the adaptability
effect” of education, which refers to the possibility of having better matches with
multiple companies (Decreuse and Granier, 2005). Furthermore, higher levels of
education are often associated with higher levels of “career mindedness.” Career
minded individuals are more willing to improve their careers and are therefore more
prone to take the risk of changing jobs (Royalty, 1998). Thus, these theories indicate
that education improves the opportunities on the labor market and encourages the
willingness to enhance one’s career, causing higher educated employees to be able to
change companies more often than their lower educated counterparts.
However, this ability does not necessarily result in actual turnover behavior.
Weiss (1984) found that, although education improves the alternative job opportunities
of workers, better-educated employees have lower propensities to quit than less well
educated employees. Similarly, Gesthuizen (2009) found a relatively low external Determinants
voluntary mobility rate for high-educated workers. According to him, higher educated of job-hopping
employees tend to be less dissatisfied with their work, with their wages as well as with
the match between the job content and their competences. Some studies using
education as a control variable in their regression model found education to not be
significantly related to voluntary turnover or turnover intention (Tanova and
Holtom, 2008; Yau-De et al., 2012). 499
Furthermore, DiPrete et al. (1997) found that the relationship between the
educational level and job mobility depends upon the country. For example, in the USA
and Sweden they found a significant relationship between educational level and
different forms of job mobility, whereas in the Netherlands and Germany the level of
education had weak or inconsistent effects on job mobility. According to the typology
of European welfare states (Esping-Andersen, 1990), Belgium as well as Germany and
the Netherlands belong to the Corporatist-statist type, which suggests that their job
mobility patterns might be more comparable (DiPrete et al., 1997). Therefore the
following hypothesis is formulated:
H3. The level of education is not significantly related to the job-hop frequency.

2.5 Organizational size


According to Lee and Mitchell (1994), employees change jobs because of
dissatisfaction with the current job match or because of discovering better job
opportunities. The latter is influenced by the reputation of the organization (Greve
and Fujiwara-Greve, 2003). According to this reputation theory, employees rely on the
organizational reputation, since they are unsure about the future behavior of
the organization. In their model, Greve and Fujiwara-Greve (2003) represent the
organizational reputation by means of an observable element, namely, the size of
the organization. They assume that large organizations carry a reputation of paying
higher wages in order to limit the employee turnover. In contrast, the behavior of
small organizations is more difficult to observe. These organizations do not carry a
reputation for maintaining high wages, which implies that employees in these
organizations often search for better job opportunities. Therefore, this model assumes
that the employer-to-employer mobility is higher for small organizations than for
large organizations. Furthermore, in large organizations employees often have more
opportunities to climb up in position and are thus less inclined to job-hop, whereas
employees in small organizations are more dependent on the external labor market,
since these companies have fewer vacancies available and a flatter organizational
structure (Abdel-khalik, 1988).
However, according to Ingham (1970), employee turnover is not significantly
different for small and large organizations. Similar to Greve and Fujiwara-Greve (2003),
Ingham (1970) assumes that large organizations maintain higher wages. But he
supposes that small organizations provide other advantages, such as more
opportunities for social contact and a greater variety of work tasks. Therefore,
he concludes that employees who prefer to work in small organizations value
non-economic factors more, whereas employees who prefer to work in large
organizations value economic factors more. Since each type of organization satisfies
the needs of the employees who prefer to work in the corresponding type of
organization, the turnover rates among different organizational sizes are not expected
to differ significantly (Ingham, 1970).
IJM Due to inconsistencies in the relationship between organizational size and job-hop
37,3 frequency, we state the following hypothesis:
H4. The organizational size is not significantly related to the job-hop frequency.

