The Impact of Social Distance on Turnover Intention: Complaining Language Dimensions as Moderators

• Main Authors: Wen-Tzu Chiang, 江文慈
• Other Authors: Yi-Tai Seih
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/5hq2qm

碩士 === 國立臺灣科技大學 === 企業管理系 === 107 === Complaining behavior is a social phenomenon that is frequently seen in human society, including the workplace. By making complaints through verbal or nonverbal behavior, complainers express their dissatisfaction. Given that, when employees complain about work-related issues, it may reflect that they are not satisfied with their work, which may result in a stronger turnover intention. The purpose of this study was to study if employees’ turnover intention is affected by listeners to whom employees complain about their work. According to the concept of social distance in Construal Level Theory (CLT), the current research classified the listeners to two categories on social distance: close (colleagues or friends) vs. far (strangers) distance. Based on the classification, this study examined when employees make complaints to different listeners (close vs. far distance), how the levels of social distance influence employees’ complaining language on turnover intention. A sample of 141 employees was collected via online questionnaire. Employees were asked to make complaints about their work in a writing format. Those written files were analyzed by a software program, namely Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). The results of this study found that employees complain about their work to listeners who are on the level of a far social distance, when those complaints showed (1) the more complex the content structure, (2) the higher frequency of the use of personal pronoun, (3) the higher frequency of the use of “I”, (4) the lower frequency of the use of negating word, and (5) the lower frequency of the use of negative emotional word, employees reported stronger turnover intention. These findings suggest that language dimensions on work complaints to different listeners can moderate the effect of social distance on turnover intention. The implications of work complaints and language analysis are discussed.