DBAX 8151 Week 8 Rival Explanation Paper Example

The Freezer or the Lead: Setting Leader-Member Exchange Against the Job Demands-Resources Model as Rival Explanations of Early Turnover, and Naming the Record That Would Separate Them

Student Name

Walden University

DBAX 8151: Organizational Leadership: Doctoral Theory and Practice

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

The Freezer or the Lead: Setting Leader-Member Exchange Against the Job Demands-Resources Model as Rival Explanations of Early Turnover, and Naming the Record That Would Separate Them

Why a Rival Is Needed

Last week's analysis found that leader-member exchange could plausibly operate in parts of the distribution center. That a theory can explain a problem does not mean it explains it best. Most of the center's early losses come from the freezer and the overnight crews, where the work is hardest. A rival explanation that focuses on the work itself, rather than on relationships with leads, may account for that pattern as well or better.

The Rival

The job demands-resources model holds that every job has demands, such as physical strain, time pressure and harsh environments, and resources, such as support, control and feedback. Demerouti et al. (2001) proposed the model and reported that heavy demands went with exhaustion and scarce resources with disengagement. Bakker and Demerouti (2007) described how resources can buffer the effects of demands. Applied to the center, the model predicts that associates leave where demands are high and resources too thin to offset them. Support from a lead is one resource in the model, but only one.

What Each Theory Predicts

Table 1

Predictions of the Two Explanations

Predictions derived from each theory's central claims as applied to the center.

What the Center's Evidence Already Shows

The concentration of turnover in the freezer fits the rival better than it fits the exchange theory. Freezer turnover is 74 percent against 52 percent in dry goods. Exchange theory would explain that gap only if freezer leads were systematically worse at building relationships, and nothing suggests they are.

The exit interviews are split. More leavers mention pay or other jobs than mention their lead, and a substantial minority mention the cold and the physical work. The interviews do not favor either theory clearly, especially because many leavers give more than one reason.

The night shift is ambiguous. Its high turnover could reflect higher demands, such as fatigue from night work, or the absence of stable exchanges caused by reassignment. Both theories explain it.

The Record That Would Separate Them

The discriminating record is turnover by lead within zones. If, within the freezer, turnover varies widely from lead to lead, exchange quality is doing work. If it is uniformly high under every freezer lead, demands are doing most of the work. The center has the records to make this comparison: each associate's assigned lead and zone, and whether they left in the first year. Leads who have run both zones offer a second comparison, since a lead whose associates leave more in the freezer than in dry goods shows that the zone matters with the person held constant.

Limits of the Separating Test

The comparison by lead within zones has its own weaknesses. Leads are not assigned at random; senior leads often choose the dry goods zone, so differences between leads may reflect where they work rather than how they relate to people. Sample sizes per lead are modest, around fifteen first-year hires a year each, so a single cohort could make one lead look unusually good or bad. Pooling two or three years of records would help. A further weakness is that the two theories overlap: support from a lead counts as a resource in the rival model, so a finding that leads matter would not refute it. What the test can show is the relative weight of the lead and the zone, which is the question the application needs answered.

A Preliminary Judgment

Before that record is examined, the rival appears stronger for the freezer and the two theories appear evenly matched for nights. Exchange theory may be strongest in dry goods on days, where demands are lower and stable exchanges can form. Griffeth et al. (2000) found that turnover had many predictors, and the most likely result here is that both explanations contribute, in different proportions in different zones.

What This Means for the Application

The application should not rest on exchange theory alone. A plan built only around training leads would leave the freezer's demands untouched, and the rival suggests those demands drive much of the problem. The final application will need to combine both.

References

Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The job demands-resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309-328. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940710733115

Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Nachreiner, F., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2001). The job demands-resources model of burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 499-512. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.499

Griffeth, R. W., Hom, P. W., & Gaertner, S. (2000). A meta-analysis of antecedents and correlates of employee turnover: Update, moderator tests, and research implications for the next millennium. Journal of Management, 26(3), 463-488. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920630002600305