ll have made a worthwhile addition to the human resources management tools available to the organizational manager.
One research question will be addressed in the proposed study. This research question is stated as follows: Can exit interviews be used effectively as a part of a strategy to reduce organizational personnel turnover?
The management of personnel turnover, and the conduct of exit interviews are functions of organizational behavior man agement. A general review of the literature related to organi zational behavior, with respect to the factors which may affect personnel turnover is presented in this chapter, as well as a more specific review of the literature related to the conduct of exit interviews.
Five topical areas are reviewed in this section. These topical areas are organizational change, organizational commit ment, the use of power, and superior/suboridinate relations within organizational environments.
Within the context of organizational behavior, one of the most critical tasks of the manager is the management of change. Paul Lawrence (1969, p. 4), while he was associated with the Harvard Business School, said that one of the most "baffling and recalcitrant of the problems which . . . executives face is employee resistance to change." Such resistance is, of course, a form of organizational conflict.
The underlying reason for resistance to change by indivi duals are insecurity, economics, and socio psychological fac tors (Luthans, 1985). Individuals develop a sense of well being or security after adapting to an organizational pattern, and to changes to the status quo are viewed as threats to this security. Such threats real or imagined are met with resis tance.
Sociological and socio psychological resistance to change is often the most difficult type of resistance to discern, as well as often being the most difficult to counter. Changes which are incorrect...