Can We Still Be Friends? The Role of Exit Conversations in Facilitating Post-exit Relationships

Abstract

Organizations might benefi t from maintaining relationships with former employ

Exit interviews as a tool to reduce parting employees’ complaints about their former employer and to ensure residual commitment

“…For example, Lefkowitz and Katz (1969) compared the reasons for leaving given in exit interviews with the reasons mentioned in follow-up questionnaires later and found only weak convergence – in fact, parting employees appeared to withhold information and their opinions during the exit interview and distorted their parting reasons in a socially desirable way. Such response distortion was also reported by other researchers from the USA (Feinberg and Jeppeson, 2000; Hinrichs, 1975; Zarandona and Camuso, 1985; Miller, 1926/27) and by studies in other parts of the world (Johns, 2016; Kulik et al , 2015; Williams et al , 2008). Departing employees might prefer to speak about topics for which they have positive feelings and conceal negative experiences (Giacalone and Duhon, 1991).…”

“…For organizations, this study implies that if they are interested in managing the exit process in a way that leaves a good impression, they should offer exit interviews more often and likely rename it as an “exit conversation” (Kulik et al , 2015, p. 893).…”

“…in hiring situations; Wilhelmy et al , 2016; Langer et al , 2019). Initial evidence on the broader range of purposes for exit interviews comes from the qualitative interviews Kulik et al (2015) conducted. For instance, one of their interviewees mentioned (p. 901) that the manager “said all the right things” in the exit interview so that the interviewee (a documents controller) later “came and just helped them with processing all the documents.”…”

“…If we do not want to attribute practitioners’ use of exit interviews to a “stubborn reliance” (Highhouse, 2008, p. 333) on tradition and subjectivity or to an ignorance of academic literature (Fisher et al , 2021; Rynes et al , 2002), we must look further into why practitioners continue to use exit interviews. Building on signaling theory (Bangerter et al , 2012; Connelly et al , 2011) and a qualitative study conducted by Kulik et al (2015), we argue that offering a conversation at the end of the employees’ working time at an organization is a signal to parting employees that the organization wants the parting employee to continue to view the organization positively. This new perspective is tested with survey data from 164 German employees.…”

The expat-preneur: conceptualizing a growing international career phenomenon

“…Additionally, research that is focussed on OE-transitioned expat-preneurs may help alert MNCs to the importance of providing greater career support for their OEs during an international assignment, particularly in situations where OEs elect to leave the organization (taking with them valuable experience and tacit knowledge) due to dissatisfaction with the OE experience rather than a desire for a new expatpreneur career. Conversely, even when employees are driven by desire to leave an organization to venture out on their own, prior research shows that when organizations are aware of and supportive toward their employees' career interests outside of the organization, such support can lead to enhanced satisfaction and productivity (Kulik et al, 2015), as well as extended retention before the eventual departure (Kaye and Giulioni, 2012). As many of the big consulting firms demonstrate, staffing and career progression strategies that support the transfer of employees to join client firms can further strengthen the consulting firm-client firm relationship for future engagements.…”