2.6 Sector
500 A study from Shahnawaz and Goswami (2011) shows that the mean value of the
turnover intention is higher in the private sector than in the public sector. This is partly
due to the fact that psychological contract violation is more common in the private
sector as opposed to the public sector. This type of contract violation can occur in
several ways. It is possible that the employer promises a job that provides
opportunities for growth and self-development, but that this promise is not fulfilled.
Different perceptions regarding work-related aspects of employees and employers may
also provide an explanation for this (Shahnawaz and Goswami, 2011). According to
Janssens et al. (2003), employees in the public sector often have loyal and strong
contracts in contrast to employees in the private sector. Hence, the turnover intention is
higher in the private sector compared to the public sector. Baldwin’s (1990) study
shows that employees in the public sector need more job security as opposed to
employees in the private sector. This higher need for job security represents a high
level of risk aversion, which in turn results in a lower level of turnover.
Based on these findings, we formulate the following hypothesis:
H5. The job-hop frequency is significant higher in the private sector than in the
public sector.

3. Method
3.1 Research design
This empirical research is developed to study the determinants of Belgian job-hoppers
by using the job-hop frequency to measure the extent of job-hopping. Due to a lack of
readily available information, data collection was conducted using a questionnaire
developed for the purposes of this study. E-mails were sent with a link to an internet-
based survey site that hosted the anonymous survey. The respondents were mainly
reached through social network sites. In order to enhance the probability of response,
some companies were contacted directly and asked to participate in the survey.
The human resource department of the participating companies encouraged its
employees to fill in the survey. In order to obtain the largest possible sample, a strategy
of snowball sampling was employed. The target group of the survey is limited to the
Dutch speaking working population in Belgium. The first version of the questionnaire
was subjected to pretesting. The final version is slightly modified by means of the
feedback obtained from the test persons.
The purpose of this survey is to obtain information about the career paths of
the respondents to be able to calculate the job-hop frequency. In the first part of the
questionnaire, respondents were asked to provide information concerning their
personal characteristics, including the number of years of employment, the year of
birth, the gender and the highest level of education attained. In the second part, they
were asked to indicate the number of times they voluntarily left a company for a job in
another organization. In order to collect reliable data, more detailed information was
asked for the last organization they had left voluntarily. In regard to this organization,
the respondents were asked to indicate the sector and the organizational size.
In our analysis, for respondents who have never made a voluntary inter- Determinants
organizational transition, we used the sector and the size of the organization in which of job-hopping
the employee is currently employed. In contrast, for respondents who have already
made at least one inter-organizational transition, we used the sector and size of the last
organization that the respondent had voluntarily left.
3.2 Sample 501
We received 266 fully completed questionnaires. This number is comparable to that of
other studies in related domains (Wheeler et al., 2007).
Personal characteristics. The sample includes 150 women, which corresponds to
56.4 percent of the total number of respondents, and 116 men. Only 33.8 percent
attended primary and/or secondary school, whereas 66.2 percent has a professional or
academic bachelor/master degree. Furthermore, 44.7 percent of the respondents belong
to Generation Y, while 36.5 percent belongs to Generation X and 18.8 percent of the
respondents are Babyboomers.
Company-specific characteristics. With a percentage of 74.2, the private sector is most
represented in the sample. In total, 25.8 percent of the respondents operate in the
public sector.
The size of the organization is measured by means of the number of its employees.
Often, the number of employees is used as a proxy for the organizational size (Patterson
et al., 2004). In total, 41.7 percent of the respondents are employed in an organization
with 250 or more employees. For an organization of which the number of employees
varies between 50 and 249, this percentage amounts 29.7. Organizations that employ
less than 50 people are represented by 28.6 percent of the respondents.

3.3 Measures
The hypotheses regarding age, gender, level of education, organizational size and
sector are tested by using following linear regression model (Table I):
LNJOBFREQ ¼ b1 þ b2 AGE þ b3 SEX þ b4 SEX
 AGE þ b5 EDU þ b6 EMPL1 þ b7 EMPL2 þ b8 SEC (2)

