Applying a push–pull perspective to migrant worker turnover: The role of retention decision satisfaction and geographic distance

Intracountry migrant workers contribute to the development of global supply chains and economic growth in many emerging economies; however, their high turnover rate poses a threat to their productivity. Our work therefore investigates the psychological processes underlying migrant workers’ turnover decisions. From a “push–pull” perspective, we examine how organizational embeddedness interacts with two sequential moderators, geographic distance and general adjustment, in predicting voluntary turnover via retention decision satisfaction and turnover intention. Using multisource and lagged data collected from 512 Chinese migrant workers, we find that migrant workers’ retention decision satisfaction mediates the negative relationship between organizational embeddedness and voluntary turnover. Furthermore, migrant workers with jobs closer to home have higher levels of general adjustment and are subsequently more likely than those working in distant host cities to have enhanced retention decision satisfaction and reduced turnover intention as a result of higher levels of organizational embeddedness.