Paper short abstract:

We try to find out why workers quit the company they are currently employed. Exploring social or personal factors that affect workers' decision-making processes will reveal how they shape turnover intention. We compare workers in Japanese companies with those in foreign companies in Japan.

Paper long abstract:

A feature of the labor market in Japan is that it is less liquid than Europe and the United States. In particular, it has been said that changing jobs between Japanese firms and foreign-owned firms in Japan are quite rare. This lack of mobility may reflect differences in the management style between Japanese and European/American firms, and between Japanese firms and subsidiaries of those Western firms in Japan. We also posit that behind low mobility, quitting in Japan is accompanied by a negative image.

In this study, we compare how employees form their intention to leave the currently working firms between workers of Japanese firms and those of foreign-affiliated companies. We perform multiple-group analysis with the data collected in February 2019 via means of web-site questionnaire research. The turnover intention has been employed in many previous studies as an appropriate proxy variable for predicting actual turnover behavior. As explanatory variables, we apply such variables as support from one's boss, commitment to the organization, positivity/negativity of workers, firm-specific skills and general skills, attitude toward work-life balance, and perceived career opportunities at the current firm, other Japanese firms or foreign firms.

We are particularly interested in (1) the relationship between types of skills and perceived career opportunities inside/outside the current firm, (2) the influence of work-life balance or other personal characteristics like positivity and negativity on perceived career opportunities and turnover intention, and (3) the impact of boss's support on skill acquisition and turnover intention.

Comparing the means of latent factors reveals many apparent differences. Another interesting finding from the comparison of path diagrams relates to the relationship between the characteristics of employees and perceived opportunities in other Japanese firms in the case of employees of foreign-owned firms. For positive employees, there is no significant relationship, suggesting that they are doing well at current foreign firms, thus see no need to change employers. Contrarily, a significantly positive relationship between negativity and perceived opportunities in other Japanese firms, suggesting that negativity at foreign firms provoke the feeling that they may be able to perform better in other Japanese firms.