Proud to Stay or Too Proud to Stay? How Pride in Personal Performance Develops and How It Affects Turnover Intentions

Abstract

Although a considerable amount of research has been devoted to the formation of turnover intentions, the influence of pride in personal performance (PP), which is one of the most frequently felt workplace emotions, has been largely neglected. Employing a three-stage study design, this article explores how PP develops and how it affects turnover intentions among frontline employees. First, relying on affective events theory, a prestudy that employs a qualitative diary approach was performed to empirically identify work events that are the primary causes of PP. The prestudy was followed by Study 1, which applied a quantitative research design to determine which job characteristics promote these events. Finally, Study 2 utilized three-wave panel data of frontline employees to investigate the effects of PP on turnover intentions. The findings of the latter study confirm that PP triggers two processes that contrarily affect turnover intentions: (1) PP enhances job satisfaction, which decreases turnover intentions, and (2) PP increases self-efficacy, which enhances turnover intentions. However, further analyses reveal that the latter effect is not relevant for highly satisfied employees and that overall, increasing PP results in decreasing turnover intentions, suggesting that companies should foster PP to retain their frontline employees.