Can Low Top Management Team Cohesion Increase Employees' Turnover Intentions?

Abstract

This study investigates whether low cohesion within an organization's Top Management Team (TMT) can have a negative impact on the aggregated turnover intentions of employees, via two mechanisms. First, since low TMT cohesion presents a non-social and uninspiring leadership role model, such behavior may reduce the transformational leadership of managers. Second, when employees become disappointed and frustrated by low TMT cohesion, a negative and corrosive atmosphere may arise across the organization through contagion. Analyses of a dataset of 19.212 respondents from 101 organizations support these expectations. The results also show that managers can reduce the detrimental effects of a corrosive atmosphere on employee turnover intentions through transformational leadership. By demonstrating the above this study provides new insights into the wide-ranging, and potentially detrimental, impact which TMT’s can have on their organization.