Taming a wild new term: exploring the concept of quiet quitting as a coping response

Abstract

Purpose“Quiet quitting” emerged as a term in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since gained immense popularity worldwide, working its way into common usage. However, disagreement exists over the term’s meaning and utility. Our paper critically considers the value of the construct of quiet quitting, proposing an initial operationalization of its properties.Design/methodology/approachWe develop hypotheses related to the antecedents, characteristics and consequences of quiet quitting through a literature review and subsequent survey. The questionnaire was distributed to working professionals in Europe and assessed through multiple partial least squares analyses.FindingsWe propose quiet quitting as a coping strategy involving a combination of reduced effort, disengagement, disassociation and boundary-setting. 108 responses obtained through a survey of knowledge workers provide some support that these existing concepts indeed form a second-order construct with emergent properties not found when assessed individually. However, we suggest that the utility of quiet quitting as a distinct coping strategy is questionable and that generally, it is more useful to discuss its subcomponents separately.Research limitations/implicationsWhile limited by its cross-sectional nature, this work raises several potentially fruitful future lines of research and offers a first step in evaluating a relatively new term that is of substantial relevance to management scholarship and practice.Originality/valueNew concepts stemming from popular literature can be problematic, grounded in untested folk theory and riddled with ambiguity. At the same time, they can stretch our thinking and drive research in new directions if they can be sufficiently refined. We offer a new conceptualization of quiet quitting but question its usefulness.