Underlying labor market dimensions of "Opportunities": The case of employee turnover

The underlying labor market and organizational source of alternative job op portunities is re-examined here and applied to investigate employee turnove r behavior. We contend that by refining this concept in terms of perceived and objective opportunities and market reference points, a clearer apprecia tion of this concept and more powerful model of turnover will emerge. To th is end, a cross-sectional and multistage longitudinal survey of 700 employe es was conducted in eight medical centers at seven distinct labor marker lo cations. Measures of perceived and objective opportunities in infernal and external markets were introduced into logistic regressions which clearly sh owed that objective opportunities are a far better set of explanations of a ctual turnover behavior than either perceived internal or external market o pportunities. This relationship is further explored and its complexity wove n into a labor market-oriented turnover model.