Three essays on employee turnover in public service
Authors:   , Choi Intae 
Published: September 2024

This dissertation comprises three essays that explore employee turnover in public service. Addressing employee turnover is essential for public managers and organizations, as high employee turnover can result in the loss of valuable talent, potentially affecting the organization's success. This dissertation contributes to the study of employee turnover by examining distinct scenarios in the public sector which faces ongoing challenges of continuous reform. Internally, fostering innovative work behavior and promoting ethical leadership to enhance organizational competitiveness and integrity have been key objectives in public administration. This dissertation demonstrates that these reform initiatives may unintentionally lead to employee turnover. Furthermore, when politicians enact workforce reforms to improve accountability in public organizations, which might threaten job stability of public employees, it may not necessarily lead to actual turnover of public employees. The first essay explains employee turnover through the lens of innovative work behavior within the context of hierarchical organizational culture. Innovative work behavior implies that employees devise original working procedures or solve complicated issues in creative ways while performing their jobs. Using the sample of South Korean public employees from 2017 to 2020 at the individual employee level and longitudinal LSDV (least squares dummy variable) estimation, this essay finds that innovative work behavior in the public sector can have a dark side, leading to increasing turnover intention. Meanwhile, innovative work behavior conflicts with existing work practices rooted in strong hierarchical organizational culture within public organizations, implying that it may not be readily adopted in the public sector. Therefore, even if innovative work behavior increases turnover intention, hierarchical organizational culture can buffer the escalating effect. The second essay shows the relationship between ethical leadership and employee turnover. Ethical leadership implies that leaders maintain and demonstrate leadership with high ethical values such as honesty and integrity. Ethical leadership may help prevent misconduct, corruption, and other unethical behaviors in public organizations. However, an excessive emphasis on ethical leadership may entail consequential downsides that have not been comprehensively addressed. Using combined panel data at the U.S. federal agency level from 2015 to 2019, this study finds that ethical leadership and employee turnover exhibit a U-shaped relationship. Although ethical leadership reduces employee turnover to a certain point, it is associated with a higher level of employee turnover beyond a certain tipping point. The third essay examines whether federal employees depart from their organizations due to external political influence, specifically focusing on public service reform legislation. The VA Accountability Act of 2017 was legislated to enhance the accountability of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The act addresses the necessity of disciplinary actions for underperforming VA employees and those engaged in misconduct. Employee dismissal may be possible depending on the severity of the disciplinary measures, potentially reducing public service protections. This study examines the impact of the VA Accountability Act of 2017 on employee turnover within VA agencies. Using the Federal Workforce Data (FedScope) from 2013 to 2021 at the organizational level and difference-in-differences estimation, it did not find evidence to suggest that the VA Accountability Act of 2017 increased employee turnover within VA agencies.