A contingency model of employees’ turnover intent in young ventures

A defining characteristic of young ventures is that they are more likely to experience periods of change (of both a positive and negative nature) than are established organizations. This could result in a misalignment between employees’ expectations when hired and actual work experiences. Based on met expectations theory, we argue that employees’ experiences in young ventures result in greater turnover intent over time. We further theorize that the relationship between time and turnover intent is contingent on employees’ prior work experience at a start-up and venture growth rates. Using a unique longitudinal data set containing 1,151 survey responses from 458 employees of 67 ventures, we find that employees’ turnover intent increases over time and that this effect is particularly strong for employees with little prior start-up work experience and employees working in low-growth ventures. We discuss implications for the literature on employees in entrepreneurial firms.