Content area
Full text
Given considerable racial differences in voluntary turnover (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006, Table 28), the present study examined the influence of diversity climate perceptions on turnover intentions among managerial employees in a national retail organization. The authors hypothesized that pro-diversity work climate perceptions would correlate most negatively with turnover intentions among Blacks, followed in order of strength by Hispanics and Whites (Hypothesis 1), and that organizational commitment would mediate these interactive effects of race and diversity climate perceptions on turnover intentions (Hypothesis 2). Results from a sample of 5,370 managers partially supported both hypotheses, as findings were strongest among Blacks. Contrary to the hypotheses, however, White men and women exhibited slightly stronger effects than Hispanic personnel.
Employee turnover can be a considerable organizational problem. One out of seven workers can be expected to exit their jobs annually (Clark & Perry, 1999). Coupled with a projected financial cost of over $10,000 per employee exit (or higher for upper-level jobs; "Survey Confirms High Cost of Turnover," 1998), exorbitant turnover rates can have disastrous bottomline implications. Turnover may be even more costly for firms investing heavily in minority recruitment because minorities' retention rates tend to be considerably lower than those of White employees (Griffeth & Hom, 2001; Robinson & Dechant, 1997). In fact, recent evidence suggests that annual voluntary turnover is nearly 30% higher among racial minorities (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006, Table 28). Consequently, these firms may fail to realize full returns on their minority recruitment expenditures and find themselves saddled with the costs of replacing a higher proportion of their personnel.
Although minorities are more likely to turnover than their White counterparts, little research has examined prospective causes. The organizational literature suggests that minorities encounter less favorable racial conditions in firms than their White counterparts (Foley, Kidder, & Powell, 2002; Greenhaus, Parasuraman, & Wormley, 1990), and reporting such concerns to be of greater relative importance (Kossek & Zonia, 1993; Mor Barak, Cherin, & Berkman, 1998). In turn, these negative racial conditions have been shown to undermine minorities' organizational attitudes (Chrobot-Mason, 2003; Foley et al., 2002), which tend to be precursors of voluntary turnover (Griffeth & Horn, 2001). Altogether, this suggests that the diversity climate concept may be useful in explicating racial differences in voluntary turnover...