When the farm-gate becomes a revolving door: An institutional approach to high labour turnover. (December 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Staelens, Lotte; Louche, Céline
• Is Part Of: Human relations. Volume 70:Number 12(2017)
• Page Start: 1464
• Page End: 1485
• Publication Date: 2017-12
• Subjects: cut-flower industry -- Ethiopia -- global value chains -- high labour turnover -- institutional theory -- intensive labour industries -- legitimization; Social sciences -- Periodicals; 302
• DOI: 10.1177/0018726717702209
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0018-7267

Abstract

By adopting an institutional theory lens, the aim of the article is to better understand the actions and mindset of managers toward high labour turnover in the cut-flower industry in Ethiopia. Our mixed-method approach explores the ways in which managers deal with, and legitimize, high levels of labour turnover. Our results show that they engage in three types of practices – predicting, containing and accommodating – whose objective is to make labour turnover tolerable, rather than reduce it. Interestingly, managers do not legitimize their practices through the use of cost-benefit arguments, as the literature would have suggested, but blame the institutional context. This article highlights the context-dependent aspects of labour turnover and explains how managers may find themselves in a deadlock situation. It informs the debate in human resource management research about managerial practices at the bottom of global value chains.