Exit interviews as a tool to reduce parting employees’ complaints about their former employer and to ensure residual commitment

Abstract

Purpose According to previous research, exit interviews do not fulfil the purpose of generating useful feedback from parting employees. According to signaling theory, they might, however, serve a different purpose: to leave one last good impression on parting employees, and the aim of this study was to test this.

Design/methodology/approach A survey was administered to a sample of 164 German employees.

Findings Consistent with arguments based on signaling theory, those who experienced an exit interview reported more residual affective commitment toward their former employer and less willingness to complain about it, and these effects were mediated by interpersonal fairness perceptions. In addition, the probability of having an exit interview was found to depend on the resignation style of employees.

Research limitations/implications This new perspective on exit interviews can renew the interest in studying how organizations manage the offboarding process.

Practical implications This study advises employers to conduct “exit conversations” (as two-way interactions rather than one-way interviews) and to carefully plan the exit phase.

Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that proposes a signaling theory perspective of exit interviews and that links exit interviews with the literature on resignation styles.