Variable Description Hypothesis


LNJOBFREQ Natural logarithm of the job-hop frequency, where the job-hop
frequency is measured as the number of voluntary inter-organizational
transitions divided by the number of years of employment
AGE Age of the respondent H1
SEX A dummy variable with a value of 1 in case the respondent is a woman,
0 for a man
SEX × AGE The interaction between SEX and AGE H2
EDU A dummy variable with a value of 1 in case the highest degree obtained H3
is a professional or academic Bachelor or Master diploma
EMPL1 A dummy variable with a value of 1 in case the respondent is employed H4
in a large organization (⩾ 250 employees)
EMPL2 A dummy variable with a value of 1 in case the respondent is employed H4
in a medium organization (50 ⩽ employees o 250) Table I.
SEC A dummy variable with a value of 1 in case the employee has been H5 Variables in
employed in the private sector, 0 for the public sector the analysis
IJM In order to avoid heteroskedasticity, we took the natural logarithm (LN) of the
37,3 variable JOBFREQ (LNJOBFREQ). The job-hop frequency, as measured in (1), takes
into account in the numerator “the number of voluntary inter-organizational
transitions.” The variable JOBFREQ is defined by adding up 1 to the numerator of the
job-hop frequency[1] and characterizes by definition the job-hop frequency.
The results of the analysis regarding the variable LNJOBFREQ can therefore be
502 formulated in terms of the job-hop frequency. AGE is a continuous variable. SEX is a
dummy variable that takes value 1 for a woman and 0 for a man. As it is expected
that the effect of age on the job-hop frequency is stronger for women than for men, the
interaction variable SEX × AGE is included in the regression analysis. EDU
(education) is a dummy variable that takes value 1 if the highest degree obtained is a
professional or academic bachelor or master diploma and 0 otherwise. EMPL is a
proxy for the organizational size and is categorized into three groups: large
organizations (⩾ 250 employees); medium organizations (50 ⩽ employees o 250); and
small organizations (o 50 employees). EMPL1 and EMPL2 are the corresponding
dummy variables that take value 1 in case the respondent is employed in a large
organization and in a medium organization, respectively, and 0 otherwise. The small
organizations are chosen as the reference category. SEC (sector) is a dummy variable
that takes value 1 if the respondent has been employed in the private sector
(NACE-bel 2008 sections A-N) and 0 otherwise. The public sector (NACE-bel 2008
sections O-R) is chosen as the reference category.

4. Results
4.1 Descriptive statistics
Table II provides a comparison of the mean job-hop frequency between the three age
groups using the independent samples t-test. The mean job-hop frequency of
Generation Y is significant larger than the mean job-hop frequency of Generation X.
Likewise, the mean job-hop frequency of Generation X is significant larger than for the
Babyboomers. Besides the insights regarding the job-hop frequency, we also found that
only 56 percent of the Babyboomers had made a voluntary inter-organizational
transition at least once, compared to 76.3 percent of Generation X. Further, 54.6 percent
of Generation Y had voluntarily changed company at least once, which is less than the
older generations. However, taking into account the years of service, a relatively large
proportion of Generation Y had already voluntarily changed company at least once as
the average years of service is 4.8, compared to 30.6 years for the Babyboomers and
16.8 years for Generation X. Furthermore, Table III provides means, standard
deviations and inter-correlations among the study variables. A Pearson correlation
matrix is presented in Table III and is used to examine the correlations between the

Job-hop frequency n Mean SD p-value


Table II.
Independent samples Generation Y 119 0.2229 0.31212 0.008***
t-test on the means Generation X 97 0.1387 0.13120
of the job-hop Generation X 97 0.1387 0.13120 0.000***
frequency between Babyboomers 50 0.0399 0.04864
Generation Y, Notes: Babyboomers, population born between 1945 and 1964; Generation X, population born
Generation X and between 1965 and 1979; Generation Y, population born since 1980. All p-values are two-tailed.
the Babyboomers Significant differences are indicated by *p o0.10; **p o0.05; ***p o 0.01
M SD LNJOBFREQ AGE SEX EDU EMPL1 EMPL2 SEC VIF
Determinants
of job-hopping
LNJOBFREQ −1.568 1.046 1
AGE 37.868 11.047 −0.749*** 1 1.020
SEX 0.56 0.497 0.035 −0.115* 1 1.056
EDU 0.66 0.474 0.039 −0.013 0.044 1 1.026
EMPL1 0.42 0.494 −0.027 0.033 −0.101* 0.025 1 1.453
EMPL2 0.30 0.458 −0.085 0.009 0.090 0.082 −0.550*** 1 1.475
503
SEC 0.75 0.433 0.020 −0.046 −0.172*** −0.116* 0.063 −0.141** 1 1.063
Notes: LNJOBFREQ, natural logarithm of adjusted job-hop frequency (cf. footnote 1); SEX, dummy variable: Table III.
SEX ¼ 1, if woman; EDU, dummy variable: EDU ¼ 1, if college or university; EMPL1, dummy variable: EMPL1 ¼ 1, Means (M ), standard
if large organization; EMPL2, dummy variable: EMPL2 ¼ 1, if medium organization; EMPL4, dummy variable: deviations (SD) and
EMPL4 ¼ 1, if very small organization; SEC, dummy variable: SEC ¼ 1, if private sector; AGE, age of the employee, inter-correlations
measured in number of years. All p-values are two-tailed. Significant correlations are indicated by *p o 0.10; among study
**p o 0.05; ***p o 0.01 variables

