Is the grass greener on the other side? A longitudinal study of the impact of employer change and occupational change on job satisfaction

Abstract

Research shows that individuals experience a honeymoon-hangover pattern when they change employers. This study provides further insight into this pattern by comparing the experience of those who change employers within and across occupations. Drawing on the longitudinal data from the British House Panel Survey 1991-2008, we find that the honeymoon effect was primarily driven by the experience of those who change employers across occupations. Patterns of post-transition adaptation also differ between the two categories of job changers. While there is evidence of adaptation of job satisfaction to employer change within occupation, those who change employers across occupations experience a steady decline of intrinsic job satisfaction which continues for at least six years after the transition

The Epidemic of Mental Disorders in Business—How Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Spread across Organizations through Employee Mobility*

“…In addition, organizational newcomers often experience an initial increase in psychological problems after entering a new organization (Dunford et al, 2012) because joining a new organization is a comprehensive transition process involving adjustment to new role demands, stress, uncertainty, and anxiety (Saks, 1994;Allen, McManus, and Russell, 1999;Bravo et al, 2003). We thus assume that similar to the level of job satisfaction, which remains remarkably stable even if the individual changes jobs or occupations (Judge and Larsen, 2001;Zhou et al, 2017), mental disorders can carry into the new job, with detrimental consequences for the hiring organization. Second, to lead to new chains of ''infections'' in the workforce of a hiring organization, symptoms of mental disorders need to be pervasive, such that one single infected individual entering a new environment should have a powerful impact on many other individuals in that environment.…”

The restorative effect of work after unemployment: An intraindividual analysis of subjective well-being recovery through reemployment.

“…In fixed effects models, baseline well-being is measured as the average level of life satisfaction reported by an individual over the entire survey period. Because of its advantage in controlling for omitted variable bias, fixed effects models have been widely used in previous well-being research (e.g., Georgellis, Lange, & Tabvuma, 2012; Young, 2012; Zhou, Zou, et al, 2017). In addition to time-invariant individual fixed effects we also control for a range of time-varying covariates that include age, education, marital status, household income, number of children, physical health and survey year in all fixed effects models 2…”

When is the grass greener on the other side? A longitudinal study of the joint effect of occupational mobility and personality on the honeymoon‐hangover experience during job change

“…Research shows that the single-item measure of job satisfaction has acceptable reliability compared with composite measures derived from multiple items (Wanous, Reichers, & Hudy, 1997). The measure has been widely used in previous research (e.g., Chaudhuri, Reilly, & Spencer, 2015;Georgellis & Tabvuma, 2010;Zhou et al, 2017).…”

“…move to different organizations but continue to perform similar job tasks (Zhou, Zou, Williams, & Tabvuma, 2017). Occupational mobility therefore serves a desirable indicator to unpack the impact of job change on post-turnover well-being.…”