Who's most likely to get stressed and leave the company? Effects of regulatory mode on work stress and turnover intentions

Regulatory mode theory (Kruglanski et al., 2000) posits the existence of two independent regulatory mode orientations: locomotion and assessment. Locomotion reflects the tendency to move from one state to another, whereas assessment reflects the tendency to evaluate means and goals in an attempt to choose the best possible option. Past research has sought to identify the relationship between regulatory mode and well-being, however it has not been fully disclosed. To our knowledge, the present work is the first attempt to investigate the relationship between locomotion, assessment, and two important organizational outcomes: work stress and turnover intentions. We recruited employees from 24 Italian organizations, and obtained their individual scores on: the Regulatory Mode Scale (Kruglanski et al., 2000); ratings of work stress, and turnover intentions. Two separate moderated multiple regression analyses were run to test the main effects and the interactions of regulatory mode on the two outcome measures. In line with our predictions, the results revealed that assessment was positively associated with both work stress and turnover intentions, while locomotion was negatively associated with those variables. Using a mediated moderation analysis, we also found that the combination of high assessment and low locomotion was the best predictor of turnover intentions, and this relationship was mediated by work stress. We discuss implications, limitations, and future directions for these findings.