independent variables. The highest pairwise correlation is −0.749 (LNJOBFREQ and


AGE), indicating that there is a strong negative correlation between the age of a person
and his or her job-hop frequency. In our regression model, none of the VIF scores
exceeds 1.475, indicating that there are no problems with multi-collinearity in the data.

4.2 Regression results


Table IV presents the results of the linear regression model, whereby the natural
logarithm of the variable JOBFREQ, which characterizes the job-hop frequency, is
regressed onto the independent variables. The overall model is significant ( p ¼ 0.000)
and has an adjusted R2 of 57.7 percent.
The observed coefficient for AGE is negative and highly significant, meaning that
employees are more likely to remain within the same organization as they age.
The results for SEX show the expected positive sign and are significant, indicating that

Dependent variable ¼ LNJOBFREQ


Variable Expected sign Β (se β) p-value

Constant 0.940 (0.252) 0.000***


AGE – −0.061 (0.005) 0.000***
SEX + 0.734 (0.310) 0.019**
SEX×AGE – −0.022 (0.008) 0.005***
EDU + 0.053 (0.090) 0.556
EMPL1 – −0.142 (0.102) 0.165
EMPL2 – −0.257 (0.111) 0.021**
SEC + −0.044 (0.100) 0.664
2
Adjusted R 0.577
p-value 0.000
Notes: LNJOBFREQ, natural logarithm of adjusted job-hop frequency (cf. footnote 1); AGE, age of the
employee, measured in number of years; SEX, dummy variable: SEX ¼ 1, if woman; SEX×AGE,
interaction effect between SEX and AGE; EDU, dummy variable: EDU ¼ 1, if college or university;
EMPL1, dummy variable: EMPL1 ¼ 1, if large organization; EMPL2, dummy variable: EMPL2 ¼ 1, Table IV.
if medium organization; SEC, dummy variable: SEC ¼ 1, if private sector. All p-values are two-tailed. Linear regression
Significant coefficients are indicated by *p o0.10; **p o 0.05; ***p o0.01 results
IJM female employees tend to have a higher job-hop frequency than their male counterparts,
37,3 at least in the beginning of their careers. The interaction effect between gender and age
(SEX × AGE) is highly significant and shows a negative sign: for women the effect of
age on the dependent variable job-hop frequency is stronger than for men, indicating that
women are more likely than men to remain within the same organization as they age.
Figure 1 provides a graphical presentation of the interaction effect. Following the
504 procedure of Aiken and West (1991), we have centered AGE around its sample mean and
two levels of AGE, as low (one standard deviation below the mean) and high
(one standard deviation above the mean) are considered. The graph shows that the
negative relationship between age and job-hop frequency is steeper for women and that
women tend to job-hop more than men in the early beginning of their careers.
As expected, the coefficient for EDU is positive, though not significant. Therefore,
we fail to reject the null hypothesis that the level of education has no significant effect
on the actual job-hop frequency. Regarding the size of the company, the coefficients of
the variables EMPL1 and EMPL2 show a negative sign, indicating that the job-hop
frequency is lower for larger organizations than for small organizations. Though this
difference is insignificant for large organizations. In contrast, for medium
organizations, the job-hop frequency is significantly lower than for small organizations.
The observed coefficient for SEC is not significant. Thus, there is no evidence to
support H5.

4.3 Robustness tests


In order to make sure that our results are robust, we performed a number of robustness
checks. First, we controlled for regional effects as prior research showed the existence
of wage-productivity gaps between the three regions in Belgium (Konings and
Marcolin, 2014). As this might affect turnover, we added a control variable REGION.
However, the results for REGION are not significant. For the other variables, we
obtained similar results to those obtained in the main analysis.
Furthermore, post-stratification was used to account for any survey non-response,
as well as any non-coverage or under- and over-sampling resulting from the

0
Low Age (–1 SD) High Age (+1 SD)
–0.5

–1

–1.5
LNJOBFREQ

–2

–2.5

–3
Figure 1.
Interaction effect
–3.5
between age
and gender Women Men
–4
survey-specific sampling design and to ensure that the age-sex-region-educational-level Determinants
distribution of the sample matched the 2013 Labor Force Survey. The results of this of job-hopping
analysis appear robust to the analysis in which no ex-post correction method was used,
except for the variable EMPL2, which is now no longer significant. Therefore, we fail to
reject the null hypothesis that the organizational size is not significantly related to the
job-hop frequency.
505
5. Conclusions, limitations and further research
This paper examines the determinants of job-hopping. More specifically, we investigate
the effect of age, gender, level of education, organizational size and sector on the
job-hop frequency. An analysis of the factors affecting the job-hop behavior may
benefit human resource management as turnover is often associated with high costs.
This study adds to the existing literature by focussing specifically on job-hopping,
which addresses an important gap in voluntary turnover literature. Up to now,
literature on job-hopping had remained rather underexplored in management research
when contrasted against turnover literature.
Using data obtained from a survey, we find that as the employee ages, he/she is
more likely to remain within the same organization and thus the job-hop frequency
tends to decline. This provides support for the career development and job matching
theory ( Jovanovic, 1979; Super et al., 1996), which state that employees are more likely
to remain within the same organization as they age. H1 is thus supported by our data.
Consistent with the preference theory of Hakim (2000), we also provide evidence that
young women tend to job-hop significantly more than young men, but as they age
women are significantly more likely than men to remain within the same company.
As the majority of women seek to combine their careers and family, the search for an
optimal work-life balance may cause high turnover rates during the first years of their
careers. Thus, H2 is supported.
The level of education has no significant influence on the job-hop behavior of
employees, which is consistent with H3. Therefore, our data supports the view that
higher educated employees have more job alternatives and are thus more able to
change companies, but that this ability does not necessarily result in actual turnover
behavior. A study from Weiss (1984) found similar results.
Regarding the size of the company, the job-hop frequency is lower for large and
medium organizations than for small organizations. However, this difference is
insignificant for large organizations. In contrast, for medium organizations, the job-hop
frequency is significantly lower than for small organizations. Previous studies also
found inconsistent results. The existence of opposite effects in the relationship between
the organizational size and the actual job-hop frequency may provide an explanation.
On the one hand, small organizations can offer fewer opportunities for advancement,
causing their employees to rely more on the external labor market for their career
opportunities. On the other hand, since each type of organization satisfies the needs of
the employees who prefer to work in the corresponding type of organization, the
turnover rates among different organizational sizes are not expected to differ
significantly (Ingham, 1970).
The job-hop frequency does not seem to be significantly higher in the private sector
as compared to the public sector. This is contrary to findings of prior research that used
other constructs, such as turnover intention and turnover rate. The turnover intention
is not an appropriate measure of job-hopping, since the employees only have the
intention to change company. This intention does not necessarily result in an actual
IJM change of company. Similarly, as the turnover rate includes involuntary
37,3 inter-organizational transitions as well, the higher turnover rate in the private sector
compared to the public sector could be the result of the fact that the private sector is
more subjected to cyclical fluctuation, causing more bankruptcies and redundancies.
However, the job-hop frequency does not take into account involuntary
inter-organizational transitions.
506 To the extent that our results are generalizable to other countries, they provide
implications for the retention management of human resource departments. The higher
job-hop frequency of women during the beginning of their careers suggests that
organizations can improve retention rates of women by devoting more resources to
their career development and by providing them with more support and flexibility in
order to enhance their work-life balance.
We also find that age is negatively related to the job-hop frequency. On the one
hand, young people are in the exploration stage of their career and thus in search for
their “perfect” job. On the other hand, the youngest generations (X and Y) have
different expectations concerning their careers than the Babyboomers. As they prefer
interesting and challenging work, rather than a lifelong job, organizations should
provide their young employees with challenging and diversified work, as well as with
opportunities for growth and development. However, this finding should be treated
with caution as not all employees have the same needs and values. Although the
youngest generations have higher job-hop frequencies and share other values than
those of the Babyboomers, there are some individual differences as well. Therefore,
we suggest the human resource departments of companies to effectively
communicate job and task descriptions and growth opportunities to potential
employees. This may help employees to better plan their careers and consequently
improve retention rates.
Furthermore, the fact that there is no significant difference between the job-hop
frequency of higher and lower educated employees suggests that although higher
educated employees are able to change companies more often than their lower educated
counterparts (e.g. Decreuse and Granier, 2005), lower educated employees seem to have
similar mobility patters. Therefore, human resource departments should not focus their
retention management solely on higher educated employees, but on lower educated
employees as well.
The fact that the job-hop frequency is not significantly different for small and large
organizations provides support for Ingham’s (1970) theory. Therefore we would advise
that small organizations should try to recruit people that value non-economic factors
more, whereas large organizations should recruit employees that value economic
factors more in order to improve retention rates.
We note that our study is subject to several limitations. First, as with all internet-
based survey-research designs, there are some individuals who are more likely than
others to complete an online survey. This tendency can lead to a systematic bias known
as self-selection bias. Second, our study is subject to sampling bias that is inherent in
snowball sampling, meaning that we are not able to derive our response rate.
We believe, however, that these disadvantages are outweighed by the advantages of
reaching a diverse group of employees. Furthermore, post-stratification was used to
adjust sample weights to account for any population over- or under-coverage as a
means of trying to minimize any potential bias. Third, as our research is conducted in
Belgium, the results may be easier to generalize for countries in continental Europe,
sharing similar labor market structures and welfare state policies, but are less
generalizable to countries with very different institutions, welfare systems, etc. Determinants
(Sousa-Poza and Henneberger, 2004). of job-hopping
We suggest that future research could expand our analysis by interviewing
job-hoppers in order to gain a better understanding of why young women tend to
job-hop more than young men and how age is associated with job-hopping.
Future research might also usefully extend this research by including reasons for job-
hopping and personal values (e.g. work-life balance, flexibility, diversity, 507
career opportunities, job security). A longitudinal research approach could be
useful to study the impact of a change of demographic variables on the job-hop
frequency. This knowledge might help to gain a more comprehensive insight into the
job-hop behavior.

Note
1. The natural logarithm of the job-hop frequency is used to avoid problems with
heteroskedasticity. For employees who have never changed their job voluntarily, the
job-hop frequency equals 0. Since the natural logarithm of 0 is undefined, the measure is
slightly modified. In addition to the number of organizations the employee voluntarily
left, the current job is added in the numerator of the job-hop frequency, which results in
values of the variable JOBFREQ greater than 0. This enables us to do a logarithmic
transformation of the dependent variable JOBFREQ that characterizes the job-hop
frequency. The results of the analysis for the variable JOBFREQ let us formulate insights
for the job-hop frequency.

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About the authors


510 Kelly Steenackers is a Doctoral Researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium). She is
currently preparing her doctoral dissertation on career paths of (former) auditors. Her main
research interests are in the area of career mobility. Kelly Steenackers is the corresponding
author and can be contacted at: ksteenac@vub.ac.be
Marie-Anne Guerry is a Professor of Mathematics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium).
Her research interests include manpower planning and Markov chains. The research activities
cover mathematical modeling in manpower planning as well as empirical studies regarding
career characteristics.

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